How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 21
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How To Avoid Sonic Bootleg Merchandise Hub Page
Fakery and junk abounds when bootleggers think they can get away with knocking off Sonic the Hedgehog!
Fight back by educating yourself on what NEVER to buy with these pages of photos and tips!
Remember, you vote with your money...any buying of fake junk only supports and encourages them to make more. Wouldn't you rather have awesome official items? Wouldn't you rather enjoy cool good quality stuff you know you can depend on? If you want the real deal, bootlegs are never the way to go.
Remember what a 'bootleg' item is:
It is an unofficial or unlicensed product being sold to the fans- by NON FANS. These can be home-made or made in a factory. They are not approved by the company who holds the license and are NOT made to any standard. The quality is usually low, leading to items which may break or wear out. Fake items may also be unsafe. Remember, bootleg makers are only after your money. They don't care at all about Sonic the hedgehog and are only out for a quick buck. Don't waste your money! Buy official SEGA Sonic things only, look for copyrights, and demand the real deal.
Iron On Transfers Submission: CLOSED (every single art on the internet can be one of these, know that it exists & if it's a transfer of any type it IS A FAKE.
Car Decal Ripoffs Here is a batch of bogus car decals. They're either plastic clings, or thin magnets to trash up cars with. These bring something especially annoying (and ripoffish) that's familiar to theives everywhere: stealing art. Not only do they just grab random Sonic art off of Sega, with thumbs up Sonic, vampire cape Sonic (halloween, Sonic Channel Japan) Super & regular Shadow...but they're clearly stealing fan art too. Look at that pink shoe fan character up there. Next is Archie's Scourge the Hedgehog, Shadow recolored white for some random reason, annnnd there he goes again in red. Bootleggers will rip off anything. Discovered by Josef the Hedgehog
So-called Riders ugly brow doll So this fake plush is supposed to be from "Sonic Riders" according to the Japanese logo they stole there. It's 40 centimeters of stupid though because it is ugly and riddled with mistakes that helpfully give it away as a phony at first glance. Look where his ears are, they're directly on the sides of his head. The mouth is some kind of lame arrow, his nose is huge, the hands are tiny/shrivelled, the shoes are small too, but they're also completely wrong for Riders (no buckles anyway) and that ridge that borders his eye is an actual wierd flap of fabric. It doesn't suffer from 'big body' but that's about the only thing it's got going for it. Discovered by PatMac
Flunch Figure Fakes France Flunch is a restaurant / fast food chain type place that's only found in France. Back in 2011, they did a  Sonic toy promotion with freebie figures that you could get with your meal. You can see the real deals on Meal Toys here at Gear, but these are fake figures.
Some bootlegger obviously got a hold of the Flunch molds & has made Sonic & Knuckles as knockoffs. Look at the feet, neither one will stand. Sonic has no nose (could of been broken off due to poor quality) the ears are somewhat mis-painted & both figures' eyes look terrible. The sculpting is still decent here, because they're a direct copy from the originals. Discovered by PatMac
Heroes Pillow Fakes Here are some non-heroic "Heores" pillows. The Shadow one uses Sega's art, has decent cropping & looks good until you spot Silver there in the background as well as Chaos 0, both of whom weren't in the game. Sonic is a trace-job of Sonic X art (Thumbs up Sonic) but they forgot his pupil, which no official art would ever do. It also has non Heroes characters in the little circles in the background. Bootleggers don't care, so they mix up every art they can get their
hands on. It's actually GOOD that they mix the art, and insert characters or logos that don't belong, because it lets people more easily spot them & avoid buying them. Discovered by Victory494
SNES Sonic Sticker Bootleg Game Yet another Nintendo cartridge with Sonic on there...this time it's for the SNES & someone has applied a bad looking Sonic square sticker over the black cartridge label. The art is a trace (he's missing his eye-shine & all shading) & the banner is fairly generic. What game is on here? Who knows. It may just have a picture of Sonic on there to sell it & then contain a totally irrelevent or non-working game. Bootleggers just want the sale. Discovered by The UltimateHedgehog
Russia Sonic Jam 6 SMB2 Cartridge Here's a fake made to try and trick Russians into buying it. Hopefully no one there fell for this phony thing. The game box (smaller than usual size) calls it "Sonic Jam 6", while the actual title on the game says "Sonic 6". Right away they mix n' mash to create confusion. The cartridge is a Genesis one, & it is labeled in English, Russian & Chinese. (The Russian is those white letters there on Sonic's face & under "jam" -- the alphabet there is Cyrillic, so the letters are different)
What about the actual game on this thing? It's Super Mario 2, but with Sonic replacing the Mario sprite & the Sonic Jam title combined with Genesis 3D blast shoved over Mario on their level & intro screens.
So essentially what you would get with this is a copy of SMB2 that works LESS well than the original & is less fun to play, with about 2 different graphics (Sonics overlapping stuff) The makers boast that it was placed in the cartridge on original factory machinery (meaning the cart will work well) & it is region-free.
The curious point of this is the art for the box. That's obviously Riders Sonic on there...but why would anyone fake up a box for something so ancient in the time of Riders...so many years later? They couldn't steal some Genesis era art to make it convincing? There's no telling the motivations of fakers aside from trying to grab people's money. Photo & info discovered by Victory494
Fencing Fake Sonic Figure A Fencing Fake Figure?
That's what this figure sure looks like. It strongly resembles the previous "Sonic action figure" seen elsewhere on Bootlegs, but this time they've given him a nonsense accessory: a fencing rapier. Has Sonic EVER fenced? Are they trying to be "olympic games" like? Either way, the sword & figure are super simplistic. with obvious flaws like off-center pupils & something wrong with the right-side (open) hand...look at the fingers it looks like they're growing out in 2 different directions. Likely made of cheap, hollow plastic & may or may not be articulated at all, this figure is no fun because it's fake. Discovered by KarateKid1717
Battle Style Fake Keychain Fake keychains are common, but this one brings something new/unusual: It is styled after "Sonic Battle" art. The Battle art was more of a 'rough edges' style with sharper corners. However, while you can tell it was trying, it totally doesn't succeede! White nose off his face, 1 huge ear and 1 tiny one, bent body, 3 fingers on one hand & a shoe stripe that's out of control all contribute to making this a cruddy keychain to avoid. Photo by SonikkuTiger
PVC Fake Set Display Selling You've seen worse photos of this set of fake PVC figures before, but this is the common photo used when someone's trying to sell them off as the real deal. These are knockoffs of the "Tomy Gacha" ball figures. Each one is worse in stupid, various ways. Their various flaws (ex. look how dark Shadow's face is & how crosseyed everyone looks) have been gone over before, but it's good to be familiar with sales-pictures & get a look at how bad they are. discovered by Jocelyn the Crow
Withered, wrinkly fake hats These are knockoffs of the real "Character Head Hats" that appear on the regular accessories pages of Gear. Here you can see what a poor imitation they are. The cheap thin fabric results in the hats always looking withered / wilted & Sonic is badly constructed eye ridges/ spikes & overly dark green eyes. discovered by Jocelyn the Crow
Fat fake Tails terrible mascot costume Oh no, it's fat-Tails! Or is this costume modeled after that 1 terrible Tails figure? It's pretty dumpy & fat looking with just the body, the messed up face only adds to its problems. Plus, watch as they leave out the most important feature: the actual TAILS! Fortunately, this fake isn't fooling anyone. discovered by Jocelyn the Crow
Giant feet fake Knuckles 2 poor plushes just means more to avoid...The Knuckles has too-big of feet, tiny fists & sort of goopy looking 'gel plastic' eyes. The mouth is also sort of abstract. The Sonic at right is 19 inches (a big mistake!) but super poorly done. No shoe stripe, terrible body, mutant hands, the black part of the eye may be embroidered but it is WAY too big, the spikes are wrong & the nose is some kind of giant, ugly fin thing. This Sonic plush is clearly terrible. Both discovered by Jocelyn the Crow 19 inch big-nose Sonic
Blue Shadow Fake Figure This figure's an obvious phony, likely created out of people who don't really know Sonic. (Like that's anything new with bootleggers...) They had a clearly Shadow mold figure, but then used blue plastic in there thinking they could turn out a Sonic because "They're basically the same". Which is "basically the opposite of true" So now here is an ugly blue Shadow, with green eyes, yellow chest fur scribble, all-white gloves, missing shoe-bottoms & messy paint. (you can even see where they ignored his head stripe) The measure there on the side is 11 cm, but this is bad at any size. Discovered by SonicFan09 Sonic 06 Fake Watch Fake watches are less common than they were in the past, because fans got better at spotting & avoiding them. This is an example of a 2014 phony, using Sonic 06 art on a plain, boring face with plain, cheap looking band. Look for copyrights, Sega logos, & official confirmation photos to avoid bootlegs like this. Photo discovered by Crystal SonicFan
Uh oh, here comes a fake DVD! It's "Sonic the Movie" that terribly dubbed anime from years ago, but someone's decided to mock it up & try to pass it off as the real deal.
With a cheap print out of the cover graphic, they try to entice buyers. But! Look how the title is visible on the edge from the front. Their choice to use a
super thin (slim line) DVD case exposes the fake right away. The cover graphic is formatted for a normal spine, so their thrifty shenannagins gives it away, which is a good thing because just look what's inside! A PLAIN writeable DVD with some marker scrawlin' hand-writing that claims it's the movie. Put it in the pc? No way! Could be a virus! Always inspect DVD covers, look inside of any "used" movies or show boxes & be alert for how the art of what you want SHOULD look. Photo discovered by Crystal SonicFan
Boom Fake Whistles & Toppers No sooner it seems, than new art of something is released, than bootleggers lurking in the bushes pop out to fake it up! In this case, super cheap "toy slide whistles" and "cupcake toppers" appear on ebay with all the ripped off Boom art that they could fit into their circle templates. Buying up generic "kids party stuff" & pasting on art taken from Sega doesn't give people the copyright to make money off of Sonic...or trick people
into dissapointing their kids with fake party supplies. There are PLENTY of REAL Sonic party goods that look much better & are readily order-able online. Discovered by PatMac