Fakes

Not What They Seem Department

Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware

Album Weed - In stamp collecting, or cards; A Fake or Forgery, or something which is outside the scope of the album or collection (postal voucher, made-up stamp &etc.), but has found its way in anyway.

"Believed to be...[insert well-known manufacturers name here]" - "What you are looking at in this on-line auction lot is a pile of unadulterated shite, not by who I claim I believe it to be by at all, and I know it, however I'm hoping you're stupid enough to bid anyway and if you read-on you'll be getting a whole can of my best bullshit"

Bootleg/s - see Piracy below, bootleg is a newer word coming from the Action Figure field, where I first encountered it in books on Star Wars collectables in the mid-1990's

Clone/s - see Piracy below, another newer word, but very apt, especially for figures

Copy - A piracy or knock-off that is getting close to the domain of 'Fakes', especially the small white metal war gaming figures, which are hard to tell from the original being unpainted in the retail state and having been produced in the same manner, from the same material as the originals...lumpy, soft, silver metal from flexible moulds

Counterfeit - see Fake below

Derivative - When a privateer or pirate either bases his product on another’s or uses more than one commercially available figure to ‘cut-n-shut’ a new figure, or copies by eye rather than pantograph, in art or antiques; 'After' so-and-so
Facsimile - Something that is happy to be a copy and is not trying to pretend otherwise, pertains to paper objects and ephemera

Fake - A Copy or Piracy which is trying very hard to look like the thing it's pretending to be, a Counterfeit. This might mean deliberate wear, weathering or distress, false marks, specific materials etc...

Fakie - A My Little Pony toy not made by Hasbro, the collectors of which communicate with each other in baby-talk (sorry; 'Pony-talk'), they don't have fakes; they have fakies!
Forgery - A deliberate attempt to decieve, a Fake, a Counterfeit, pertains more to paper items or artwork

Imposters - Could be used for toys in most of the categories on this page, but actually a range of Micromachines by Galoob that had a push-button feature to change the toys appearance

Knock-off/s - see Piracy below, probably the oldest of the four words with the same meaning, being used in the antiques trade for as long as I can remember, it's also widely used in the rag-trade

L@@K! - "What you are looking at in this on-line auction lot is a pile of unadulterated shite, and if you read-on you'll be getting a whole can of my best bullshit"

"Like...[insert well-known manufacturers name here]" - "What you are looking at in this online auction lot is a pile of unadulterated shite which is nothing like the named company's actual production and if you read-on you'll be getting a whole can of my best bullshit"

Piracy - A cheap copy of a branded product, also known as Bootlegs, Clones or Knock-offs, most common among the rack-toys of the 1970's, 80's and 90's, with plastic toy soldiers this activity goes back to the late 1950's, with metal figures, dolls and bears much further back

Pirate - A company who produces products mostly based-on (derivative) or copied from other companies. Such companies can also be known as Privateers

Repaint - In the field of Action Figures and other more modern toys this is a term for an established industry practice so not deserving of this page, however in hollow-cast toy soldier collecting circles it is a practice best avoided, as it is often being pursued to deceive. Given the lackadaisical manner a lot of figures were decorated with 'first time around' it's quite easy to carry off. Cavalry seem to be a favourite and once the figure has been sold once or twice, married to a box, pushed through an auction in a mixed lot and sold-on it all gets very tricky, and there seem to be a fair few around?

Repro / Reproduction - (1) Something pretending to be something else - usually something old, rarer and either sought-after or valuable, but not pretending hard enough as to not be obvious and easily spotted. (2) A deliberate and advertised reproduction - which will differ slightly - of a much-loved original for which the moulds have been lost or the company long disappeared, legitimate practice and not for this page

Repro-box - Due to the collecting rule 'Packaging is everything' and the effect on value of having the original box there was a move toward reproduction boxes a decade or so ago; as home-graphics programmes and cheap printers became more affordable. Most are sold as such and are relatively easy to spot, however, some are clearly in the Fake category, while the low-resolution images common with on-line auction sites allow for the passing-off of repro-boxes with a little 'absent minded' description

Similar to but Legally Distinct From [Abbreviated to STBLDF] - A way of getting around intellectual property rights, copyright or licensing by producing a toy which looks recognisably similar to a well know rival product or cultural item such as a TV or movie character or vehicle, but suitably different from the original to not be sued by the proper license holder. A form of derivation used by Pirates to make money, both the Star Wars and Transformers franchises have been victims of much of this work
WOW! - "What you are looking at in this on-line auction lot is a pile of unadulterated shite so bad I haven't even wasted a L@@K on it, and if you read-on you'll be getting a whole can of my best bullshit"
++WOW [or ++L@@K!] - "What you are looking at in this on-line auction lot is a pile of unadulterated shite that is so bad I'm getting desperate to shift it and 'the Mrs.' is giving me grief. If you read-on you'll be getting a whole can of my best bullshit with a tinge of outright lie"