counterfeit products

[bootstrapbill]

How can you tell if you have bought counterfeit GW products? I think I might have been suckered by someone on eBay

[DeathsHead]

They would be a lot cheaper would be my guess, and if the seller is located in China or Russia would be another clue.

[bootstrapbill]

I think its the plastic, it is a way lighter gray than normal

[WH40kgamer]

Right around the time that the new Grotesque models came out I bought a bunch on eBay for almost half price. When they arrived they were out of blister and not on sprues. They were the worst Finecast I have ever seen, took me on average of 2 hours to build each model. They had huge potholes in them and had bad breaks in the worst places.

I thought these were possibly counterfeit, but in the end I almost think they were the miscasts of the first batch of FineCRAP that GW was experimenting with. I asked the guy selling them where he got them and he never replied.

I will never buy a Finecast model except from the local gaming store from now on as I can buy it, open it and inspect it right there and pick out a different one if it is in really bad shape and at the moment GW is ok with this concept and backs their products 100% as long as you have a receipt from a legitimate store.

[bladeofdeath3]

GW's finecast was very miss when they first came out. I've been pretty lucky and all my finecast stuff is good. What did you buy which leads you to this conclusion? There are several manufacturers out there who make stuff that looks like GW but is not.

[DAPHEEL]

If it helps, I find G.W. plastic varies in shades from year to year, I've got piles of vehicle accesory sprues that are all sorts of shades of grey.

[Captainparty]

I think its the plastic, it is a way lighter gray than normal

3rd ed models sometimes used a much lighter grey plastic, I have some Orks and Space Marines from that era that are almost whiter, plastic models are much harder to counterfit, if it was resin, it would be possible, but plastic, its unlikely really, it requires a massively expensive mould and machining process from form plastic models, the set up costs would be too high for an ebayying counterfitter.

[Wolfshade]

One way is to look at the model lines.
If the model lines are not in the right place, then that is a sure fire way of them being re-cast from a GW original. Sometimes this might result in two model lines being shown, the one from the original GW master and the other as a result of the re-casting process

[dave1032]

The counterfeited models have different shades of grey, while GW models are all a consistent shade, although some older models are a bit lighter grey.

[Captainparty]

The counterfeited models have different shades of grey, while GW models are all a consistent shade, although some older models are a bit lighter grey.

GW has used a variety of greys through out the years, as stated earlier in the thread, its been darker than it currently is too

[bootstrapbill]

from what I can tell there is only one mold line, so I'm think they a the real deal

[artfcllyflvrd]

Counterfeiting plastics would be very hard and would probably cost a lot more money that anyone could make off it.

I have purchased some second hand forgeworld stuff online that I think was counterfeited. But the material is different, the casting methods are different, and the margins are a lot higher.

If you’re worried about it just don’t buy anything that doesn’t come with original packaging.

[frommage]

This would be least a problem if GW prices was more reasonnable. As casting technique improve and price go down for production (including labor for some countries), your are going to see more and more counterfits on the market. Eventually, this is a problem that GW will have to adress. Just on E-Bay most of these guys openly break the laws and E-Bay does notting to discourage them, cause in the end they're big money makers for a diminished E-Bay.

[bethor]

I've bought knock offs on ebay from a few different sellers. Most, once painted are indistinguishable from forgeworld or GW. The medal models have been near perfect. As far as the resin's are concerned, stay away from china: its heavy, smells terrible (it'll make your eyes burn when you open the box). I got a russian contemptor to go with my FW one, and its much better. If you set the two painted next to each other you wouldn't be able to tell which is which.

[Zuul]

As previous posters have stated the plastic GW has used over the years has varied form yellowish in the rouge trader days, to various shades of grey, and even blues, reds, and yellows which were used in special games produced over the years.

I would also like to point out the unlikelihood of a counterfeiter producing counterfeit plastic parts as the startup cost is astronomical, with each sprue mould costing thousands of dollars on top of the cost of the injection moulding machine. These cost leave counterfeiters producing in resin and metal which while having more expensive materials, have drastically cheaper and accessible tooling.

So, if you get a part made out of resin or metal that is normally from plastic: counterfit.
If you are getting "forgeworld" from some place like russia, china, or hong kong at a low price: counterfit.
If you have parts that should be plastic and are plastic: probably, most likely genuine.

[inquisitorsog]

This would be least a problem if GW prices was more reasonnable. As casting technique improve and price go down for production (including labor for some countries), your are going to see more and more counterfits on the market. Eventually, this is a problem that GW will have to adress. Just on E-Bay most of these guys openly break the laws and E-Bay does notting to discourage them, cause in the end they're big money makers for a diminished E-Bay.

What an idealistic view! As long as GW makes a profit, there will be counterfeiters, especially for the metal or resin products as those are dead simple to copy.

While we may all cringe at GWs pricing, the simple fact is that their financial statements do not bear out the notion that they are overcharging. They show about 11-12% net on their sales. That's not at all unreasonable. Sure, they're a big evil company, but at least they haven't sold their soul to the offshoring devil yet.