Pin 171: WDW Pin Of the Month - Disneyland Comparison
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So way back in 2001, there was discussion about this pin being faked. This series was highly desired, until Disney started mucking around with the edition sizes. I dug around and found a thread from the Collector's forum from the Disboards from 2002. You can see my post about how I acquired this pin.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=2518356
This summer, my parents were garage-saleing in the Orlando area and found a sale by a former WDW CM. My mom is a CM, so they got to talking and I have no reason to doubt the story relayed, that this CM got a little caught up in pin trading during the first couple months, but then she never really did anything with it. She had the small pin trading bag, and 2-3 copies of some of the original LE pins, all on original cards, some still in their plastic sealed packages, when they would sell out without needing to completely unwrap them. So I am confident in the authenticity of these pins. One of these pins was the Disneyland POM.
The interesting thing about this comparison is that it not only has fake vs authentic differences. It also shows a little about Disney's own quality control. So pictures!
The authentic pin is on the left, and the fake is on the right. I have highlighted the 2 most obvious discrepancies.
First, in the blue ring, is the obvious differences in the pinks. There are other color differences, but they are not so different to really show up in a photograph. The white sky has a yellowish cast on the fake, the grey section has a purplish cast on the fake.
Second, in the blue ring I have highlighted some of the spire elements. You will notice that they are yellow on the authentic but white on the fake.
I'll also point out out some production flaws in the authentic. There is a paint dip on the right side, and the dot in the I in Disneyland is grey and not red. Like, I mentioned the original owner had 2 of these pins. This one I took, even though there were these issues, because the other one had a pretty significant scratch. At this point, I wish I had borrowed the other pin (it's in my parent's collection now) to see if these areas had the same errors or not. But I can check in May.
Back of pins
Authentic is on top, fake on the bottom. On the authentic pin, the surface in the box is pretty smooth, but on the fake, there is a bunch of pitting, especially around the dot that separates month and January. Also, it seemed like the gold back was a little more yellowish in tone, shinier, but that was hard to photograph.
So, I hope this is helpful. Looking back, at my original acquisition story, I should have been more suspicious of a person selling a whole bag full (20+ pins) of HTF pins without backing cards. But in 2001, the idea of counterfeiting a Disney trading pin seemed kind of silly.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=2518356
This summer, my parents were garage-saleing in the Orlando area and found a sale by a former WDW CM. My mom is a CM, so they got to talking and I have no reason to doubt the story relayed, that this CM got a little caught up in pin trading during the first couple months, but then she never really did anything with it. She had the small pin trading bag, and 2-3 copies of some of the original LE pins, all on original cards, some still in their plastic sealed packages, when they would sell out without needing to completely unwrap them. So I am confident in the authenticity of these pins. One of these pins was the Disneyland POM.
The interesting thing about this comparison is that it not only has fake vs authentic differences. It also shows a little about Disney's own quality control. So pictures!
The authentic pin is on the left, and the fake is on the right. I have highlighted the 2 most obvious discrepancies.
First, in the blue ring, is the obvious differences in the pinks. There are other color differences, but they are not so different to really show up in a photograph. The white sky has a yellowish cast on the fake, the grey section has a purplish cast on the fake.
Second, in the blue ring I have highlighted some of the spire elements. You will notice that they are yellow on the authentic but white on the fake.
I'll also point out out some production flaws in the authentic. There is a paint dip on the right side, and the dot in the I in Disneyland is grey and not red. Like, I mentioned the original owner had 2 of these pins. This one I took, even though there were these issues, because the other one had a pretty significant scratch. At this point, I wish I had borrowed the other pin (it's in my parent's collection now) to see if these areas had the same errors or not. But I can check in May.
Back of pins
Authentic is on top, fake on the bottom. On the authentic pin, the surface in the box is pretty smooth, but on the fake, there is a bunch of pitting, especially around the dot that separates month and January. Also, it seemed like the gold back was a little more yellowish in tone, shinier, but that was hard to photograph.
So, I hope this is helpful. Looking back, at my original acquisition story, I should have been more suspicious of a person selling a whole bag full (20+ pins) of HTF pins without backing cards. But in 2001, the idea of counterfeiting a Disney trading pin seemed kind of silly.