How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 28
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. Bootleg Avoidance HUB Page
And this one is 2.5 meters high, just to prove it! This is one of those wind/fan powered yard or business decor items. A fan sits at the base with a tube making it sort of an 'inflatable figure' so long as the fan runs. Stuff like this usually shows up at Christmas and Halloween...but this one needs to not show up at all.
It's bogus, and looks it, as Sonic's eyes are off center/uneven, and the mouth is really large and kind of odd. It has a sort of mascot-suit looking proportion to it, with long and thick legs, small shoes & wider arms. However, the arm pose does look nice & it's not terribly constructed. It's off model (because Sonic's real proportion wouldn't work on a wind-power item) but not terribly so. It's fake, expensive, and something to avoid. Discovered by Princess PandaLover
This floppy, flappy dumb thing is just riddled with bad quality and stupid errors. Bad ears, red eyes with too-big pupils, tiny shrivelled hands random yellow rectangle on her dress, withered bangs, sad spikes...a big nose, grayish/brown face the list just goes on and on. This bad bootleg will scare the kids away...so an adult is holding it for the photo. Discovered by
This sad suit is another wiggly effort to rip people off on a mascot suit. For as bad as it looks, this thing costs about 250 dollars without shipping. It's supposed to be classic Sonic but the thing is a total flop. Flimsy and not enough spikes, flappy wrong ears, wrongly styled shoes, skimpy socks, really wide odd eye and a blue nose caps the whole thing off. The head is even the wrong shape, it's very low and wide.
Always stay away from bootlegs: anyone wanting a costume can do better making something at home. Discovered by Princess PandaLover
It probably is!
This thing is the "PXP 3 Slim Station". It is obviously a ripoff of the PSP, but instead of disks, it runs on cartridges. And the bold claim?
"900,000 GAMES!"
Were there even 900k games made? For...everything ever? Who knows but you DO
Here are a Sonic & Shadow fake mascot suits. These have had some effort put into them, unlike 'fast runner' above, but they're still nothing super. Sonic with his big brows and close-together eyes is a bit monkey-like, while Shadow's chest fur patch is getting super large as the top of his head is getting smaller. These are at least 300 dollars each without shipping, as they are large and complex to create...so you'd think it'd be a bit more of an effort. Discovered by Princess PandaLover
In this case, they've added a stupid bootleg doll to an...atletic chalk bag? A chalk bag is where gymnastics & other sports keep their powdery chalk substance so they can put it on their hands and get a better grip on their equipment. Why anyone would bother to make a fake bag for such an uncommonly needed thing is just plain odd. The doll is pretty terrible, with wrongly placed ears, of course the upside-down eyes issue again, mushy face, square hands and...that's not a sleeve on him, that's the glove-cuff ridden up into his armpit because they can't figure out quality.
Look at this stupid thing missing so many details. First off, the arms are blue, then he has no socks, 3 fingers, no ear borders & no shoe soles. The hands are terrible looking (no matter the finger number) and the head and body are just super round/bad looking. Where are the spikes? They're so small/lame you can't even see them from this angle. Of course, the eyes are sewn on upside-down as well, and the one of them's sort of at an off angle to increase the "meh" level of the expression on this thing. Fortunately, it shouldn't be fooling anyone. Photos discovered by Pichu97
Thanks to the copy-cat cloth-tag it uses. Most fakes don't bother with tags because they're an added expense. However, this one has an exact copy of an earlier, licensed doll's tag (Suction-cups stick up Sonic). Since it's in Japanese, they're hoping no one can tell it's on the wrong item. The doll itself is pretty fake looking, with belly dot attached to the chin area, dot-like too small eyes, really tiny ugly shrivelled up hands with only 3 fingers and kind of poorly sewn eye-whites. But, it serves as a good lesson to always be on the look-out for all around quality...not just tags! Photos discovered by Pichu97
One of these easy to fake up disasters hasn't been seen in a while (fortunetely) However, this annoying plastic sign is here to remind that bootleggers are still up to their old tricks. By using a special printer, they can steal art of anything & place it on the hard plastic rectangle to create a sign that can be customized. Remember the bootleg avoidance rule "Personalized things ARE fakes!" Especially if you're buying in person. Don't support people who steal Sega's art. Buy official things to help Sonic instead. This was found at the Adventuredome at Circus-Circus casino in Las Vegas. (So, yes, even famous places can have phony stuff if they're not policed for bootlegs) Photo by PrincessPanda Lover
Now the barfy bootleg 'eyes within the eye' bad Sonic is even larger! This stupid thing is just bad all around, with everywhere you look providing more mutations & bad quality. The ears are wrong, the hands are...what...even? 3 fingers? A fat leaf? Blue arms. No socks. That yellow on the shoe? It's a peice of tape. No shoe soles, big body, missing spikes, bad belly dot, large lower face and that's only once you get past those awful, awful eyes. Why are they wasting so much material making this horrible garbage? It's not going to fool anyone & will scare kids. Photo discovered by Pichu97
Just look at this Terrible Tails...not only does he have the 'eye in eye' stupid plastic problem, he has EYEBROW IN his eye! It's worse! Look at his really long flat chin too, it's like the doll is made from some mashed up art garbage. The hands are poorly done, the face is completely mutant, & the bad plastic eyes are getting totally out of hand. At least with the nasty watermark, you'll know who to stay away from, regardless of the look of the plush. Photo discovered by Pichu97
This ripoff Genesis cartridge was afraid of being called out as a bootleg, so they made up some messed up mouse & colored it blue so it wouldn't have Sonic on the outside. (But the game inside is of course, bootlegged Sonic game/s) You can see how they stole just 1 arm and hand, as it looks normal while the other is tiny/poorly drawn. It has enough changes to make a stupid looking mascot, but also not enough so you can clearly tell this guy is ripping off Sonic. Photo discovered by Pichu97
They are ugly round lamps. Each one is a semi-transparent plastic thing with a dumb design, and boy they're not afraid to rip off simply everything. Along with a frightful & awful Sonic, you can see Doraemon, Garfield, Mario & even Mickey Mouse. What's somewhat ironic is that the non-licensed characters like the Cow, Bear, & Bee actually look ok on the sphere, but all the licensed ones just look like ugly trash.
It's almost as if everybody's head isn't designed on a perfect circle...and thus looks terrible when used as one! Hopefully this bootlegger gets busted by one of the copyright holders because that stupid Sonic thing is going to scare kids. Photo discovered by Pichu97
This is a party favor box, or 'treat box'. There ARE official, good looking Sonic favor boxes available that you can buy in 2018, so these bootlegs do compete with authentic things...although rather poorly. Sure it's colorful with...RED Sonic? Where'd they even get that garish re-color? Then, to go lower, they steal a fan-render of classic Super Sonic for 1 side, then that level of theivery isn't enough so they rip off the "Sonic Drive Thru" restaurant's logo and just slap it on there because they can't tell anything apart. Notice how they mix up modern & classic logos too. This thing's just a mashed up mess. Photo discovered by Pichu97
Look at this mixed up monstrosity with its bizzarre altered art. It has 'Sonic' but with his spikes removed, (Probably?) someone elses' shoes, a green star applied offsides to his torso for some reason, a yellow dot on his head, gloves switched to red, a big cone nose & "Swirl tool" applied to his ears to make them curling & bent.
Cream fares no better with her shoes changed to pink, rabbit ears switched out to cat ones & a big-nose job as well. But then look at her eyes...they're the oddest bit where the shape has been pulled so there's a 'path' of eyewhite outside where it could even reasonably be. For good measure there's float-ring monster blasting off in the background & a random rocket ship they no doubt stole from something else.
This bag is a classic example of "Well if we steal something & change it a little
It was released with the Sonic Underground label, but really only 2 plushes are known to have that (The Denny's ones) & this isn't included. Plus, your screen isn't wrong: his eyes, ear-interiors & belly dot are actually white. Nothing this glaringly wrong would pass license inspection by Sega. Then look at the mouth too, it almost looks like big red lips (supposed to be big, open center mouth but that's pretty much never officially done.) The spikes are ok, if a bit thin & the shoes are small too. It's the off color & bad mouth that red-flags this, along with UG's general unpopularity with merchandise. Photo discovered by Pichu97
What is THIS monstrosity! It's a 'Sonic based' fright creature! Who is mutating up this monster fake? IS it even a 'bootleg Sonic'? It's so...un-Sonic like but...it's just bizzarre trash! Some awful blue creature is here with no nose, big mouth, random white star on the head, frightful eyes & mutant pants. The shoes are clearly a pallet swap on Knuckles shoe pattern & it has generic white glove hands. Oddly, the tag on the spike has a drawn art of this 'character' they've invented. The spikes there are more like a knockoff of Sonic's. This is another "steal the character, change some things to make it stupid/worse then try to sell it" scheme that bootleggers like to try. The result is quite an ugly fright! Photo discovered by Pichu97