Resealed figure discovery debate - G.Kurtz Palitoy VC Jawa.

[mumbo]

Think of it a different way. If somebody found a stash of flat packed X Wing boxes, unused cardboard inserts and mint unused X Wing vehicles, then assembled them themselves and used sellotape to seal the boxes, would they be considered 'real' and if not how could it be proved anyway? All the materials are original.

The sellotape wouldn't be original :wink:

Other than that this thread has left me with a sore head :| but at least now I've contributed something

 

[**Delboy75**]

How about if the sellotape was an old reel from the palitoy factory :lol: :lol:

 

[tiefighterboy]

One more video so the OP recognizes the type of process he is talking about...Not the Palitoy factory.....but the same process. Some may think that this issue of raise has nothing to do with it....but this is exactly the thrust and backbone of Jasons statement.....could a factory seal be accomplished in someones shed?? I would say maybe a chance these days...no chance in hell back then

[youtube]XHSukgoJJtg[/youtube]

 

[Frunkstar]

I spent a lot of time in Germany as a kid with having a German father & I remember buying these cards in the shops there at the time, wish I still had my cardback to back this up further.

I have a 45 back from Toni myself & can't fault it & have no reason to suspect it is anything other than 100% legit.

I think its more a case of sour grapes than anything based on fact.

 

[mr_palitoy]

Here's the story with German cardbacks.

http://www.raumhafen.de/cgi-bin/showp.pl?pic=/galerie/starwars/sw/esb_45back_d&titel=German%20ESB%20Figures

In summary there are 2 types:-

One has "STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES Collect all 45!" written on the back, the other doesnt.

Wolfgang notes that his 30 used cardbacks which were shop sold in Germany (with wear and price tags etc) are all the type without text.

Same is true for my collection of used German cardbacks. Not one has the writing on the back.

(I'm missing just an ESB Lobot to complete this run if anyone knows of one for sale).

All of the MOC that I have see out there have the writing on the back. None have price stickers indicating they were shop sold.
All cards of this type are minty mint and very few have been opened.

There are very few examples of MOC without the writing on the back.

So here's what I think happened.

These cards were produced in the Palitoy factory, initially with the "STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES Collect all 45!" text on the back.
These cards were pulled and not released to the German market because it was thought the English text on the back was not appropriate
for the German market. The cards were all stored in the factory and not released. The text was then removed and more cards were
produced which all made it to the German market. When the factory closed, Arthur bought the unused stock including these unreleased cards.
Toni then bought them all off him and has been trickling them into the general collectors market ever since. Almost all MOC that are out there in collectors
hands have originated from Toni and the unreleased cards from the Palitoy factory.

And thats it. I haven't commented on whether the unreleased cards were assembled at the factory or later from their components as that is
in dispute given the commentary from JJ and Toni.

That pretty much explains the cards we see today and their condition and whether they have price stickers on them or not.



cheers Jason

 

[Grant_C]

Interesting theory mate.

 

[mr_palitoy]

Whats your conclusion then Jason?

What I said above.

It would seem likely that the unreleased cards were sealed in the factory given commentary from knowledgeable collectors about
the difficulties and economics with sealing the cards later in the 90s some time. If this is the case, it looks like the whole batch that
Toni got were assembled and ready to go before being pulled and stored at the factory.

The other scenario is that the cards were left unassembled, and later assembled with the correct mint figures and bubbles outside the factory
after it had closed. In this scenario the cards were pulled soon after being printed and were not assembled at the factory.

Take your pick.



Jason

 

[BruceW]

there is no tooling needed the bubbles were already there as was most other things , all you needed to do was find a way to attach the bubbles to the cards .

it was told to me many years a go that a hot ion tipe device and a small waited metal have vice could achieve the result needed, and i was told this could costs as little as around £300 to have this made and the rest of the thing needed is labour of putting the parts together.

its not hard if you think about it you are heatign the plastic and pushing the plasitc tight to the card ?

So, if I wanted to make a bubble seal with a "waffle pattern" I'd just need one of these?

Thanks! Good to know!
:roll:

 

[ace]

one last point everyone seems to have missed , has anyone ever bought any German cards from anywhere else that did not originate from Toni ? its just something i wanted to know from you all ?

you all know where to reach me now , j

erm yes actually I have, I bought a Leia hoth and a second bossk mocs from a guy in Germany actually the bossk was a little tired but the leia graded an 85nm+ when afa'd the seals were exactly as toni's the guy had owned them for a few years and he got one from another guy in Germany and the other from the states.[/quote]



no thats more interesting so the one from the us very much sounds like a migrating figure but the one from Germany that is a first for me ? i ave not her or bought one from Germany ? so can you ask the guy if he had that as a kid ? and it was tired also very interesting , so from fist thoughts it might me that there were released there posabley ? but for me thats a first for finding one in germany ?

out side of what i say happened in the past and what Toni said in the past the German backs have been something i have never understood i would just really like to know there story of what there are where they came form and that might also explain why i was offered many cards backs back in the late 1980s

any Germans on here ?

j

 

[ace]

Not mine but a quick google search.
PHOTOS NOW DELETED DUE TO IMAGE RIGHTS AS I DONT WANT ANYONE MOANING TO EDD LOL.


Btw Arthur did not just sell to Toni, he sold other stuff to other dealers including boxes of meccano jawa's.
Sound like he was a good fella to know.

THATS RIGHT :-0 i did forget that wow yes i bought packing boxes of 8 must have been around 10 or 20 boxes of them

yes he was great and finding stuff and you could make money off that stuff easy and many people did , i was far from the only one to buy from him many did , this thing is guys the traders that new him and bought from him and no longer trading now so finding them to back up what i am saying is harder but they are out there .

j

 

[ace]

Here's the story with German cardbacks.

http://www.raumhafen.de/cgi-bin/showp.pl?pic=/galerie/starwars/sw/esb_45back_d&titel=German%20ESB%20Figures

In summary there are 2 types:-

One has "STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES Collect all 45!" written on the back, the other doesnt.

Wolfgang notes that his 30 used cardbacks which were shop sold in Germany (with wear and price tags etc) are all the type without text.

Same is true for my collection of used German cardbacks. Not one has the writing on the back.

(I'm missing just an ESB Lobot to complete this run if anyone knows of one for sale).

All of the MOC that I have see out there have the writing on the back. None have price stickers indicating they were shop sold.
All cards of this type are minty mint and very few have been opened.

There are very few examples of MOC without the writing on the back.

So here's what I think happened.

These cards were produced in the Palitoy factory, initially with the "STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES Collect all 45!" text on the back.
These cards were pulled and not released to the German market because it was thought the English text on the back was not appropriate
for the German market. The cards were all stored in the factory and not released. The text was then removed and more cards were
produced which all made it to the German market. When the factory closed, Arthur bought the unused stock including these unreleased cards.
Toni then bought them all off him and has been trickling them into the general collectors market ever since. Almost all MOC that are out there in collectors
hands have originated from Toni and the unreleased cards from the Palitoy factory.

And thats it. I haven't commented on whether the unreleased cards were assembled at the factory or later from their components as that is
in dispute given the commentary from JJ and Toni.

That pretty much explains the cards we see today and their condition and whether they have price stickers on them or not.



cheers Jason

wow


in one post i think you say it all

mr_palitoy i have respect for your thoughts on this matter and feel that sounds correct.

as to them being assembled at the factory nor not for this one post i will also not go into that for once .

but what you have worked out is something new and i feel is a lost peace of history , and something i have wanted to know for over 20 odd years.

as a collector and a historian i thank you for that for real , something we all did not now has just been worked out i think and thats amazing there is still stuff to find out and understand as collectors

wow

at lest something good came out of all these posts

jason

 

[ace]

An interesting read.
Here's my upside down Hoth Trooper.
No pin holes - but it does have an '03' bubble.

This card has always look off to me & I have no idea how it got through QC.

AND THATS THE ONES

yep and i know that came from me also i can prove that also

you see the card has a line of dust or dirt film going from top to bottom level with the bubble well thats because i have 500 of them and i could store them properly in my mums house back then so my loft had my personal collation in it and at one end in the top of the eves i stacked them one by one locking them tight next to the bubble next to the next one this meant that the only part of the card exposed dust was the part above the bubble over the years dust and crap came in from a loft vent creating a bit of grime in the surface so thats why you have that line on that card my friend it was in my loft for around 8 years

the next part of the story was

i shipped to Bruce Zolkan in florida of marz distribution i think he had another name also back then ? 5000 figures he has a auction and most of the Hoth Troopers was sold in florida

Bruce was an old friend and ran the Florida FX show with Mike Hurtz both Mike and Bruce will vouch for me selling off these troopers in florida

the last of my hoth trooers was sold through my stores over here over the years and i think the last ones may have been sold on ebay by a guy called Mark Carter that sold off all the old wherehouse stock i had stored for years when he clears all the star wars stationary we have stored , this was all sold to a big star wars trader in the US and he keeps nocking that stuff out to this day i think ?

these were the last to be sold off anyway around two years ago by this Mark , he offered to clear that stuff for me for 50% so it cleared out the place including the rats


thats that one out the way then , that for putting up that photo

jason

 

[ace]

so to the points of proof that Toni called me out on there are 3 of them mostly


point 1

Toni claimed i was lying about buying 500 palitoy ROTJ carded hoth troopers from Arthur

This is proof i did have these troopers they did excised they are for real and we now even have photo prof of one of them .


Point 2

Toni claimed i was lying about buying 500 palitoy ROTJ carded Boba fetts

I can get Craig Steven's from Romford to show photos of the cards and state he did by them from me and that he opened them all up


point 3

Toni claimed i was lying about the story that he bought 25,000 card backs +figures + bubbles

this is harder to prove (other than hearsay ), but i think now i have this part covered also , i am waiting for some info to come in from another source on this aspect to prove my side of things as soon as i have it i will share it with you all , i cannot say anything more yet .

jason

 

[Richard_H]

Thanks Jason and Jason this is starting to make a little more sense now.
So if I've got this right the only thing in dispute is when the bubbles were attached?
However, the claims of needing to find mint figures is the most disturbing for me. Are there any photos of figures which can e directly traced back to Toni's stock? Assuming (and it seems implausible) that a way to fake the seal was found then the quality of the figs would help. I've hardly seen any figs that I would describe as perfect without rubs etc.

 

[olisuds]

Jason,

You've written some very interesting stuff and it really is an amazing eye opener in to the world of Star Wars collecting and trading in its earliest days.

However, Points 1& 2 don't substantiate your claims about Toni putting together card backs, figures and bubbles. Only point 3 is relevant and you say you have no evidence other than hearsay and most of this hearsay has likely originated from you, So really your claim about Toni has no substance.

You came on hear to clear up a few misconceptions about your shady past and it appears you have just dazzled us with irrelevant details, unsubstantiated attacks on your fellow collecting colleagues and trying to butter up a few members on here to drum up some support.

I have bought many carded Palitoy figures from Toni and in my opinion all were 100% factory sealed, clean and faultless and showing no sign that the cards and bubbles were put together at a later date. They are 100% identical in every way to the carded figures that came from retail. Many of Toni's MOC have been scrutinised by AFA and UKG and to my knowledge I've never heard of anything he has sold being called into question.

I have a few questions though.

What year was this? You said you were 17 so was this in 1987?

Of the 25000 purchased by Toni how many were just cards and bubbles? You have the inventory so you know this number right? If I read this thread properly (apologies but it is a headache of a read) the majority were actually carded figures and not individual cards and bubbles?

So Toni, apparently said he found away to seal the bubbles and cards. That is a very impressive feat. I'm no expert on the production process but after watching video footage of the Palitoy factory putting figures on to cards and speaking with friends who are very knowledgable of the production process I find it highly unlikely that Toni was able to amass all these loose mint figures and find a cost effective way to faultlessly seal the cards and bubbles. I mean even if he said he did, I don't think i'd believe him. Kids say all sorts of ****.

I don't own any of Toni's MOCs anymore but I can say that until I see any convincing evidence that show these were carded by him personally at a later date I wouldn't have any hesitation in buying further carded figures from him.

 

[edd_jedi]

Wether it's true or not, one thing I like about this is that it puts more value on MOCs with price stickers, wear, and provenance (eg I've had one of my MOCs since the early 90s.) Personally I think AFA and the obsession for perfection is one of the worst things that ever happened to this hobby. As beautiful as perfect MOCs are, they have no character, show no age which is part of the nostalgia for me, and as this story proves (by the fact people believed it despite knowing if it's true or not) it is impossible to trust something that seems to have miraculously survived without so much as a scratch for over 30 years despite apparently being sold in a shop. The fact is that NO mint MOC could possibly have ever been anywhere near a shop, just putting a figure on a hanger 'damages' it in some people's eyes, and the only place case fresh MOCs can possibly come from is stockpiles of unsold stock like Toni apparently has.

So to be honest, more the fool people that have been paying ridiculous prices for 'perfect' MOCs that are probably one of 1000 more sitting in somebody's shed somewhere, unassembled or not. Hopefully this puts a bit more value back on authenticity and rarity over perfection.

 

[spoons]

Well done Jason (Mr Palitoy) for working out the time line - a bit of new knowledge to come out of all this has to be a good thing. Why so many card backs survived was a curiosity.

Thanks Del, for the stormy pics - they are the same holes/dimples as mine

Toni's rep would be cleared by confirmation that the seals are the same on the shop sold card backs, and the English text non-released mint card backs. From the pictures so far it would seem that way.

My Han and Stormtrooper are both no text versions, so my concerns are largely gone - thanks again Jason

Edd's points are good ones - it's all about authenticity which is very hard to prove without a time machine. At the very least the English text German backs appear to be of a kind, wherever they were sealed, and occupy their own place in the collectorsphere

 

[BadMotivator]

I'd just like to chime in here to say that its not difficult or expensive to seal a blister pack. The evidence is all around you, just look in your local post office or pound shop and look at all the crap that's sold for pence in blister packs. Yes the machines are expensive but the tooling is not. And for those saying it wouldn't be cost effective I'm sorry but that is ridiculous. Even in the eighties it would have been an absolute no brainer to get these cards sealed regardless of initial outlay. And if you got an exisitng packaging company to do it, then you'd only be paying for the tooling and labour which would be a minimal outlay. With the massive volume of cards we're talking about anyone buying them would have known it would take years and years to trickle them out, probably longer than they're likely to be alive! Over that time they could make the initial outlay back thousands of times.

I'm not saying Toni did seal up the cards, but let's not pretend that it would be a difficult or costly thing to do.

 

[edd_jedi]

I'd just like to chime in here to say that its not difficult or expensive to seal a blister pack. The evidence is all around you, just look in your local post office or pound shop and look at all the crap that's sold for pence in blister packs. Yes the machines are expensive but the tooling is not. And for those saying it wouldn't be cost effective I'm sorry but that is ridiculous. Even in the eighties it would have been an absolute no brainer to get these cards sealed regardless of initial outlay.

Yeah I agree. Difficult for your average joe maybe, but certainly not impossible. And if he's been churning these out for nearly 20 years at £100 to £350+ a piece, the investment would have very much been worth it. Again I have no reason to believe they are fake, but to say it's impossible is certainly not true.

I've always thought people were idiotic to be paying hundreds of pounds for those Palitoy Boba Fett's, there are clearly thousands of them in circulation already let alone what he has left. A ROTJ General Madine is more rare.

 

[olisuds]

I'd just like to chime in here to say that its not difficult or expensive to seal a blister pack. The evidence is all around you, just look in your local post office or pound shop and look at all the crap that's sold for pence in blister packs. Yes the machines are expensive but the tooling is not. And for those saying it wouldn't be cost effective I'm sorry but that is ridiculous. Even in the eighties it would have been an absolute no brainer to get these cards sealed regardless of initial outlay. And if you got an exisitng packaging company to do it, then you'd only be paying for the tooling and labour which would be a minimal outlay. With the massive volume of cards we're talking about anyone buying them would have known it would take years and years to trickle them out, probably longer than they're likely to be alive! Over that time they could make the initial outlay back thousands of times.

I'm not saying Toni did seal up the cards, but let's not pretend that it would be a difficult or costly thing to do.

So are you saying that its easy to seal a blister pack and make it factory standard faultless and undetectable? The crap you're referring to on the market place is usually quite obvious no? Certainly detectable by AFA?