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

[jimbody1]

personally I think regardless of what's said here people will carry on buying and selling them until there is definitive proof one way or the other which I think is not coming at all...ever. Those that think they're Toni made simply won't buy them. That's all there is to it. All this speculation and circumstantial evidence regardless of how compelling will simply keep the community going round in circles. How you reconcile the two opposing parties is what people now need to worry about. How many people who have Toni mocs would say for definite 100% sure that their mocs are not original, I wouldn't think there would be many and that is going to cause problems.

 

[ace]

personally I think regardless of what's said here people will carry on buying and selling them until there is definitive proof one way or the other which I think is not coming at all...ever. Those that think they're Toni made simply won't buy them. That's all there is to it. All this speculation and circumstantial evidence regardless of how compelling will simply keep the community going round in circles. How you reconcile the two opposing parties is what people now need to worry about. How many people who have Toni mocs would say for definite 100% sure that their mocs are not original, I wouldn't think there would be many and that is going to cause problems.

hi jimbody1 i have been thinking about this post and its very interesting , i think that people selling off there figures now and not saying anything could really come back on some of the sellers ?

j

 

[ace]

thinking a bit more about this

well people may not decide and maybe its not going to have 100% proof , but thats not important ?, the real fact it they are just not rare , think about it.

this list was put together by Arthur and these cards had survived at that time so we do not need to argue if Toni did it or not the fact is these cards are out there somewhere , Toni is the only source for these cards and is selling these cards now today , but again its not that important, now everyone knows that on the list there is over 11,000 cards so what are these carded figures are worth today ?

how big is the demand compared to how many cards are out there ? just think about that ?

it dose not matters what Toni says really

when it comes to the value of them now , most of these cards are just not rare and everyone knows that now.

harsh facts but reality i think ?

just my thoughts J

 

[jimbody1]

I don't think rarity comes into it, weather Toni bought 1000's of carded figures, unused cards whatever. It matters not. What does matter is while there may well be many that think all/some/most toni's gm and palitoy mocs are made up there will be many that have them now that just are not sure and cannot say with 100% certainty that they're not original so you are left with those that will still collect,buy,sell them as genuine and others that won't touch them with a big stick. The problem is reconciling these two opposing views within the community in general without causing problems for sellers. I agree there is very strong circumstantial evidence in one direction but without solid proof who can decide who is right or wrong. Rarity and price have nothing to do with anything people will pay what they will pay and that's what sets the market, tonis fetts went for hundreds before all this and still are now, he may have hundreds more and they may well be real and case fresh but that's not stopped the price of them being daft.

 

[ace]

then maybe someone should just take this to the police as this is what they do for a living , everyone on here has done there best now i think ?

j

 

[obiwannacollect]

then maybe someone should just take this to the police as this is what they do for a living , everyone on here has done there best now i think ?

j[/quote

Plant that seed....and watch it grow

 

[spoons]

Hi guys, hope you all had a good Christmas.

In my experience all blisters supplied by Kenner have the same adhesive applied to the blister. The waffle pattern is not created by the heat sealer it is simply the pattern of the adhesive which I think Kenner might have had a patent for. The heat sealer simply applies pressure and melts the blisters adhesive backing. All the Palitoy figures that came out of Coalvile used the same Kenner blisters right up until the time of the twin stem & trilogo bubbles which probably came from a different supplier and clearly use a different blister adheasive.

So I would consider any Kenner/Palitoy figure that has the standard single stem or rounded blister that doesn't have the waffle pattern highly suspect.

Hi and Merry Christmas to you

Both Kenner and Palitoy cards have different bubbles after the 41 backs, and that is when Palitoy seals change. Unfortunately that only adds to the problem of spotting a fake Palitoy

 

[spoons]

hi all i said i would pop in with any new info that i come across what ever it is proof or not as i want to show i am being up front with everyone on this matter.

so i talked to Jim Stevenson today and he remembers nothing at all really :-|

he is getting older now and has been around the same amount of time as me and has lived a lot also so its hard to him to remember much , he could not even remember his best contact in the US back then that he used to buy lots of stuff from "Beths collectormana" someone he should have remembered very well :-(

i did talk to another trader that did say he used to sell minty mint figures to Toni but he has herd of all the stuff going on here and on line and dose not want to get cough up in it :-|

one other thing i herd back from Craig Stevenson the collector that bought the 100s of Boba fetts from me back in the day and this is what he emailed me , i have included my email to him so as to be clear and up front with everyone.

jason

hope you are doing well

is that one of the 100s boba fetes that i sold you back in the late 80s or early 90s

did you manage to remove any of them in a really nice way so there was little damage ?

sorry you did not keep them all nice they would have been worth a fourteen now .

anyway hope you are keeping well and have a great christmas i do not have a contact number for you anymore pop it over and we can chat one day keep well jason

Hi,

Good to hear from you. Yes, this is one of the Boba Fetts you sold me. As you will remember all of them were factory seconds deemed unworthy for sale in the shops. The bubbles were not attached to the backing cards properly, probably because the Boba Fett figure is too large for that style of bubble. They were all falling off. Also most of the backing cards suffered from a printing error, leaving a nasty mark across the front. I attempted to keep a dozen or so of the nicer ones in sealed condition but not one of them survived I'm afraid. I don't even have one.

It would be good to catch up with you again. My home number is xxxxxxxxxxxx. What is the best way of contacting you?

All the best,

Craig.

i had not talked to Craig for around 4 or 5 years i think ? and we have not talked about these for at least 20 year i think also ?

as you saw in his replay he thought that they were factory seconds as did i at the time , the intreating thing is that he says the bubbles were the problem that made them fall off the cards like the Hoth Troopers and have the same marks across the cards the iron marks , something that even Craig is unaware of at this time like i was up till the meeting at the show last month.


anyway hope that is of help in some way on this matter ?

yours

jason

Hi Jason,

Another interesting post, from Craig's reply it would appear that the iron on Fetts and possibly the HTs are reseals of factory seconds. That would put a different spin on things.

The made to order pieces are something different again

 

[jedisearcher]

I don't think rarity comes into it, weather Toni bought 1000's of carded figures, unused cards whatever. It matters not. What does matter is while there may well be many that think all/some/most toni's gm and palitoy mocs are made up there will be many that have them now that just are not sure and cannot say with 100% certainty that they're not original so you are left with those that will still collect,buy,sell them as genuine and others that won't touch them with a big stick. The problem is reconciling these two opposing views within the community in general without causing problems for sellers. I agree there is very strong circumstantial evidence in one direction but without solid proof who can decide who is right or wrong. Rarity and price have nothing to do with anything people will pay what they will pay and that's what sets the market, tonis fetts went for hundreds before all this and still are now, he may have hundreds more and they may well be real and case fresh but that's not stopped the price of them being daft.

I agree rarity has never been the issue. There have always been lots of Fetts, HTs, 3POs etc but they still seem to sell, albeit slowly at times.

Looking at what's going on on ebay it seems pretty clear that a massive part of the SW collecting community doesn't have any idea what's going on. TT stuff is still getting bid on and selling ok. Values will fall because of overstock, but I guess it'll still sell because many are uninformed of the problem and they'll just think they're getting a bargain. If the seller is prepared to offer a refund and maybe risk a neg if the buyer finds out within 12 weeks then so be it?

What's a seller even supposed to put on a listing. I've got stuff I suspect are TT but are at least 3 times removed from him, and are graded. I don't know if they are fake or otherwise. What do I say to a prospective buyer? Do your own research? How can a buyer even make a judgement on whether it's fake or not?

Unfortunately, no amount of effort by us on here can ever rectify the problem, so perhaps the market just adjusts gradually over time. Everything is inconclusive.

As to getting the police involved, I'm more than happy to volunteer to help out with whatever needs doing but I think we start with trading standard first. He's clearly misrepresenting what he's selling by omitting key facts which is against the law.

As someone else posted, you have to report a crime to the police, and we don't have one at the moment. Trading standards can achieve the same aim and can get the police involved later if it comes to that.

Chris

 

[Joe]

I agree with what people are saying, there are always going to be sellers and buyers who will be unaware of this situation but even if they were aware..what are they going to do? Pull their auction? On what grounds? All we have is a bunch of circumstantial evidence that admittedly doesn't look good won't be proof enough for some.

Forum members are far more likely to feel bad by selling Toni figures because it's kind of impossible to pretend you haven't seen all the threads at this stage and of course the majority are nice guys who care about their fellow collectors..yet some still will. It might seem bad form but they will just say until it's proven it's not true.

It will be on their conscience if they cash out knowing full well the figures might be suspect, if you want to do something about it then you can email a link to the thread(s) to buyers + sellers on ebay or the forums but you won't be able to alert everyone or stop everyone from selling these on. I know for a fact your regular ebay dealer won't give a **** even if it IS all proven to be true.

 

[mr_palitoy]

I agree with what people are saying, there are always going to be sellers and buyers who will be unaware of this situation but even if they were aware..what are they going to do? Pull their auction? On what grounds? All we have is a bunch of circumstantial evidence that admittedly doesn't look good won't be proof enough for some.

Forum members are far more likely to feel bad by selling Toni figures because it's kind of impossible to pretend you haven't seen all the threads at this stage and of course the majority are nice guys who care about their fellow collectors..yet some still will. It might seem bad form but they will just say until it's proven it's not true.

It will be on their conscience if they cash out knowing full well the figures might be suspect, if you want to do something about it then you can email a link to the thread(s) to buyers + sellers on ebay or the forums but you won't be able to alert everyone or stop everyone from selling these on. I know for a fact your regular ebay dealer won't give a **** even if it IS all proven to be true.

I have a bunch of these, (see my AFA 90 ESB/ROTJ Palitoy focus). Even if i sell them on cheaply with full disclosure, what's to stop the buyer
from flipping them at a higher price with no disclosure?

Jason

 

[Hothrebel]

It is all about conscience ,you cannot control what other people do,there will always be some one who will try and take advantage of a bad situation,

 

[Joe]

I have a bunch of these, (see my AFA 90 ESB/ROTJ Palitoy focus). Even if i sell them on cheaply with full disclosure, what's to stop the buyer
from flipping them at a higher price with no disclosure?

Jason

Yeah you are in a tough spot Jason. Not too many options for you really apart from just sitting on them for the foreseeable future. Like you said even if you do sell them cheap to try and recoup some funds you then have to either find a trustworthy buyer who will not **** anyone over or actively keep tabs on them once they leave your collection..just a real mess

We should continue to push for evidence either way in the hope that at some point in the future collectors can have some closure on the matter.

 

[søren]

I have a ESB palitoy Fett cardback from a childhood colletion , wich has the iron tip mark under the buble .

 

[Joe]

I have a ESB palitoy Fett cardback from a childhood colletion , wich has the iron tip mark under the buble .

This is the problem with trying to make sense of every little mark or blemish on these cards, while some may be of interest the vast majority are going to lead us on wild goose chases and waste time in the long run.

On that note, has anyone found a picture of a shop sold Palitoy threepio that proves Mattias's theory wrong? I believe to date he is the only one that was actually on to something with regard to the cards.

 

[jimbody1]

On that note, has anyone found a picture of a shop sold Palitoy threepio that proves Mattias's theory wrong? I believe to date he is the only one that was actually on to something with regard to the cards.

The problem with that is as has already been stated by I think it was Tom derby? These cards qc was rubbish and all sorts of miscards and crap cards got through to the shops.

 

[Joe]

I'd put my neck out and disagree on that one to a certain extent. I think both Palitoy and Kenner actually were bothered with QC issues and while you can find unpainted figures or bubbles up the wrong way etc cases like that are still in the minority.

I'd guess you probably see one error figure in every thousand or so good figures (both loose and carded) which is also the reason error figures are sought after and coveted by collectors today, they are something different and reminds us that everyone is human.

As for miscards - everyone always talks about the hectic Trilogo period and the masses of Trilogo miscards when discussing QC efficiency but in reality those weren't QC errors at all, they were all deliberately packed like that to get rid of overstock. A true QC error miscard (Kenner or another company) is a real hard find. I can think of only a handful of genuine ones out there.

It's logical that if there was a faulty batch that did get through the issue would probably be with the card though because a card fault would probably be easiest to miss (minor blemishes or print errors etc) and also it was printed packaging that didn't really effect the toy itself, so yes I do agree that even Mattias could be wrong but it is still the only card observation that appears to be a link between unused backers being used by Toni, ones that differ to store stock.

With that said, Dave's Trilogo sheet definitely proves that the QC guys weren't letting any old junk through - it was rejected because the back was all messed up and they still didn't let it go through even if it was going in the bin once the kids had opened their figures up.

They definitely had standards and always tried to turn out quality product, even when it got hectic towards the end. The "real" errors are actually things like double packing weapons or missing weapons not stuff like miscards.

 

[jimbody1]

I do agree to some extent but the flaws indicated are small and it would seem not on all cards from Toni in regards to the 3po anyway which means its by no means a reliable way of identification.

I'm not trying to rubbish peoples good work here but if you take this to the police/ trading standards etc the fact that these flaws have been found on other cards (red spots next to chewbacca etc) on non Toni bought mocs and the lack of the print error on other Toni bought 3po's means they won't take this as any type of evidence and may well dismiss this out of hand. I think the only real avenue worth persuing may well be the bubble types. If they're repro they should be pretty easy to discover the difference between vintage and modern repro.

 

[jay4]

thinking a bit more about this



when it comes to the value of them now , most of these cards are just not rare and everyone knows that now.

harsh facts but reality i think ?

just my thoughts J

NO not at all for one simple reason about 1/10000000th of the collecting world knows of this, 99.999999% of vtg collectors around the world have not nor will not even hear about this unless its made properly public! , hardly any collectors are on these forums and dont know people on them either so wont know a thing and not likley to either :wink: unless of course such a thing as a public outing/warning type ebay auction was to appear for sale worldwide for the masses to get wind . anyone brave enough :?:

 

[jimbody1]

thinking a bit more about this



when it comes to the value of them now , most of these cards are just not rare and everyone knows that now.

harsh facts but reality i think ?

just my thoughts J

NO not at all for one simple reason about 1/10000000th of the collecting world knows of this, 99.999999% of vtg collectors around the world have not nor will not even hear about this unless its made properly public! , hardly any collectors are on these forums and dont know people on them either so wont know a thing and not likley to either :wink: unless of course such a thing as a public outing/warning type ebay auction was to appear for sale worldwide for the masses to get wind . anyone brave enough :?:

I think anyone considering that idea would be leaving themselves wide open if they did.
until such time as its proven all you can do is speculate unfortunately.

 

[jay4]

thinking a bit more about this



when it comes to the value of them now , most of these cards are just not rare and everyone knows that now.

harsh facts but reality i think ?

just my thoughts J

NO not at all for one simple reason about 1/10000000th of the collecting world knows of this, 99.999999% of vtg collectors around the world have not nor will not even hear about this unless its made properly public! , hardly any collectors are on these forums and dont know people on them either so wont know a thing and not likley to either :wink: unless of course such a thing as a public outing/warning type ebay auction was to appear for sale worldwide for the masses to get wind . anyone brave enough :?:

I think anyone considering that idea would be leaving themselves wide open if they did.
until such time as its proven all you can do is speculate unfortunately.

EXACTLY ! hence the values will remain almost the same ,the only people who wont buy or think twice now are a mere few thousand on these forums . so it will be business as per usual

 

[Palifan]

One thing that I'm still amazed about after the amount of time that's gone into this thread is that nobody out there knows anyone who used to work at the Palitoy factory at that time. If the ex-general manager could be tracked down then it would probably help a whole lot with all of this.

I remember talking to one of the older guys at work once about my Star Wars collecting and showed him a Palitoy Luke 12 back card that had arrived for me. He laughed and said it had been a long time since he had seen that logo as he'd worked at the factory for a short while many years ago ! My excitement didn't last long though as it turned out that he'd worked there during the 1975 winter olympics, close but no prize

Anyway, I mention this in some hope that there must be other ex-employees out there who could maybe help out in some way? I'm not even sure how to go about finding general managers but I imagine there must be some sort of list somewhere (maybe JJ has it? :lol: ……..just kidding JJ you've done more than your fair share of hard work with this one).

One last thing is I remember being at the Bath & West toy fair a few years ago and getting into a slight disagreement with one of the vendors who was selling a Bepin Luke mounted on a bad repro card. The disagreement was just about if the light sabre was original or not and isn't important, but after it all calmed down he told me about the Palitoy factory closing down and how he had bought up a lot of their stock. I remember him saying he had so many boxed mail away Nien Nunb's that he used to give them away as business cards (not sure if he stamped the box or what?!). I don't know his name but I did remember his face as the owner of Global Collectables in Bristol -

https://plus.google.com/113017971244886660919/about?gl=us&hl=en

As I'm never in one place for very long at the moment I'm not able to pop in and talk with him (I'm pretty sure the shop's still there?), but thought if there are any Bristol guys on this forum then it might be worth a trip to see him. I apologies now if this owner is someone already on this forum or has been mentioned already but I thought I'd pass on what I know just incase it's of some help.

Ian

 

[jimbody1]

I fully agree with you on that point and i totally get where your coming from regarding trying to let people know. But you can't go around ruining dealers and other sellers reps on the suspicion of the items they are selling MAY not have been sealed at the factory especially if they're graded. This is the problem i was trying to highlight earlier in regards to those that think yes they're basicly knock off and those that own them being uncertain.

Itd be like me saying your graded moc sales are fraudulent because someone thinks it MAY have been sealed after the fact. I dare say you wouldnt be pleased. Its an unhappy state of affairs for the community to have to deal with.

 

[lee gray]

I want a mail away boxed nein numb business card, never know how to spell his name without looking

 

[Joe]

I want a mail away boxed nein numb business card, never know how to spell his name without looking

Guess you didn't look that time then either :lol: It's Nien NuNb :mrgreen:

 

[darthsatan]

one other thing i herd back from Craig Stevenson the collector that bought the 100s of Boba fetts from me back in the day and this is what he emailed me , i have included my email to him so as to be clear and up front with everyone.

jason

Whilst I get what you are trying to do here, am I the only person here who thinks the public posting of a personal email is very very wrong?
The deletion of the telephone number is irrelevant. The communication appears to give no written permission for it to be used for anything other than personal purposes.
I would suggest being careful here. If this was me (as somebody who is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office at work) I would be extremely pissed off and seeking redress.

 

[Palifan]

I want a mail away boxed nein numb business card, never know how to spell his name without looking

Guess you didn't look that time then either :lol: It's Nien NuNb :mrgreen:

I even looked it up and still got it wrong :lol:

Never mind, I've changed it now so that when the documentary comes out about this thread I'll look good

By the way, I do think this would make a great doco, in the spirt of King of Kong. If you don't know it, get to know it!!

 

[lee gray]

I want a mail away boxed nein numb business card, never know how to spell his name without looking

Guess you didn't look that time then either :lol: It's Nien NuNb :mrgreen:

Yeah was too lazy so mentioned it just incase

Always a few on ebay spelt wrong to get a bargain.

 

[edd_jedi]

One thing that I'm still amazed about after the amount of time that's gone into this thread is that nobody out there knows anyone who used to work at the Palitoy factory at that time. If the ex-general manager could be tracked down then it would probably help a whole lot with all of this.

Bear in mind that we were all kids back then and now are generally 30-40. Anybody old enough to work there during the 70s/80s will now be retired, and anybody old enough to be senior management will now likely be dead. It was well over 30 years ago.

 

[Palifan]

We can all live in hope though

The person I know from work is probably in his late fifties so I'm sure there must still be a fair few ex-employees still around. I do take your point about senior management though but it's still possible.

Just a thought - Ian