Hi, Hopefully someone can help me out here.  

I recently purchased a Bespin Leia on facebook. The picture of her cape on the original ebay listing is as such:



With an assurance as to it's authenticity.

However, when i received the package today, this is the cape Leia was wearing:





While Im confident the figure is the same, the cape clearly is not.  

The ebay seller has admitted as much, and in fact, has another auction going with the original cape:



His response to me after sending him a message with pics as to this discrepancy:


"Hi mate, thanks for sending that through. I don't know what I was thinking. I just looked at the loose one I had here and the marks on it certainly match the one on the photo on my listing. All I can think is that because I'd taken those photos of Leia with that cape over a month ago, I'd since changed the cape without updating the photo of the figure when I relisted it (as it didn't sell the first few times listed). I am really sorry about my stuff up.
Now unfortunately the cape you should have got has bids on it so it is no longer available. So I'll offer you a few alternatives.
I can refund say $8 of your payment, so you only end up paying $15 for the figure as is.
Or you can return for a full refund (including your postage cost back to me) once I've received it.
Let me know which you'd prefer.
Again my sincere apologies for the stuff up."



Now, I'm leaning towards the cape i actually received being a repro cape, and the one i *should* have received being an original.
The seller claims they are both original.

I know it's not a huge amount of money, but there is the principle of the matter, and i really dont want to mistakenly have repro cape in my collection.  While the one i thought i was getting (if they are both original) is a better quality cape, i will gladly take his $8 refund and keep the one i have... IF people think it too may be original/authentic. (i'll be happy enough if it is a lesser quality, more degraded/faded but authentic cape... i just dont want to keep it if repro)

Are there any of you fine fellows here who may be better able to assess.  The edge of the print on the one i received is my main sticking point, do any original capes fail to print fully to the edge like that? I was under the impression from the fine documentation on your site that these were cut from a continuously printed sheet, and as such such a edge issue would be nonexistent.  

Despite poring over the fine cape page on the site here, im cant decide for sure which way to go on this and would love some input?

Thanks very much in advance.

Sincere apologies if this is the wrong place to be posting this.

Daniel. The print not finishing at the edge maybe the side or end of the vinyl. Everything else looks fine with the cape ( apart from the fact it's not the one you were expecting ) Have you done the 'scratch test' and the zip noise is present on one side?

Thanks for that.

The more i look at it the more i think it is legit, just the lesser quality one of the two.

Once i got home from work this evening i did indeed give it a go with my fingernail and it sounds exactly the same as the one i know is legit from my other Bespin Leia figure ive had since childhood. (My orginal is a turtleneck, i bought this one to add a crewneck)
While i did that test earlier today, all of my caped figures til now were ones ive had since a kid, so i never needed to check, so wasnt sure if what i heard was right when i did it, but yeah, the sounds does match my definite original.

Thanks so much. :-)

It's nice to finally make an account and post here after lurking for so long, but i wish it had been for better reasons ;-)

So yeah, i'll take him up on his partial refund and add the figure to my collection.

Both capes look to be original, although he obviously switched capes on you.  The edge thing can be the end of the vinyl as AJ stated or possibly rub from the way these were cut.  I explained this in another thread but the capes were cut in stacks so depending on the cutter if it was sharp or dull, hotter or colder than usual, etc it can cause some variations in these capes size and edges can be slightly different.

Here is what I wrote previously about cape production.

From what I have been told the capes where cut in multiple sheets stacked on each other. I will try to illustrate a bit using my keyboard what I mean.

----------
---------- These three lines represent a stack of vinyl sheets
----------

Now showing those three lines again with the blade coming down
----\|/----
-----|-----
-----|-----

The top layers would be slightly larger due to the vinyl having some give as the blade pushed down thus the slanted lines I show being the vinyl stretching around the straight up and down blade. Same concept as trying to slice a loaf of bread. At first the top pushes down until the blade penetrates the top layer or outer crust then it begins cutting the rest easier. This cutting method that was used created small differences in sizes. that's the way I understand them being cut anyway. If someone has heard different let me know.

I wrote this in regards to regular capes but the concept also applies to the cape here with the design. It is possible that the device used to cut it could rub the design. Also most can tell you that the bespin leia armholes and cape design differ from one to the next this is because out of a large piece of vinyl they cut multiple capes and where ever the design fell is where it was because they couldn't make sure each one was squared off exactly the same out of a large sheet in order to reduce waste.