Scrappers, counterfeits, etc. in my eBay pins

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Well, DH and I made the fatal mistake of looking REALLY closely at our pins tonight. We have wrong back stamps, rough surfaces, crummy paint, all sorts of unpleasantness. The majority of them can be traced back to a single eBay seller. My fault for not looking at the closed auctions and asking myself if a person in that particular region of the country would really have all those pins. (Seller lives nowhere near the parks.) Grrrr!

So far our "fakes" include the Chip & Dale Dole Whip, Zebra Dome, Popcorn and Kitchen Sink (2 of those, actually), a purple monorail, a Tinkerbell in a purple frame, and several DL Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan cast lanyard pins that the back stamps aren't listed on PinPics. Several of them we realized are scrappers because we bought duplicates from another seller and it is painfully obvious which ones are "real" and which ones are not!

I have no idea what we will do with all the stupid scrapper pins! Really, really be careful with those eBay auctions. We have at least 15 that I suspect are scrappers (or counterfeit, or something) and I paid at least $2 each for them. Next time I will just flush some money down the toilet and save the cost of shipping!

 

[agnes!]

Sorry to hear that. I have a fantasy/scrapper pin that has Stitch, McDonald's, & a Coke bottle on it, but I actually kind of like it even though I know it isn't authentic. When I traded for it I kind of thought it wasn't quite "right", so the trade doesn't bother me too much.

That stinks about that particular eBay seller, though. Having 15 pins that you can't trade...it's the not being able to "trade" the pins that would be upsetting to me. Is there any way you could scan the backs of these fakes & post the pics here or maybe send the info in to PinPics?

I'm sure other DIS'ers who frequent The Collectors' Forum would like to see what these fakes look like.

agnes!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I am worthless at computer stuff. This computer is new, and while it has the photo imaging software I do not know how to use it. I do need to e-mail PinPics and let them know what we found.

For the most part the silver outlines on the scrappers are too thick and shiny - they make the features of the characters kind of blurry. The surface is rough - if you run your finger across the fakes they just feel different. The Chip & Dale Dole Whip pins are completely different colors, but they are BOTH scrappers. The copyright says D SNEY. So obviously we bought scrappers from more than one seller because there were not 2 of those pins in that lot. The 2006 Chip & Dale Zebra Dome should NOT have a gap between Chip and the edge of the dome - only the earlier one has the gap. We have one real and one scrapper of that pin. The fake purple monorail says "4 of 4" on the back stamp. It should say either 3 of 4 OR 7 of 8. We have 2 real and 1 fake.

I am really irritated about the Chip & Dale pins because I was planning to keep them. Now I have pins I can't trade and don't want to keep! I suppose at this point I could compile a whole set of scrapper Chip & Dales, just for grins.

 

[cinderellacm2000]

Please send a note to ebay too!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I looked at some of the sellers' other auctions and she never says the pins are "authentic" or not scrappers, so I don't know if eBay can do anything about it.

I sent an e-mail to PinPics and they said the scrappers are so rampant that they have given up trying to track them! They said I can go in and make a note of the wrong back stamps on the pin pages where it says "add info". I have not had a chance to do that yet.

I can not stress to you all how important it is to look at the sellers' other items and completed auctions. If a seller has the same set of 5 cast lanyard pins that they have sold 100 times in the past 30 days then they are NOT going to be pins from the parks. They will be pins off the factory floor in China. Maybe some will look good enough to trade, but maybe they won't. As always, buyer beware!!

 

[cinderellacm2000]

That is an excellent point! It just infuriates me that so many of these scrapper-sellers are taking the newbie traders for granted.l I would appreciate it if you could IM me the seller so I can also steer clear of any of their stuff. I don't want myself or my kiddos to support that person's financial well being. Aragh!

 

[meandtheguys2]

That is so rude! I would be so upset!

 

[PolyGuy]

My question is why can't you trade them? Since you said you had to match it up against others to tell if it was real or a scrapper, how will a CM know and tell you its not tradeable ? You probably just don't want another unsuspecting person to get them off the CM's lanyard, and if so, you are to be commended.

Also, PM me the seller also. Want to steer clear, even tho probably most of my pins are scrappers and I don't even know it.

 

[asianway]

Hmmmmm, the person wouldnt be from Chicago would they???

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

PolyGuy - I don't want to be the one who puts scrappers on the CM lanyards, even though I am sure the CM lanyards are already flooded with scrappers from people who just don't know any better. I can't begin to imagine how many pins get sold on eBay every day, and how many purchases are newbies buying pins to trade in the parks.

The seller is not from Chicago. I don't think we have purchased any pins from sellers in Chicago.

I am not comfortable telling the seller's name, even through PMs. Sorry! But really, that one seller is just one of many selling huge quantities of cast lanyard pins. My advice is simply to do a bit of investigating before you bid. Look at the seller's other auctions and closed auctions to see if they have 500 of the same cast lanyard pin. If they do, you might think twice! If you aren't sure what the pin should look like check PinPics and e-mail the seller to see if the back stamp is correct. If they lie about the back stamp at least you would have grounds to file a complaint. It might be wise to look for sellers who specifically say "NO SCRAPPERS".

The back stamp info for cast lanyard pins from DL on PinPics is sketchy, so we have about 19 of those that I can't determine if the back stamp is correct or not. DH and I have decided that changing the back stamp from "cast lanyard" to "hidden Mickey" was a REALLY foolish thing to do, because now the authentic pins have multiple back stamps. The dishonest sellers must be having a field day! With so many variations it is going to be next to impossible to keep up with the fakes. There are pins with the copyright from one year and the other back stamp info from another year - sorting them out is tedious! I am going to do my best to pull all of the scrappers out of our "trader" bags, which means going through about 150 pins and checking them on PinPics. I wish I had been more careful to begin with, but too late now!

 

[Luv2Roam]

Well, you can do what I do what defective or broken pins -- I use them as push pins. Very cute.
I am sure I have some in my collection. (And I know I have traded some from CM lanyards.) When they are for my personal collection it really does not matter so much to me.
I love finding bootleg pins on CM lanyards. (Which happens rarely. But it makes my day since they cannot be traded on Pinpics.)

 

[cinderellacm2000]

I must confess- I never thought of that!

(Frantically sorting pins and seeking any questionable ones...)

Thank you for a great idea!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Well, you can do what I do what defective or broken pins -- I use them as push pins. Very cute.
I am sure I have some in my collection. (And I know I have traded some from CM lanyards.) When they are for my personal collection it really does not matter so much to me.
I love finding bootleg pins on CM lanyards. (Which happens rarely. But it makes my day since they cannot be traded on Pinpics.)

I agree that for the most part I wouldn't care if the pins were ones I was going to keep. On the other hand, I am mad that I got sucked into a 40 pin lot of basically worthless pins. I wasn't going to keep all 40!

My biggest worry now is that we will go to WDW in August and trade off our 100+ Disney Store pins (which I know are authentic because I bought them at the mall my own personal self! ) and get home with 100+ counterfeits. I think that might be enough to make me write a letter to Disney. Aside from carrying a laptop through the parks to check the authenticity of every pin I don't see how to avoid that! Of course if we just trade for pins that we want to keep then I guess it isn't that horrible if they are "fake" as long as we have fun trading. You all can see how I waffle on this!