How To Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise 6

How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 6

Sonic Gear Main Merchandise Page * Bootlegs 1 * Bootlegs 2 * Bootlegs 3 * Bootlegs 4 * Bootlegs 5 * Bootlegs 7
Bootlegs 8 * Bootlegs 9 * Bootlegs 10 * Bootlegs 12

Fakery and junk abounds when bootleggers think they can get away with knocking off Sonic the Hedgehog!
Fight back by educating yourself on what NEVER to buy!
Remember, you vote with your money...any buying of fake junk only supports and encourages them to make more.
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. Don't waste your money! Buy official SEGA Sonic things only!

Latest ReSaurus Sonic Toys Shennanigans!
DO NOT BUY ANY ReSaurus Sonic figure on Ebay UNLESS it is in the original box and STAYS in it and is PHOTO'd in it in the auction. The latest scam is the sellers of the fake figures say "They have to de box the figures to send them to you". That is a LIE. They cannot replicate the original box so they are making up lies to scam you out of money for the figures. If someone says that, never bid on any of their stuff.

This Knuckles sticker for the car or car window is a fake.
It may look ok, because they've taken the SA1 art of him and made a die-cut, which is a bit rare-er in bootleg items, but clearly not impossible. Notice however, that there's no copyright info anywhere on him. That's a real give-away on these. If he were real, it would say something likely by one of his shoes so it wouldn't disrupt the design. Things made to go on cars NEED to be quality or they're just a waste of money because of all the exposure cars get day-to-day. And you know how bootleg quality goes...so it's best to stay away! Photo discovered by: Rae_logan

With all the different versions of Pokemon they keep making (Diamond, Pearl, etc) these fakers are hoping to trick someone into thinking "Chaos Black" is a real version of the game!
Someone has added Chaos 0 to their phony sticker and even bothered to write out the title in a Pokemon-like font. So what's on this cartridge? (if it even works when you buy it) "Pokemon Chaos Black is a hack of Pokemon Fire Red. The hackers made 3 new starter Pokemon, & edited some of the other Pokemon in the game." Fakers are into flashy stuff to get people to buy...and who cares what happens afterward! Discovered by FireDragon973 , info by ManaphyTails

These are fake birthday party tickets. These tickets serve as a type of invitation to parties, as it is trendy.

A new kind of phony madness emerges with the trend of 'party tickets'. These fake tickets are modeled after sports or concert tickets, but instead, they are for birthday parties.

Fakers naturally want to take advantage of everyone, so they're using this new trend to produce Sonic theme tickets by stealing Sonic Team's art and putting it on their customized ticket. Why would anyone buy these? They use the resource that no one has in their home:...PAPER! Oh, wait. But who wants to pay big bucks for stale art that someone else printed? Disc. by KirbyKid

It's never too young to introduce someone to Sonic...so even a baby might benefit from Sonic things. However, you want to do it right, not with fakes!
This is a baby jumpsuit type thing onto which someone has ironed-on an Amy Rose graphic. However, if it's one thing everyone knows...babies make a mess a lot. You have to wash baby items frequently, which spells trouble right away for flimsy shabby iron-ons! How long would this one last? There's no telling but the bootlegger won't care if it washes right off baby's new clothes. Remember: if it CAN be ironed onto, they usually will. Always look for offical tags and copyrights! Discovered by KirbyKid.

Printed Party Invitation...with stolen Secret Rings art!
Notice how after they robbed the art from Sega, they put 'sample' on it so that NO ONE ELSE should steal it! It's terribly hippocritical, but that's bootlegers in action trying to guard their not-at-all-worked-for stolen art. An abundance of fake party stuff for Sonic exists because for whatever reason they won't make any official items despite high demand. Sonic is so cool, who wouldn't want a Sonic party? But resorting to fake things is still not the right way to do it. Discovered by KirbyKid

Despite pogs or milk-caps dropping out of the mainstream, (they just went back to the hardcore collecters who pre-existed the fad anyway) someone has made a set of fake pogs. Pogs are harder to fake because they are round, and also made of thick card.
The classic fake-mistake is visible here, as they're so obviously mixing their art up to get a 'set'. (Heroes, Shadow's Game, Sonic 360...Plus their Tikal is 2D! etc) Also, aside from the filched art, the backgrounds are really plain because they did not want to have to do any work to try and get money! Discovered by KirbyKid

This is a Sonic X car window cling.
Too bad it's not official. Car clings are harder to make because the company needs the ability to print on clear film, not just paper. However, because it's not official you don't know what will happen to this. Will it peel, fade or turn yellow? Cars are in the sun a lot so you have to know an item is quality, or you won't have much left after a few weeks in the sun. Notice there is no copyright near the logo, or 'sega' anywhere on this. Discovered by KirbyKid

One thing bootleggers love to do is to try and get people to buy their stolen stuff by making up huge quantities. In this case it's a 5 disk set of all the music from Sonic they could rip off of legitimate disks and the fans on the internet. All compiled onto 5 cds of MP3s so you can hear...music you already own. For $100.00 no less!
Don't be fooled by quantity because when it's a bootleg, it DOESNT mean quality! Discovered by berzerker.

Cramming in the quantity is not limited to music, it's also done with games.
These nasty yellow cartridges claim to have several games on each one...but they're nothing but junk. The center game is "Sonic 6" which is just a sucker bet because all that's there is a HORRIBLE 8-bit port of Sonic 1 with the first level missing. No one wants to play that rubbish so they try to trick people into buying it by putting many games at once. "If 1 is bad, maybe I'll like the others" they want people to say. But if you want to be guarenteed a real game, buy official only, or you'll really have no fun. Discovered by berzerker.

Sellmars (on ebay) is making these fake shabby felt Sonic themed hats. Notice the inaccurate pom-pom noses! Notice Amy has no headband OR spikes! Notice the cheap felt that is only glued on and will peel once you buy them! Why would you get these rotten hats when you can get The Real Hats that are better?

Sellmars is up to no good again. Here is Super Failure Sonic and another mutant looking baggy shabby Tails costume. They churn out these fabric fakes in their basement den of no-good and then try to sell them on Ebay. That doesn't work well though, because as you can see they only use low quality fabric and they don't bother to get the likenesses right at all. There are more nasty costumes (also by them) on page 4 of bootlegs. They sure are prolific, but it doesn't do them much good.
All 3 photos discovered by Ivana.

Here's a fake item you don't often see. This is a lighter. Why not? Because usually Sonic items are thought of a bit 'for kids' but smoking isn't for kids. (really, no one should!) Notice how flat and smooth the lighter is?
This means it's so easy for them to stamp on any design, much like a pin or button that is also fake. A "hallmark of fakery" on this is the *distorted art* notice how everything is too 'tall' or stretched out. This is because their stolen picture of Shadow did not fit the dimensions of the lighter, so they stretched the art! This doesn't look good at all, and lets everyone know this is just a knockoff.
Photo discovered by shadowstolemybike.

This thing is called "Picture Pop".
It claims it's made with the finest hand-made candy. The lollypop itself is blue and white swirled, with one of those edible-cake-top type images attached of classic Sonic. The art is well represented as well, it's not simply flats but shaded too, just like the original.

However, the item is suspicious. The only thing 'Sonic' about it is the art on the pop. Usually official things will have some of the package with matching art or logos/copyrights. If this can be proven to be authentic, it will move. Photo discovered by LarryInc64.

This is another fake Sonic mascot suit. It's a bit better than some of the others, but it is still clearly not the real thing with the dot-like eyes and enormous mouth. The mouth isn't as wiggly as the previous suit. The spikes look more like some of the old plushes from the Genisis days in that they are flat. It does have the full mascot-head though and not just a hat or mask. Photo by: surferbrg

This is a fake Sonic & Knuckles game that even came with a box. (A fake box!) Usually bootleggers will not include the box, as it's an extra expense, but this one did. As you can see, they're just stealing stock arts and pasting

them all around. BUT the interesting thing is...they're clearly not afraid to steal from THE FANS! The photos and captions on the back are from a fansite, likely Sonic Retro. The game is not even

backward compatible at all, which was rather the point! This was found in England. Photos and info by TheIronHedgehog

Well "Sonic 4" never existed but the Brazilian bootleggers wished it did! So they tried to make it themselves for the Super Nintendo by messing around with/stealing the Warner Bros. game Speedy Gonzalez. It's been altered so that you play as Sonic who is rescuing Mario from a cage. If you can beat it, the credits will even say "mario loves sonic and nintendo loves sega"! which, at the time would have been very scandalous to say. The real Speedy Gonzalez game was a rip off of Sonic to start with (springs nearly the same, loops etc) so it mustn't of been a hard task. Photo discovered by Berzerker.

Sellers may try to convince you that bootlegs such as this are rare, exotic and desirable but that is a ploy to get you to spend money buying something that rips off Sonic and that's not cool.

Fakers will go to any length to get you to buy a bogus item. Here's a "Century Japan" which is a fake console of the genisis/megadrive...oh and look it's right next to a "PUNSTATION 3" the highly desirable high tech console...NOT. A fake system is a huge gamble because it costs a lot and then, it might not even play ANY game, not even a fake one. Of course, they're adding some bogus Sonic graphic to try and convince you it's real...

This terrible graphic is used to scare small children out of the shoe aisle in China!
Yes, it's a blue cat...but it's clearly based on Sonic and composed of bits of stolen stock art. They made the body and hand huge, but kept it on top of a classic Sonic's legs and shoes. They added a cat tail, and a really terrible looking cat head too...These blended creature things based on Sonic NEVER work and make a whole that's way worse than it's parts!

Whoever made the blue cat lost their marbles? They likely lost these shabby fake marbles. These are made by

enclosing a stolen stock art between halves of the 'marble'. The seller of course claims they are 'real marbles' but not what they're made of. To be a marble they'd have to be actual glass....but super-bounce balls are also made the same way...Photo discovered by BlueBlur

You've seen their shabby Super Sonic costume above, now see Sellmars' deluxe SuperSonic costume. Yes...they've got the spikes going up but that doesn't hide the shabby gloves and baggy suit. The head is also exactly round making him look like a spiky yellow sunny-face or an odd beach ball. Who is buying these hard-worked-on but yet not so great costumes that Sellmars keeps going berzerk over to make more of? What is Sellmars' plan, and why do they care so much about the money of Sonic fans? Photo discovered by SonicHOG.

Here's a shabby sticker using stolen stock art that's so badly printed the details are fading away. (Look at his ear and shoe stripe) the finger is also somewhat off-base making it look like the wrong finger to be holding up! Discovered by Berzerker.