Malach Ra requested this, so away we go! Previous Threads Soundwave Box Sponsored by: Agesthreeandup.com August 5, 2007 http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=145958 Hubcap August 5, 2007 http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=145929 Cliffjumper August 4, 2007 http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=145783 Devastator Giftbox Sponsored by: Agesthreeandup.com August 4, 2007 http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=145767 Mirage August 3, 2007 http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showpost.php?p=1505652&postcount=92 Before I start ... All participation is welcomed. If I missed anything please let me know. These differences are ones I found just by combing over the pictures. Keep all ethical "knockoff" discussion out of this thread. This is for educational purposes only. NO DEBATES PLEASE. I attempted to rank these in order of importance. Position 1 is the "dead giveaway". If you see this, you know it's not legit. There are some color differences, but those have to be ignored. Many variables with originals (fading, picture lighting, etc) make color matching against repro's inconclusive. Again, the purpose to this is to educate eBayers. There are AWFUL sellers out there who claim these pieces as being real. When on eBay, look at the seller's feedback and other items for sale. Chances are, they've sold many of these already. That will be the best indicator of "original" or "reproduction" Sludge Box August 7, 2007 Just a general observation ... this box is the highest quality reproduction to date when it comes to appearance. I was struggling to find anything on Sludge, but came away with a few things. Finding a season 2 version of Sludge was a task on its own. 01. Back print completely shaved Unfortunately, the absolute dead giveaway on Sludge resides on the back of the box. You can clearly see that the print was shaved off. 02. Image to grid alignment issues You can tell that the person working this really tried to match things up 100%. In most areas, the art was off by centimeters. 03. A small grey border issue The repro'ed Sludge is a bit thin in 2 places. Again, it's very minor, but most noticeable around the foot. 04. Name plate fitting Again, VERY minor, but you can see that the wordings are a bit off here. 05. A tiny yellow splatter mark Yeap ... that's all. It's orange in a tile where it's supposed to be red. There are other minor differences, but this is the easiest to spot.
other differences: real sludge's toe is at the very bottom of the box, and the repro has some room between the toe and the bottom of the box. also on the part where his tail splits on the right side (the gold part), there's inner detail with three horizontal lines, and below them is a vertical line. the vertical line is almost completely trimmed off on the original box, where it's clearly visible and much longer on the repro box. the line is almost completely black on the real box, and faded on the repro box. these two changes come from the fact that the art's placement, while almost exactly correct, has been rotated slightly counter-clockwise. also on the gray border of the original, there's a slight angle as it first bends on it's way up from the bottom. there is absolutely no angle on the repro, it's a smooth curve. the silver barrel of his gun on the original is barely touching the gray border as well. on the repro box, the area of the barrel touching the gray border is at least twice as large. hope this helps.
e3 - have you considered having your own site for this? To me, and I'd imagine a lot of other people, this is a var more valuable resource than RiD fan sites and Geocities sites about Beast Wars that never lasted past the first season. Hell, I'd pay for it. Probably.
Thanks Valkysas! I'll take another hard look at the things you pointed out. My Sludge files are at home, so it'll be a bit before any updates to the original post. Thanks for the kind words. I'd never charge. Currently, there are several people interested in hosting this information and I'm all for it. Spread the knowledge, but just ask me first ... and please don't re-crop / resize / hotlink the images. That's not cool and my Photobucket account can't handle it. Eventually, I'd like to link something to my personal Comcast homepage ... but that's way down the road. I'm striving hard to catch up with the repro'ed releases. I'm planning on re-working Optimus Prime first. I have a guide out there, but the images can be a bit better. I'm trying to get these done in an order of eBay impact. Something that will educate in a more relevant fashion. The infamous "Chinese Editions" will be done too. It won't be a specific guide to individual C.E.'s, just an all inclusive work which ID's common issues among all. I'm also building up a knowledge base on the super knockoffs .. .like the ones found at BigLots. That will take some time though.
wow, it looks like this stuff is getting hard to spot with such minor differences. Thanks for your work on these =)
