How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 22
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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.
Unleashed Fake Scroll Oh look, what a wonderful looking wall scroll!
TOO good....perhaps? Yes, because this scroll actually doesn't even exist! Not only is this a phony item, it's not even a photo of an item. A wall scroll is a special type of printed fabric hung by plastic bars. It won't crease like a poster, but it will have a slight texture. Because this bootlegger does not actually want to create any inventory, they photoshopped up an image of 2 plastic bars, stole the night/day Sonic/Werehog image from Sega and claim that it's a scroll on Amazon. People already know ebay is a haven for fake merchandise, but many think Amazon is more trustworthy. Naturally, this is an invitation for bootleggers to creep in & start faking up products, relying on Amazon's good reputation to trick customers into buying junk.
Why junk?
NO ONE knows what the print quality on this will be. They sure won't tell you ahead of time.
If it's fake, look for easy-fade fabric, poor, pale dyes, rough texture, thin fabric of poor quality, bad clamping for the bars so it won't hang streight, & lousy resolution printing. There is no quality control on fake goods so you can be assured the quality will be as low as they think they can get it.
Spot the fake:
NO LOGO! Sega always puts the logo somewhere, even if it's small. No copyright, no "Sega" word, & the fact that it's not an actual photograph of an item give this one away.
One Tail Fake Suit More miserable mascots! This is a normal mascot type suit with the big head construct, and it's quite clearly supposed to be Tails. However, it only has one tail. The suit seems to be missing the point of the character, for 169.99 . The shoes are also debatable, are they all white, or do they have the red heel? The small, generic gloves are not helping anything either. Beware of mascot suits sold on various websites, Sega does not ever allow anyone to sell official mascot suits to the public.Discovered by Shadowfoxx757
Shadow at left is equally bad, having no mouth, uneven all-black eyes, random red shoes, tiny gloves & ugly slouchy body suit. Fortunately, this terrible mascot won't fool anyone AND it's over 200 dollars--they'll likely sell exactly 0 of it. Photo discovered by CrystalKitsune
Black Glove charm bogus
Here's an obvious fake charm! This metal & enamel necklace pendant gives itself away right away with loads of phony details, just look at 'em all & you can count: BLACK glove for no reason, blue glove cuff, 3 fingered hand, blue nose, leg BEHIND sock, & yellow glove cuff. This charm is bad news as it tries to trick people into buying it online. Photo by: Crystal Kitsune
9 Fake Fighters Dolls 9 Fake Fighters & a Bootleg in a Pear Tree!
The fakers have out-done themselves this time: it's an entire set of fake dolls. That's unusual, because it's harder to produce a set than an individual thing, & it is the nature of bootleggers to do the easiest thing to scam people. Despite their 'effort' , the dolls are still awful, which is useful so that nobody spends money on fakery. You've seen their ugly Amy & stupid looking Bean before, but now they're joined by even more bad dolls. Look how Knuckles spikes are sticking upward like that...they're stuck that way! It's not just bent in the photo. Metal Sonic looks like he has 'died' or got bored to death, Bark barely has...what is that, a hat? Knack may be melting, Tails is just...random & they're clearly trying to hide poor Espio. Avoid this rotten set of fakes on ebay! (Generally from Thailand--until they get caught!) Discovered by: Hannah .H .H
Amiibo Bootlegs Fake Figures BEWARE FAKE AMIIBO !
These Amiibos here are phonies! They'll be popping up on Ebay as fakers try to cash in on the Amiibo craze. Despite the nice packaging, these are not real. The figures are classic (see how they don't match the package, which is modern?) they are actually the F4F classic pack figures
but divided up and set on bogus amiibo stands. They're trying to get money (15+ dollars) for figures that don't do anything / DOES NOT WORK WITH GAMES. These non-functioning ripoffs are meant to trick non-players like well-meaning parents, gift givers & more. They are not fan items because they are not customized, it is simply replacing 1 object with another object. The bases may work, but produce inside the game whatever character was on the chip. (Cut off Diddy Kong, glue on Knuckles figure OR Jazwares figure) Photo discovered by Dustin Lee Autry
Super Mario Sonic 2 Tailses Terrible A game where Tails is Tails and Sonic is Tails too!
But painted blue...sort of badly drawn...and head-swapped. This phony pink cartridge is called "Super Mario & Sonic 2" but here comes Chip from the Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers game. Why they felt the need to get rid of Sonic and replace him with a frightful mashup is unknown. What games are on this thing are also a mystery. There's a known one where a Sonic sprite replaces the Rescue Rangers, but what does Mario have to do with that? This bootleg is a real oddity.
Hole Eye Mascot Fake Suits These bogus mascot suits have something in common (something terrible, of course) which is that the eye-centers are actual holes for the person to see out of. This makes the suit creepy because you can see darkness/movement in the pupil area and it just looks like it is stareing blankly around. The left suit is clearly by the same company that made that droopy & uncool Shadow above (on this page) the right suit is likely worse, with noodly bending spines, wrinkly legs/arms, mutated belly-dot & withered stupid ears. The face is sort of expressionless too, which doesn't help. The micro-shoes just look silly. How do these things keep getting made? Both discovered by Crystal Kitsune
Chronic Hemp Hog Hat Character Tee Oh no, "Chronic the Hemphog" is back again!
This lame, dopey character seems to return to tees every couple of years with a new dumb design. Here, this un-creative-copycat 'mascot of pot' is wearing a striped hat & tacky sandles. And what's this? He's...'hogging a bong'! Big non-surprise there! Since this whole lame gimmick is unofficial, fakers like this can just knock off eachother's designs & trace various Sonic art to steal it all day long and none of them can do a thing about it. It is too bad that they keep wanting to associate Sonic with a bunch of uncool drugs.
DS Lite Double Fake Skin Area specific bootlegs?
Yes, this one seems to only appear to / be sold on EBay UK. It's a fake skin for your DS lite, and double the screens means double the fakery, as the top image is from Sonic & Secret Rings, while the bottom is from either Riders or FreeRiders, as you'll notice his goggle/glasses on his head there. Mixing up different game imagery is a #1 sign of a fake.
Fake skins can harm devices with bad glue, peel off, fade, not last/wear off easily & several other low-quality problems. Your portable system is fun! Only trust it with official skins and cases. Photo discovered by: The Redstone Kid
Stretchy Fake Lycra Pants Here's a fake that's tempting to believe in. It doesn't appear to break many rules, it's colorful, trendy & the quality looks decent. However, these are called "Cartoon Lycra Leggings" since they couldn't use "Sonic" in the title because they're actually phony. The pants use modern art of characters who have all appeared together on apparel before, even Riders Jet shows up out of context on official items. By adding so many overlapping characters, the entire pants are colorfully designed, but sadly a bootleg. Cut off Edges Phone Cases As phones continue to change shape and model, fakers continue to spawn stupid fake cases that may or may not fit the phone described. (Bottom one here may be for a Samsung)
The theme here is 'cut off', where the top case cuts off the heads of the whole top row of characters, while the bottom cuts off the Riders logo, then
messes up Knuckles so completely that you can't really tell what's going on with him due to placing him over so many holes. Cutting off characters, logos, or making things into nonsense via holes is a sure-fire sign of fakery. Stay away from lame plastic cases that may or may not fit phones. Discovered by: Sonicfanlily
Round Bag Fake Another standard issue fake. This time, their gimmick is printing on fabric disks, then combining it with a 'round purse' backpack to create an item. The problem? (besides being unlicensed) is that it isn't even REAL. They just photoshopped the image onto a generic bag to let you know what the item 'might' look like if you order it. Bootleggers do this when they don't want to actually produce an item until it sells--and chances are, it'll come out looking much worse than what you see there. They don't care about quality at all, they just post up photos of anything to trick unwary buyers--if the quality is bad when you get it, no one cares because it was fake anyway. Discovered by: Sonicfanlily
Arcade 2009 Ukraine Disk Do you have to beware of bootlegs in the Ukraine?
Yes, you do! And these phony flash games are proof of that. Both of these disks use the old (bad) tactic of posting famous characters on the package and then NOT DELIVERING on the content.
2000 Best Ukraine Flash Games
In a move sure to dissapoint anyone unlucky enough to end up with these things, neither Sonic nor Mario is anywhere to be found in any of the content. They're just using Sonic's image to trick people. The 2000 flash games (likely stolen off the internet from their creators--sad for all involved) makes sure to spam Sonic inside & out. It lists a couple of the games on the front in that digital font, but it is in cyrillic letters. The Arcade 2009 is a "9 in 1" PC DVD with non-exciting titles like Crayon Physics Deluxe, Marker World, & Circulate. Photos by Speendlex
Fake Mascot Rentals Brochure Behold, a whole catalog of fakery!
If you need a scary, fake mascot suit for your party, you can rent one with this bogus catalog. It has portraits of the bogus suits (complete with the usual annoying innacuracies and scary details like Sonic's eyes being slightly sideways)
Look at the 'character list' though, they can't say the real name because they know they are infringing copyrights left and right, so you can get "ultrasonic", or how about LORA the Explorer, or even her pal 'booties' (boots the monkey) even Bill (not bob) the Builder and "Pepper Pig" (instead of Peppa Pig) Not even Mario is safe as "Dario"...because maybe they couldn't just put "An Italian Plumber". This is an interesting item to see, because usually bootlegers are not so bold as to print a catalog. Discovered by CoolLuke1337