Can triangle/line patterns on some backs show authenticity?
Yesterday my wife and I were out late in front of Little Green Men trading pins at one of the tables, and three separate times someone came up with a big bag of pins in a ziplock baggie. After cringing/rolling our eyes, we took a look at them and very politely very carefully explained to them that their pins were fakes, and told them about the things we had learned, about scrappers vs. fakes and borders from DisneyDan, and the fact that a lot of fakes are a lot thinner (compared to the identical but real pin), or have very rough edges, misspellings, etc. They were very sad, and one couple actually got mad at us for not trading with them. I'm going to have to make and hand out flyers to people about this, I swear. Anyway, I digress.
The point is, while looking last night, my wife Jessica noticed something about a couple of hidden mickey pins we were looking at, and we wanted to see if anyone can see the same thing or has noticed the difference. I read somewhere that sometimes when fakes are made, they take a mold of the front and back of a real pin to create their molds from, but when that happens they lose about 10% of the detail from the pin. Most of the time, fakes are flat 2D pins and it does not make as much difference on the front, but it shows on the back. Sometimes the ODPT seal is fuzzy or what not, but in particular, we saw an interesting pattern on a couple of pins that we purchased in the store, and the more we looked at hidden mickeys in our collection, the more we started to see this. Take a look:
This is a back of a good pin we bought in a pack. Take a look at the box that says "HIdden Mickey Pin 1 of 6" as well as inside the ears. Here it is as more of a close up:
If you look close, you can see a very interesting pattern comprised of vertical lines accompanied by two triangles on the right and left. Also, there is definitely a series of nested ovals inside the ears on the seal if you look real close. When we compared this to pins that we KNEW were fakes (i.e. came out of various eBay baggies people had), we definitely noticed this pattern was MISSING! The lines are so faint and detailed, they really seem like they could be something lost in the mold reproduction process mentioned above.
Anyone out there agree? Could someone take a look at a few pins, maybe fakes versus known genuine pins, and see if this is the case? The only pins I can really find these on are hidden mickeys, 2008 and younger, but if I can help find a way to identify a real hidden mickey pin from the 80% plus fakes/scrappers floating around the park, I might just be able to sleep a little better at night.
Tell me what you think!!!
The point is, while looking last night, my wife Jessica noticed something about a couple of hidden mickey pins we were looking at, and we wanted to see if anyone can see the same thing or has noticed the difference. I read somewhere that sometimes when fakes are made, they take a mold of the front and back of a real pin to create their molds from, but when that happens they lose about 10% of the detail from the pin. Most of the time, fakes are flat 2D pins and it does not make as much difference on the front, but it shows on the back. Sometimes the ODPT seal is fuzzy or what not, but in particular, we saw an interesting pattern on a couple of pins that we purchased in the store, and the more we looked at hidden mickeys in our collection, the more we started to see this. Take a look:
This is a back of a good pin we bought in a pack. Take a look at the box that says "HIdden Mickey Pin 1 of 6" as well as inside the ears. Here it is as more of a close up:
If you look close, you can see a very interesting pattern comprised of vertical lines accompanied by two triangles on the right and left. Also, there is definitely a series of nested ovals inside the ears on the seal if you look real close. When we compared this to pins that we KNEW were fakes (i.e. came out of various eBay baggies people had), we definitely noticed this pattern was MISSING! The lines are so faint and detailed, they really seem like they could be something lost in the mold reproduction process mentioned above.
Anyone out there agree? Could someone take a look at a few pins, maybe fakes versus known genuine pins, and see if this is the case? The only pins I can really find these on are hidden mickeys, 2008 and younger, but if I can help find a way to identify a real hidden mickey pin from the 80% plus fakes/scrappers floating around the park, I might just be able to sleep a little better at night.
Tell me what you think!!!
