Hi I wanted to let everyone know about the afa graded sludge that was on ebay that was a possible knock off. The thread for this was http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-ebay/306323-dinobot-sludge-afa-bootleg-ebay.html The Sludge has returned from AFA and I have confirmed the following: -The AFA case was a knockoff and is now in AFA hands as they wanted the case for their information. -The Sludge is a genuine item in a sealed box and has been graded as a AFA 80. I was extremely happy with the result and has boosted my confidence with AFA grading. I wanted to let everyone know as I do not want to be seen as a Dodge seller and to resolve this matter once and for all. Let me know you comments.
Glad AFA stepped in and resolved the problem. I think everybody knows who the real scammer was. *I see you are selling that Barrage I sold you.*
Yes I am looking at selling Barrage on ebay. I have listed him on Transformers G1 AFA 80 Barrage MISB - eBay Generation 1, Transformers, Action Figures, Toys, Hobbies. (end time 24-Aug-10 07:39:05 AEST) If anyone is interested, please bid. Thank you for your comments da last 2 walk.
So the Sludge was genuine, but the plastic container was fake. Odd. If you're gonna fake something like that, why use a real figure?
Yeah, that does seem weird. Makes one wonder how the MISB Sludge was acquired. Theft of some kind? Odds are the Sludge wasn't obtained legally.
I can speculate a reason why, but I assure you that the China guy has his reasons. He's a professional scammer, and I'm surprised that nobody has went to China to pay him a visit.
I'm guessing he "purchased" a MISB Sludge off of eBay and then claimed he never got the item (but in reality, he did). Probably took advantage of some poor seller.
I agree with this analysis. it has always bugged that the way Ebay and Paypal are set it seemingly makes easy to pull that sort of scam. I am glad it was all sorted out and the fake case is out of circulation.
Yeah it's odd, but maybe explainable. I've heard from several reliable sources that the guy who made these fakes is Jon (I believe that's his name) from CSG, the company that was trying to compete with AFA. At some point, he was doing "experiments" with AFA, like sending in restored items and seeing what they would or would not reject, as well as replicating AFA labels. This is probably one of his left-over experiments, a legit Sludge in a fake AFA case with a fake AFA label. At a certain point he started scamming people by listing items he didn't own on Ebay under the username "estatehunter123". Around the same time he offered some of his experiments for sale to buyers he knew, some of whom realized the items were fake or restored. So basically, it could have been that he was simply trying to replicate an AFA-graded item as a baseline for how to do CSG cases, but as time went on, and he eventually lost his moral compass, he sold/gave the item to Jun in China (girltf). That Jun had so many fakes suggests that he may have been in on the scam, but who knows, maybe he got scammed too. If I got any of that wrong, someone can shoot me a PM and I'll amend it.
There have been other AFA fakes from China, and they had ties to Jun. I believe both Jon & Jun made fakes.
I think it's possible, but I think it's equally possible Jon just sold him a bunch of fake stuff. Is there any reason to think it's more likely Jun made his fakes rather than getting them from Jon? I think with this particular fake, it's more likely that Jon made it, given that the item inside is, if we believe AFA, a real 80-quality Sludge. I believe there's no reason anyone would do that unless they were doing "experiments". Just my opinion, of course.
Yes, but I would need to get into too much detail as to why it would be Jun. I believe Jun started making them after Jon sold him some fakes. However, I'm not saying that it couldn't have been Jon. It came from one of them!
I was also told AFA were looking at taking legal action on the person or people involved. I do hope they can get the people who do this. I was just fortunate the Sludge was genuine and gradable.
I wouldn't go that far. A few bad apples definitely make vintage collecting hard. However, not every vintage seller is a scammer. Heck, I'm sure there is only a fraction of TF sellers trying to fool bidders/buyers. I'm just glad the Sludge, according to AFA, is authentic. That's a big silver lining to this cloud.