Repro Boxes: Concerned About These "original Boxes"

[bartzenegger]

hi,

if ypou dont know ... im a big box collector. i love the art and to me it completes the collection.

anyway i have been watching..... many... many "original"boxes popping up on ebay in the last say 3 months. many that i wanted badly. but i just felt like i could be had..

to pay a couple grand for a repro box.... oh man.

 

one seller said "look at the staples" why couldnt you just put old rusted staples on.

on the flip side some of these boxes have been going cheap ( im sure due to also questioning it) . if they are real . oh man!!

i saw a robby space patrol i wanted so bad i would of gave blood for the next 5 yrs to make the money. i think it went for 700.00

[9tobor9]

The trouble with those is that it is nowadays possible to make perfect fakes, that nothing distinguish from real ones ! Paperwise, it is fully possible, that's why they introduced metal & holograms on the euro notes ! It's cool that it isn't as profitable as counterfeit money, or we would be overflooded by ROBVISMMOJCOLIH (really original boxesvintage I swear Mother Mary Mother Of Jesus Christ Our Lord In Heaven).

If you just use paper & cardboard made in the 60's or 70's & inks & colors with the exact chemical composition & with all the techniques offered by modern science of reproduction, I'm sure the experts can be totally fooled.

But then again, the ridiculously high prices some bots & boxes made in the last 10 or 15 years can be a good addition to the pleasure of collecting, but should by no means be the prime reason to collect them !

I get what I do not have because I want it , not because it's worth tenth of thousands. Would there be a find of 2500 Susie the Robette in an atomic shelter tomorrow, & a consecutive drop of 100000% of the value following, I'd still would cherish mine, with all that goes around , how I found it, the people I met doing it, the moments I shared with Henk restoring it & so on......

The robots (or whatever object it is you collect) are wonderfull, but it's their sentimental value that overrules anything else , but I digress............ so grab them while they last Bartz, because it's what you feel doing !!! & frak the value !!!

Philoxris

[Morbius]

Bart, I saw that Robby Space Patrol box, it was a beauty...if legit they brought thousands $$$ years ago, as much or more than the toy. I'd rather see them in person to take in the aroma and the texture to be sure it's legit, who knows if someone's posting 'tea' boxes out there.

I agree they're art unto themselves, have all boxes to the 'bots but 2 or 3 I just couldn't connect with, mostly in-person purchases with the 'bots. :D

[plan3b]

I have to say that I am also a big fan of box art. To me, a robot or space toy can be made even better if it has a great box. Conversely, I'm always bummed out if the box art stinks.

In some ways it's a lost art. My least favorite is if there is simply a picture of the toy on the box. No imagination.

[Phil R]

I personally don't think that individuals would go to the trouble to print new fake boxes. The printing technique would be different. Making them from scanned originals is another matter. Also old cardboard and old paper would be brittle with the acid content and reduced moisture content. As per other members, you can tell the difference in original and scanned repros. The scan will either have flaws from the original in the print or be too perfect from computer correction. The color would also be too bright without a patina. And of course, the aged cardboard. With a little instruction most people can tell the difference. Also refer to tips and IDENTIFYING REPRO BOXES :)

[9tobor9]

Well, I deal in comics, & you wouldn't imagine what scheme people can use to make fake genuine Tintin b/w books. Some of those sell for prices over 10000 bucks ! I agree they are a lot easier to reproduce than a cardboard box, still I 've "lived" surrounded by comics since decades & I've seen, felt, smelled books I could'have sworn were genuine vintage 1950's that were produced in 2007. It's scary what fakers make in fake books , so why couldn't they apply their technique to boxes ??? & of course, we're speaking of printed material, not scanned stuff. Those fakes are definitely not cost efficient, takes a great deal of money & access to material only owned by professionnals of printing, but they definitely do exist & you need the maker to tell you it's a fake because there is no way to tell it apart from an original !! !

Be scared , be very scared, are you even sure I'm genuine ??? I could be a clone...................... :P then , also,you could say I'm a clown, clowns are very scary too......

[The Toyman]

Xris, Bartzenegger, Years ago when the first colour laser printers were introduced there were badly faked Corgi and Dinky boxes everywhere, but things have improved. At my last fair in the UK last year, my friend was considering buying a Corgi Batboat, it was priced at £175.00, the boat (early tin fin version), was 10/10 mint, and so was the box, the only thing wrong with it was that the box was fake, I dragged my friend to one side before he got his wallet out, the dealer swore it was original, it was fake, it was very hard to tell, but it was a fake....I could just tell and it was difficult to explain to my friend how I knew...what's more I'm sure the dealer knew, even though he swore it was original (and that's face to face, not over the internet)

be careful out there...

Noel

[bartzenegger]

Phil I have seen your quality jobs on boxes so I know you

have a good idea of what your talking about. I have seen some

scans and maybe true inked boxes of the originals. And some are

really hard to tell. In fact if you can find the pic of the r space patrol box

Do you think it was real or a fake. Sorry I don't mean to put you

on the spot but it would be nice to see if an expert can confirm it.

of course if it's real. It would be putting salt in my wound.

Thx

[Phil R]

Bart, I appreciate your confidence in my abilities. I have had individuals ask me from time to time whether an items was real or repro. I admit that some items are had to tell. In addition there have been individuals who have reprinted items that are 40 years old instead of 70. I don't see how anyone can tell if an item is real or fake from a photo. It's even hard to determine areas of damage on a photo which people ask me to do and I decline. I can look an item over and determine printing techniques of earlier printing such as combination solid areas and screened patterns when the process was in transition in the 1930s and 40s.

People ask me how I mix paints, etc. It's a lifetime of education and practice that's ingrained in my mind. I just know. Kind of like the master craftsmen who did lithography and engraving. They spent a lifetime honing their craft and it showed in the amazing work they did. You look for aging, print layering and dpi (dots per inch, dots density and pattern) for that time period , patina, scuffing and of course look at it with a magnifying glass or printer's magnifier. Any laser work would have more of a random pattern than dots. Camera copying and separating the 4 color process is possible but the inks would look newer and not have some exposure loss over time like and old original. Any imperfections would also be picked up and printed as such.

Seems like a lot of trouble and cost to go through for the ultimate goal of selling a fake. In the end most people say it's a fake or suspect it's fake and won't shell out the money. It all adds up. Hopefully I answered the question.

[bartzenegger]

well you did . but damn i guess the only way is to dive in as xris said but i hate to buy a fake.

thanks everyone for your posts .

morb i knew you would have seen that r space patrol cuz i know you like boxes too, i cant tell ya how much that one caused me lack of sleep.

toy.... thats what bothers me its getting better and better. some of these sellers may not know its fake or not?

plan.... it really is a lost art. having full size box art in a frame ... should be in an art gallery

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

Bart - so the reason you suspect these boxes is because....

They are going cheap, a large number of box only auctions are popping up, or they look "too good" in the pics? Or all three?

Just curious. Can you post some links to these auctions?

Phil - where can I learn more on identifying repro boxes at the level you discussed?

[jimmiesparks]

The ROBBY SPACE PATROL box was a tough call. My gut was that it was real, but still pretty risky. Most of the phony boxes are easily spotted just in the Ebay pics. The laser copies tend to have a bit of a sheen to the surface where the early actual toy boxes are mostly a dull finish. And then you have the extreme where you have the same creases seen as they exist in another collector's known repro box (the TARGET ROBOT box from the earlier thread).

Like Don, I'm curious what other auctions you're seeing.

And link -

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-1950s-Robby-S...=item4839133b69

[Clunkclick]

Interesting topic. Only true way is forensic analysis and carbon dating. Yes you could use cardboard from the 1950's but you would struggle to find period ink. Some people will fake objects and the motive is not always money. To some its the skill involved in the reproduction and and perhaps the closet satisfaction of kidding EXPERTS. I always use my nose with paper but recently I smelt a new box left in storage and could have sworn it was old. It has that characteristic musty smell which isn't damp if you know what I mean. Once smelt never forgotten.

Fin, many years ago Henk spoke about this. His test was to hold the box at an angle and rub your nail across. I've tried this without much success but then again he was a robot genius! :D

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

On the Mechanized box description, the quote "the ink is right, the paper is right and the wear is right" makes me a little uneasy.

[bartzenegger]

hey fin . ill try to find some pics. some auctions have been over for to long.

mostly its the shear quanity of the boxes coming on with suspect info. i know how the auctions work .... a guy sees a box selling and says ." ooohhh i can sell my box and make a mint and keep my robot."then the quanity goes up for awhile. but i have just felt very uneasy about almost all boxes selling in the last months. i would say i have seen ... maybe 15 or more . normally i would see 5 over the same time frame.

anyway i hope we can figure a way to authenticate these boxes cuz if they are real im going broke.