Bulgarian rubbish!
 

Hi Guys,

I hope no one here is buying this reproduction rubbish!

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/radovpet/...p2047675.l2562

This is all coming out of Bulgaria and sold on eBay from locations such as Bulgaria, France, Sweden and now the Czech Republic.

The scary thing is that they are getting better - the Aussie repros he has done look good on the back (including a maker's mark) but they appear to have the wrong lugs.

The badges also appear to be artificially aged.

These idiots are also doing Canadian badges and its just going to make it even harder now to differentiate the good stuff from this dross.

Shame Interpol don't jump on them.

Anyway, enough of a rant. Caveat Emptor!

Mick

I think we should start forging Bulgarian antiquities and flooding their market, see how they like it.

I think you have every right to rant... copies like that have done a lot of damage to collectors' confidence over the years.

I note that he doesn't say they are 'genuine'... and there are loads of them at $25 a throw... so I suppose his defence is that he's not represented them as period struck originals? Is that why eBay allows this to go on (I presume that his listings have been reported as being at least potentially misleading)?

Mark

I have certainly reported him and encourage others to do the same.

My feeling is eBay won't do anything as they seem to only be interested if its a fake designer hand bag or some other big brand.

Mick

They are already copying things in Bulgaria and flogging them off as originals to locals in their markets!

My mate's wife is from Sofia and he saw this first hand when he last visited his inlaws. Seems they have no qualms about even ripping of their own people!

Just as well you've got your finger on the pulse Mick. I don't collect rising suns but wouldn't have known these were bad if I'd been looking for a badge board header or something. Thanks for that.

As Mick says, the copies are getting better. The Canadian material is troubling. It has been suggested that the copiers are buying a good example through ebay then use it as the template. Add Macedonia and Greece to the sales locations.

They are also doing police badges, Royal Irish Constabulary being one of them.

They have been buying originals from eBay - mate of mine inadvertently sold them a badge a while ago.

I guess the message should be to all collectors that do be extremely careful of all UK, Aussie, Canadian badges coming out of countries in Europe where you would not expect to find these badges.

Most likely it will be a fake.

Mick

Has anyone bought one for a closer look? (inadvertently or otherwise)

I was wondering how they get that finnish. - it looks spray painted on this one:
Rising sun badge


Tank Corps is the same, they've missed a bit at the bottom of the reverse.

Note how the camel corp and rising Suns, tiptaft with sliders seem to selling. Won't be long till they're being sold in Australia as originals. Very sad 😡

Yes, Scotch makes a very important point.

So long as they are being sold from "unusual" locations it effectively flags up a warning. Once they start being shipped over to the supposed countries of origin for sale then a lot of collectors are going to get ripped off.

David

It is interesting that most of (if not all) of these rip off sellers have (using the eBay system) configured their account so as to prevent you asking them a question. There is a guy on eBay UK who sells and has done exactly the same thing. I don't know why eBay provides the ability to do this. They simply aid and abet these dodgy sellers. I mean, why would an honest seller not wish to answer a question from a prospective buyer? Fairly obvious is it not...........? The bottom line is that if a guy does not want to talk to you then don't buy from him. Even though you may have had no intention of doing so in the first place!

Dave.

While not attempting in any way to mitigate these shysters, at least they accept returns - which I see a growing number of UK based sellers do not.

And it possibly gets worse!

A couple of years ago I traded emails with a dealer from Bulgaria over a deal that I believed to be dodgy. In the course of the exchange I managed to learn that he had sent badges to Queensland Whether correct or not I don't know but I got the distinct impression that they were possibly job lots intended for resale.



I Man