How To Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 31

How to Avoid Fake Sonic Merchandise Page 31

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 with these pages of photos and tips!

Remember, you vote with your money...any buying of fake junk only supports and encourages them to make more. Wouldn't you rather have awesome official items? Wouldn't you rather enjoy cool good quality stuff you know you can depend on? If you want the real deal, bootlegs are never the way to go.
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. Fake items may also be unsafe. Remember, bootleg makers are only after your money. They don't care at all about Sonic the hedgehog and are only out for a quick buck. Don't waste your money! Buy official SEGA Sonic things only, look for copyrights, and demand the real deal.
Iron On Transfers Submission: CLOSED (every single art on the internet can be one of these, know that it exists & if it's a transfer of any type it IS A FAKE. Bootleg Avoidance HUB Page

It's 'holo button' phony Sonic...but this time he's small.
For a while, in the early 2005 or so, bootleg companies got a hold of some holo-foil substance & started using it. Hologram material is generally expensive, which is why 'holofoil' cards and such are rare. This also means that your every day run of the mill bootlegger will stay far away from foils like this because they're so costly.

Which is why....when someone got a hold of some, they went on a holo rampage to try and convince consumers that these plushes and products were authentic. You'll have seen a similar plush to this on previous pages of Avoiding Bootlegs, but it was larger. Instead of a cloth-tag, these dolls employ a plastic button with the holo finish label trapped inside. A fancy button isn't enough to convince anyone to add other quality though: there are solid shoe buckles, a really long nose for no reason? Bent up front part of face, giant finger, and the eye embroidery is poor, with a layer of light green at the top & a gap there too. The mouth is also extremely vertical. This is likely based on the 'big shoe dolls', as you can tell with the foot structure, but they didn't do an amazing job. Though there's also a paper tag with OK graphics--they really tried to go all out to appear authentic with this one.
However:
Quality of the item itself, not the quality of how far the tags/buttons/labels will go is the real marker of something good. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

BUYER BEWARE:
DONT BUY COLORING BOOKS ON AMAZON.
Yes, it's another 'buyer beware' announcement, and this one is for Amazon instead of the usual (ebay). In 2019, you may notice an abundance of FAKE Sonic Coloring Books all over Amazon. Amazon is getting lazy policing for phony merchandise, so these nasty books are running rampant. They do everything fans hate to see like stealing Sega's art, stealing fan art from kids to make a profit for themselves, tricking people into paying for ugly fake art, false advertising (ex. showing pictures you don't get) , and providing incomplete/cropped art. However, there's a way to spot the fakes by following this list

1. MIXED characters: Avoid books with Sonic, Mario, Mickey Mouse & more. Companies don't like having co-staring characters / remember who has copyrighted what.
2. MIXED Modern/Classic - A very normal bootlegger slip up, they'll mix modern & classic Sonic characters together
3. Sonic X - There is no such thing as "NEW" Sonic X anything, it's fake
4. MIXED GAMES - If there's a book, it's based on ONE game, you won't get like Heroes&SA1 and then Colors.
5. TV SHOWS - NO US show ever had a coloring book, so if you see SatAM, AOSTH, or Underground, it's FAKE
6. Fan art / Fan characters - ALWAYS stolen from fans to grub money
7. A publisher you don't recognize. Who published it? Look up the company. Can't find a result? Don't buy it!

What to do if you find a fake?
Complain to Amazon. If people complain and write Amazon every time they spot a phony Sonic thing, Amazon could act to tear the listing down or warn the bootlegger. Reporting is your strength! As a fan, when you see a fake, call it out & get it punished away from the shop. Other people (Grandparents, etc) are not as savvy as a Sonic fan they are buying a gift for, and may be fooled by fakes so it is up to fans to complain when they see bogus garbage.

Buyer Beware Coloring Books alert found by: Princess PandaLover

Hide the kids! Hide the...everybody!
Because this bonkers bootleg is turning the ugly up to 11! This total trash doll is some kind of giant, stupid keychain? Maybe? It has a metal hang loop and metal chain somehow, and that doesn't make much sense, but neither does anything here.
There's a lot to unpack here (and then stuff into the bin!) so start asking questions to which there are no answers like, how did the ears get onto the SIDES of the head? Why is the mouth that stupid? Could the nose be any smaller? The shoes are what...a wrong version of Tails'? There are no socks nor glove cuffs. Belly dot is the wrong shape. Eyes are not only inverted but sewn on totally screwy. Spikes may be 3D but they're not positioned right--he looks like a cone headed monstrosity. The fabric is pilly & one of the finger-threads has gone (no doubt due to rubbish sewing) making a ginat 'middle finger' on the one hand. It's like it was designed by an alien toddler that never saw Sonic at all.
Some of these things super make you wonder how they even got produced. Like why would you bother making this? And give it a metal chain? This won't fool anyone into thinking it is real, but it is really bad. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Everyone was warned to stay away from aliexpress with fakery...
But someone didn't listen and stuffed this stupid suit onto it! Here goes knockoff Knuckles with his many mistakes & stupid features. The biggest and stupidest standout is that there's a mouth texture....but it's not filled in for some reason! This actually just makes it look worse and draws more attention to the mistake. The eyes are too low/small, the spikes are just flat flaps to be cheap with, there's no chest stripe (because lazyness) & the shoes are wrong too. Also, no glove cuff nor sock is in sight. What about the sight behind? Well, it's just photoshopped into this city scene but lazily...because the hand cuts off in the middle of nothing. The head is bad, the body is dumpy, and it's a big phony. It's probably also big dollars to buy because nasty rubbish doesn't come cheap when it is large in size. But look, the culprit has written their name all over it so you know where to avoid & what not to buy from because the lazyness is in full display. Photo discovered by

It's a cone head!
Here's another interesting example of fakery. The pattern for Sonic's spikes is actually a really complicated thing that is difficult to get right. Of course, it can easily go wrong and look dumb, and this thing provides the example. The top spike is gigantic, making the top of the head into a cone shape. He also has 'big body', and kind of poorly shaped shoes. The ears are uneven but...they are 3D and have defined edges. So, it's not like everything is cutting corners here, they just didn't get a great pattern. (3 finger bad hand alert) The fabric looks quality as well, thick/fuzzy & all good colors. The ears have more effort than some official dolls. The size is also really big for a fake! Usually a bogus plush will be small, or if it is large it is shrivelled, noodly, or some other cost-cutting measure to make big & cheap. So the plush isn't awful, but it's not great and it shows an even mix of quality efforts and slip ups at the same time. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Wow, a zombie plush!
This shambling looking thing isn't helped out at all by how it's displayed with tilted head and zombie-pose type arms. This ugly doll takes many opportunities to look awful. The worst bit is the blank all-green embroidered eyes with an inverted shine-dot and no pupils at all. Then, there's the cheap-o flat hands, the stupid blue arms mistake (no evidence this was supposed to be Boom) and then they get the belly dot wrong. It's not even a dot, they just do the 'bugs bunny' thing and make it go all the way up. His shoes are round, and the spikes are obviously cheap/thin tacked on looking.
But...what's up with the ears? Are they ON the 2 side spikes? Lumps on his head? Are they the cheap flat-flap things and they're just positioned wierdly? The whole thing is nonsense, but that's a mystery. So kind of, is the flat face with that odd eyebrow-arch thing sewn in. Send this Zombootleg thing over to go with the TailsDoll in creepyville for sure. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Wow, is this a parody OR a bootleg?
Maybe it's both! This is a rubber mask of that hideous stupid #notmysonic ugly Sonic Movie troll creature. The movie that got bashed so badly it had to go back to the drawing board because the internet screamed the house down. (Good for it!) So, something so in the spotlight, would, of course be a bootleg magnet so everyone can get in on the money and laughs.
A mask of this rotten demon is a great choice because it is already very scary and ugly, so frightening people with it at Halloween is a great idea. Because the head shape is so screwed up already, it's easy to make a rubbery mask to look just like it.

Because the movie got sent back to the drawing board, it probably technically IS NOT a bootleg NOR a parody because it can't fit either category. However...it isn't a licensed item & it makes fun of itself by just existing so....here it goes for you to see it too.

It's a motley mutant crew of plush!
Are these trying to imitate either the Tomy or JP classic plushes? They've clearly been cobbled together into a 'fake set' as each one has a different style. You've got toothy classic Sonic with leathery odd boots/shoes and stumpy arms, but then creepy hollow-eyes Tails with flattened garbage shoes, prickly odd face and terrible mouth. Next is an Amy attempt that uses a nice shiny fabric for the skirt & shoe-bows but drops the ball with the flat face and flower petal like oddball spikes.

The Eggman looks like one of the older, worse plush prototypes before it had enough revisions to fix it as his teeth are growing up out of his collar...somehow. However, he's easily the 'best' of the goofy looking lot & could probably actually fool people if he was in a crane game or UFO catcher. Whether by itself or in a set, a phony is still a phony. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

A fake first!
Here you can likely see what are the very first bootlegs of Mighty the Armadillo & Ray the flying squirrel. It's really odd to see these guys as sorta-bad plush dolls because they have almost no official merchandise.
But what's odder...is that they have 2 different styles and so were likely made by 2 different fakers & then cobbled together into this wierd looking set of fakery.

The Ray has large oval eyes, while Mighty has circles, Ray's shoes use plasti-leather material while Mighty's are regular cloth & their arms are also built differently. However, they both have the bad style wrong belly dot. They do appear to have Mighty's ears correct though, which is interesting to see. The Super Sonic looks like a bit of a Tomy knockoff, and the Knuckles....is just withered and terrible all around. He's riddled with problems like awful expression, big body, shrivelled fists, awful spikes, that cheap flap nose and just looks general rubbish all around.
Sometimes phony stuff can be at least somewhat interesting to see...Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

It's a big mouth bootleg!
This bogus plush has either really big dumb fish lips or a large, strange and all-red mouth in the middle of the monkey-like too-big lower face. The stupid looking mouth is of course, the easiest problem to spot but it's only a distraction from the wrongly placed ears on the direct sides of the head, and the withered looking spikes. The shoe stripe is also too wide, but that's the least of its worries, when the face looks as bad as it does. Judging by the size of the pillow in the background though, this thing is sadly pretty large. There's something off about the top of the body, like an odd 'shoulder-like' area or something going on that makes him seem extra uneven somehow. It's a sillier looking take on another fake to avoid. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

From a bigmouth (above) to a totally sideways mouth...bootlegs are getting it wrong.
This bogus plush tries (and fails) to use the 'side smile bent teeth' from the SA1 era as a sticker on their doll. However, the mouth has been applied completely vertically? For some reason? Like...who would think that's how a mouth goes? Do the jaws open sideways like an ant? It's nonsense, but so is ripping off Sega, so it goes in the same dumb bag.
Of course, that's not their only error, you've got the tilted eyes that don't line up and the stupid cheap mitten hands with no fingers to save money. The buckles are separate pieces of felt...but they're so poorly done that one has already crumpled. The lower face is kind of big, and it sort of unbalances the doll vs. the size of the body but really with how cheap this thing looks that's the lesser of its worries. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

What are these rotten gremlins?
They're a real 'space oddity' that's for sure. Whoever thought these were a good idea was full of nothing but space...because these dolls are so ugly they ought to be shot off into the sun. They're BARELY even Sonic like at all...but you can tell it was a Sonic pattern they ripped off to make these shiny pieces of garbage. You've got a nonsense silvertone one and a nasty red one, both with red eyes & hot dog noses. Do they even have more than 1 spike? They've got feeble ears (look closely for it on the silver one), just awful lazy shoes, more mitten hands because of course, and the face edges are sewn to the shoulders because....they needed yet another way to make these things as big of a disaster as possible. Who even knows what's going on! Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Mascot fake!
Stealing Sonic to make up 'appealing' mascots (because Sonic, when he's real is really appealing) is a sadly common thing to do so here comes...green monkey! They obviously took a classic Sonic face, deleted the ears & made his spikes be sort of wiggle/lightening shaped. The body is re-colored to look like a green 'super suit' instead, but there's the classic gloves & peach arms. It looks like he's pointing at an ad for houses or something? Maybe it's condo-monkey! Either way, it's a fake. Photo discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Oh no, here comes the WORST kind of fake...the expensive one that APPEARS real at first glance...but then reveals garbage low quality upon a close look, or worse yet...a buy.
This is, of course, made to look like the famous 'lettermans' or 'varsity' classic jacket that commands a high price. But when prices are high...

nasty bootleggers come out of the woodwork to try and trick people. The bad store HJackets com (look at that all over water mark, then STAY AWAY) has faked up this coat in rubbish quality. Look at the letter 's' there...it looks filthy! It's a gross brown color like lumpy spoiled milk. Then, the patches are all bad quality too. The Tails is blurry & you can barely read the eggman one. This is a sure sign of cheap/rush embroidery. The big back patch is actually fairly okay, but it's CLEARLY not as good as the original. If the sleeves are pleather (plasti-leather) they're also likely to fall apart/crack and go bad with even a year of wear. Cheap stuff just doesn't work, and you know if the patches are bad, they'll be using the most rubbish quality around for the sleeves.
However, at a glance...it would be easy to think it could be real...hopefully nobody falls for this thing because it's marked at 200 or so, that's no small potatoes to get tricked out of and then get a garbage jacket in return. BEWARE! Discovered by Pichu97/Charlie

Step 1: steal a bunch of art that you can find Step 2: Bootleg up a stupid sticker book Step 3: Get super salty when the art changes because you stole it too early!
These are 3 easy steps to ugliness and failure for nasty ripoffs to fall into. In this case, it's a whole stupid 'sticker book' of that nasty, badly-done 'movie-sonic' where the design was so bad & the premise so lame the entire internet went bonkers yelling about how awful it was. Some "Clever" fakers decided to steal every image they could from posters and trailers to create this dumb thing.
But then!
The movie studio had to re-design the CG character, rendering their entire product obsolte & undesireable. They write on it "Album Official Complete" (It's not in English/not for sale in the USA) trying to convince people it is real, but then they do the classic mistake of mixing in CG/normal Sonic there & broadcast their bootlegging-ness. So, this item is 2x bad. Photo by