About those prototype minifigures

hechenb

I saw a lot of prototype minifigures list on Ebay, most of them are from SW... Just wondering are those minifigures are hard to get on hand? how much do they usually worth? And is there anybody can give me some information about these prototypes, I saw so many different kinds of them... red ones... white ones... and mostly orange ones...

DoubleD

From what I heard most of them are fake. But I am not sure.

hechenb

doubledbrick said:

From what I heard most of them are fake. But I am not sure.

Is there anyway to find out if it is fake?

Huw

As a general rule, if the seller is in China they are fake.

CCC

Huw said:

As a general rule, if the seller is in China they are fake.

Unfortunately, that rule can now pretty much be expanded to if the seller is on ebay, then they are fake. Loads of fakes are being imported (from China) and then sold on by UK and US sellers, for example.

Shib

I remember someone on here saying about the figures being recoloured as well, I can't remember if there was any obvious way to tell from a picture.

To be honest I wouldn't want any prototype figures anyways. They don't look good because of the orange colour, so they would just be sat in a display case as a "look how much money I spent on one figure that I can't know for certain is genuine or not."

I get that the completionist/collector mentality draws people to something rare, but frankly there are so many genuine minifigures I don't have yet I'm not about to spend money on potentially fake prototypes that could go towards genuine ones.

CCC

Shib said:

I remember someone on here saying about the figures being recoloured as well, I can't remember if there was any obvious way to tell from a picture.

The Simpsons ones that were in the ebay thread were definitely dyed. Once you have dyed a few parts, you get to realise how the print remains but takes on a little of the dye.

Mojoest

^ I was thinking that I'd seen something on this recently too.
@CCC (there's a similar Star Wars one just above it too)

http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/280830#Comment_280830

*Must have been the real deal though*. I've heard that these prototypes are put together pretty quickly just for review purposes and as such aren't as durable as the final products. And with the listing being ended because the item was lost or broken I can only surmise that the seller must have dropped them. I mean no one would ever try to pass off fakes would they? ;-p

CCC

The hands are also a giveaway. They are made from a different composition of ABS, and don't dye nowhere near as well as other body parts. I left some yellow hands for days in a warm RIT dye bath, and they still didn't go black. Whereas other parts went completely black in minutes.

Zon

Those prototypes look so bad, and I hate that some people actually bought some.

Unfortunately, with the surge of fakes on eBay, a lot of people are skeptical of buying loose minifigs, and rightfully so.

Sad times.

hechenb

Thx guys！ @Huw @CCC @Mojoest @Shib Does anybody have any real deal's pics? or see any real ones list on ebay?

madforLEGO

Most sellers selling knockoffs or fakes list the as 'custom' or 'not lego' or just happen to omit 'LEGO' and instead use brick/block/ building etc instead.
Because that way they cannot really get booted or in trouble because they can say it is 'custom'.
Only if they say they are 'LEGO' can they be nailed for copyright infringement I believe, so most avoid using LEGO but will still list them as a category of 'LEGO' and use terms like brick/block/NOT LEGO etc.

CCC

^ That is true, and is an easy way to spot clones / fakes of real lego minifigs.

The prototypes though are all genuine parts, but the seller makes up a story about how they use a certain colour to test the molding, and has dyed a regular fig that colour.

You should always ask yourself, if they are testing the molding, then why are they printing on it, using a very strange non-lego colour print. Why not use the actual print or no print at all. Why even build the entire minifig to test the mold? The legs, torsos, etc do not change from minifig to minifig, only the print. So why would they need to test the molds repeatedly? Testing the print is understandable, but for that they would test the proper print, not a faded / washed out colour like you get after you have died the part.

Mojoest

^^ I wonder whether they use terms like 'not lego' or 'compatible with lego', just so that the word lego is in there and so anyone searching for it, find their listing and so might be tempted to buy it.

This is where the implied Boolean operator, (yeah sounds good doesn't it :-D. Truth is I knew it was something to do with a Boolean something and had to look the rest up ;-p) of '-' comes in. When the bootleg s become just too much, e.g. when searching for SH figs I will alway add '-custom' and '-compatible' to my search in an attempt to filter some of the rubbish out.

leg0fan

yeah got to be carful when buying anything Lego on eBay especially minifigs

madforLEGO

Mojoest said:

^^ I wonder whether they use terms like 'not lego' or 'compatible with lego', just so that the word lego is in there and so anyone searching for it, find their listing and so might be tempted to buy it.

This is where the implied Boolean operator, (yeah sounds good doesn't it :-D. Truth is I knew it was something to do with a Boolean something and had to look the rest up ;-p) of '-' comes in. When the bootleg s become just too much, e.g. when searching for SH figs I will alway add '-custom' and '-compatible' to my search in an attempt to filter some of the rubbish out.

You can also report those to eBay as browser manipulation as 'not lego' is a keyword spam. As to whether eBay actually does anything, who knows.

hechenb

CCC said:

^ That is true, and is an easy way to spot clones / fakes of real lego minifigs.

The prototypes though are all genuine parts, but the seller makes up a story about how they use a certain colour to test the molding, and has dyed a regular fig that colour.

You should always ask yourself, if they are testing the molding, then why are they printing on it, using a very strange non-lego colour print. Why not use the actual print or no print at all. Why even build the entire minifig to test the mold? The legs, torsos, etc do not change from minifig to minifig, only the print. So why would they need to test the molds repeatedly? Testing the print is understandable, but for that they would test the proper print, not a faded / washed out colour like you get after you have died the part.

Do you know how to identify if the minifigure has been dyed or not?