Stumbled upon this shite whilst researching the sell prices for a boxed C3PO 12 inch doll...

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/replicatorboxesandinserts/

That's probably going to blow any chance of me finishing a mint in a box collection after I complete my figures. There will be no way of knowing if the inserts are real and if a box item looks too mint to be true, then I will have to pass.

A person of my acquaintance who is a reprographer in printing says that it is possible to differentiate between a true and a false by analyzing the ink the box and the mode of printing. The results are variable according to the components, machines and decades. Of course the guy is a professional, that supposes to have such a person in his entourage.

if you have a doubt you can ask before purchase if the seller accepts returns. Then you contact a reprographer to inspect your purchase. This can be a solution.


I feel sorry for future and new collectors but it becomes very difficult to buy vintage nowadays.  

I didn't even open the link. There was a guy (Daren was maybe his name as that sounds right) who used to make all kinds of reproduction boxes. He was actually starting to mark his on inner flaps in places. We had a thread on them for a while, but I haven't seen it be bumped in years. I will try to hunt it up, though AJ may have quicker finding of it than me if he remembers the thread I am talking about.

Bryan's correct, it's Darren Orme who we first covered on the main site in 2014 and who was initially making inserts and boxes for vehicles then the 12 inch line. Originally he didn't mark them as repro and by his own admission there are 7 years' worth of repro unmarked inserts for boxed vehicles that he let loose on the market
I don't know if he's still marking them as repro but he's since made so much repro packaging for vintage SW that's it's not even worth us documenting what he does anymore as he copies absolutely everything.

http://www.imperialgunnery.com/vehiclesplaysetsother.htm

There was a thread over at SWforumUK where members verified that some of his repro boxes eventually show signs of fading and degradation due to the cheap materials he was using.