Warning!!!! Pirate miniatures in ebay from china

[raivan]

I have read this in tmp

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=411771

[von Lucky]

Thanks for the warning. Will be interesting to see if this does end up with a positive outcome.

[beefcake]

At first glance I expected this to be a thread about Pirates sailing on the sea. Guess I should read the titles more carefully.

[Elbows]

I just accepted that this was ever-present, particularly from foreign sources.  I would seriously question buying any Euro/American sculpts from a source in China...particularly for a good price.

That being said, I doubt it'll hurt sales.  People who willingly buy fakes are not your primary consumer anyway.

[von Lucky]

Not sure about that. The 20mm (1/72) AB Figures includes crew for WWII vehicles. That is a huge potential market of modellers (they've even gone to the effort of advertising in Spanish). Wargaming wise I think you're correct though. It's more the fact that the market is not expanding, so taking away even 5% of your business can hurt a small-medium operator.

[Elbows]

I guess I just mean that if you're buying Chinese copies for cheap may not even be willing to buy your actual figures.  It does suck regardless, I just know for a fact you'd shut down one ebay page...and another would open within minutes/hours.

[grant]

If you're buying anything eBay from China, it's probably fake. Would never.

[Mason]

China has been a source of rip-off GW stuff for ages, so I am not surprised by this.
I dont think they will get the volume that they MAY have got selling fake GW stuff.
Lets hope not.

I think the only thing you can do is spread the word and encourage people not to buy, although there will always be some who will.
Surely the price difference would not be enough to make it worth people taking the risk of receive inferior shiite?

[Revfan]

Of Course China does/is

Here is how it works.

Western sculptors and small companies are looking to get their products made as cheap as possible... so naturally they go to Ali Baba or some other "Eastern" business portal.  They send their sculpts off to XYZ China company and get their 10,000 pieces made...

Well, that takes the Chinese business about 3 days to make... then they just keep the machine working and make many many many more copies to sell.


I worked up some 18th C shoe buckles for a Pirate thing I used to do.  Sent em off to an Asian company to reproduce.  The price was great for me, as most Western casters wouldn't touch it unless I was ordering 20,000 pieces.

Well, about 6 months after I got my order from the far east, I saw "other" companies selling MY shoe buckle... that they had been purchasing from the company that I had sent my buckles to...

I was small potatoes... and had no recourse... but that is just how it is.  

[Daeothar]

Of Course China does/is

Here is how it works.

Western sculptors and small companies are looking to get their products made as cheap as possible... so naturally they go to Ali Baba or some other "Eastern" business portal.  They send their sculpts off to XYZ China company and get their 10,000 pieces made...

Well, that takes the Chinese business about 3 days to make... then they just keep the machine working and make many many many more copies to sell.

It's even more nefarious than that.

I recently watched a Youtube video comparing an original GW Knight Titan to a Yoyhammer knock-off. Not only was it faithfully reproduced, but for some reason the entire sprue layout had been rearranged!

That says either that they used a rejected original mould, or they had the actual resources to re-engineer the entire thing to fit their own machines perhaps?

So it's not a case of simply using the original moulds; they actually make new ones!!

[throwsFireball]

To be honest, at least they're a higher quality than this:



Which are probably the worst recasts I've ever seen.