This stuff should really be brought to light here... it could cause some massive problems for artists who are enjoying success (and should continue to be successful). So if there's a way to squash this and expose these assholes through discussion then SB would be a good place for it. Dcon is just around the corner and I'm sure there will be some snakes in the grass.. (These screenshots are from @Rich 's insta) View this post on Instagram View this post on Instagram
Translates to the following - whatever that means "Load your maximum! There is no face problem in China! Who is good, who I buy! No right and wrong, for those second-hand toys traffickers, I want to say that you are not wrong, starting today from your way, no more! There are those foreign ultra-high prices, people who sell our people's toys, you will not have the opportunity to succeed!"
I was just reading Rich's posts on Instagram about the bootlegging this morning. What a bunch of greedy $hithead$ for bootleg people's hard work.
Apparently Nags were bootlegged too? As if collecting this stuff wasn't hard enough, now you have to look out for fakes too Edit: I'm pretty sure it was this same guy flashing a bunch of money in pics/videos too. Wonder if all those bills were also bootlegged
this has been going on for a while (at least in some capacity), just take a look around on alibaba... search "kaiju", "sofubi", etc.
Just had a quick look there - I doubt any of those have actually been produced. Looks like they are just bait, trying to find someone dumb enough to manufacture through a Chinese factory. They are all google images, and with minimum orders of 2000 pieces for every listing I clicked on you're basically paying for their initial setup of tooling etc. Really they could post any picture of any toy there and hope some dumb fuck pays for 2000 pieces and enables them to produce molds..
Apparently they also started doing it with @Shirahama toys ... they don´t add photos of the piece. This sale appeared today in Ebay.
If you look closer, there are more items out there that were recently posted, no photo and very little details. They are all listed out of China, all the names seem to contain all numbers or just a weird mix of letters and numbers. None of the accounts have any feedback either.
I saw a mockbat up on ebay a few weeks ago, i think it sold for 20 or 30 dollars, BIN from China. Did anyone else see that too? Found it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Paul-Kaiju...472877?hash=item3f839448ad:g:zdkAAOSwlxhZhDhk and https://www.ebay.com/itm/Paul-Kaiju...115524?hash=item3d436b6044:g:-kgAAOSw0axZhDwB
So has anyone physically received an actual bootlegged toy or is this just an eBay (take the money and run) scam?
maybe it's just testing the market? I was thinking that someone is testing the market. All are different sellers with the same MO... I guess they are seeing if anyone would purchase.
It's definitely a scam on eBay. I "bought" one of the Mockbats just to see what would happen. The seller removed the listing and then deleted their account, but still had my money. I had to open up a claim and message eBay to get my money back. It was a listing just like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/paul-kaiju...bemon-nagnagnag-mvh-boss-carrion/322856583412
What the fuck is the thought process behind this? Seems like flipping/counterfeiting goods is almost a rite of passage for a lot of youth in China these days. Of course not everyone does it - but it's a very common practice to the point where it has become stereotypical. I don't understand why these guys don't feel embarrassed or gulity for pulling shit like this - like there's no morality in this segment of youth culture. I say youth culture because it doesn't seem to be older people who are making the effort to manufacture fake streetwear/vinyl toys/etc. - is it as simple as a situation where kids in their twenties are hitting up older family members who work in factories with samples of t-shirts/toys and asking them to reproduce it for a family discount? Is it just how they have been brought up in a country where wholesale manufacturing of other people's ideas is a foundation of their existence rather than having original thought and creativity?
I think that would be a gross generalization based on the bad behavior of a handful of people in a super-niche hobby.
Whoa whoa whoa hold up.. before accusing people of making gross generalizations (which can lead to assumptions of some ugly mindsets/behaviour) please take note of the second sentence in my previous post which alludes to a small group/a handful of people rather than a "gross generalization" You would be lying to yourself if you don't associate counterfeit goods with a certain part of the world. And it just so happens that when it comes to most of the dodgy shit that's going down with sofubi atm just so happens to coincide with that region. The rest of the post is hypothetical - listing possible reasons for why shit like this could be happening.. it would be unfair to just have a hateful post saying "fuck these guys blah blah blah". While I am focusing on a certain area and a small handful of collectors, I think it's reasonable to try and figure out why this kind of shady business is happening through an open discussion about it. Would we be seeing bootlegs come out of America.. or France.. or wherever if the facilities were there? That's a good argument as the ability to produce vinyl toys is pretty much non-existent in USA so of course no one would attempt to make fake toys there. On the other hand - I mean it's easy enough to make t-shirts in USA right? However you don't see counterfeit Supreme/Bape/whatever shirts being produced locally even though the temptation for financial gain in selling those brands is as strong as ever. So it seems like it's definitely a cultural thing - which brings it back to the idea of an industry built on manufacturing other people's products may be one of the reasons why counterfeiting has become the "indie" version of that industry in some young adult's eyes.
Rich recently posted some updates and photos of the culprit on his Instagram feed mutantvinylhardcore. One of the bootleggers actually gets defensive in Rich’s comments section, check out FTW789 on Instagram.
Sofubi_888 just changed his IG user name to Sofubi123 Here's a screen grab from Rich showing the shitty sofubi_888 bootlegs before he changed his IG handle to sofubi123 And the witty reply to Rich from bootlegger ftw789
