Are these all fakes?

EDIT: So after looking up many more pics on the internet, I feel like these are probably real. The pyramid shapes on the stare are short and fat and not too defined and I see that many pins do have raised parts and aren't just imprints like they should be on vynilmations. Sorry for my newbishness!! But I also feel lots better knowing the booth people that seemed so nice, actually were nice and honest cool pin people and not unscrupulous salespeople. (Of course, if I am wrong and these are in fact not real, please feel free to burst my bubble and let me know). Gah! I collect vinyl Pop!s and can spot those counterfeits! Thus far they are not nearly as good as these savvy pins fakes seems to be. I do want to thank the forum for the information provided here. Saved me from buying pins from an unscrupulous ebay seller today by reading feedback on them.


So I am a REALLY new collector. I just got into it a few weeks ago when I went to Wondercon and saw the huge Disney Pin Booth and fell in love with all the cool pins. I bought a few that I liked and then held off to research bout pin collecting more. I've been reading through these really helpful forums and focussing on the counterfeits section to educate myself before getting any pins off eBay. After reading everything I looked at my pins I bought from the con and now think they might all be fakes? I'd like to think not, I'd hate to think an entire gigantic booth was dedicated to selling fake pins to people at a con. I'd much rather it just be my own inexperience in telling real from fake pins.

Here are the pics of the pins I bought. At first I thought they were all fine because the Mickey pattern on the back goes to the edge with no weird lip/outline. BUT THEN after reading more I found out about the mold versus imprint thing and saw that all my pins have a raised edge around the copyright info. And the stem of them is a single join at the end versus multi ridged. Or are those things just for indicating the Vinylmation fakes?

So what do you experts think? Are these real or are they all fakes? (Sorry for large photos, wanted to show the detail). Thanks for any help! (Also, if you know of the booth I'm talking about that was at Wondercon and it is actually legitimate/you know the people/you run the booth, no offense intended! The booth people seemed very nice. I just have no clue what I'm doing yet being so new. For all I know these are perfectly real and the booth is super duper legitimate and run by people from this site. I don't remember the name of the booth at the con unfortunately. I'm just trying to train my eye to see what is real and what is phony before dropping money on eBay pins) Thank you very much!

Sometimes it helps to post pics of both the front and the back There may be tell-tale signs on either side of a pin

Dalamara said:

Sometimes it helps to post pics of both the front and the back There may be tell-tale signs on either side of a pin

Click to expand...

^Agreed!^

But from my experience, pins like the first one that have the printed serial number are usually authentic. I have yet to see a scrapper with a serial number like that, but there might be since the creators of scrappers are getting more and more detailed. So yes, that first one is likely authentic, but it would help to see the front as well.

Here are some more pics, including the backs of the rest, and some photos of the fronts. My Time to Trade glows like it should in the dark, does that also make it more likely it is authentic? Or do the counterfeiters also duplicate such features with ease?

Also, thanks for the tip about the printed serial numbers! Seems like these pins are checking out which makes me super excited because if I find that booth again at the cons, I know I can buy with additional confidence. Part of what had me worried was their prices were so reasonable! They had pin sections with pins for for $2, $3, $5, then special pins with their own price. These were all $2-$5 pins at their booth. Really amazing deal. I hope they'll be at San Diego Comic Con this year now!

A picture of the glow

That "Time to Trade" pin is really cool. You found some nice pins at a good price.

On the Stitch nerd pin, is the enamel in the ears smooth or wavy? It's hard to tell if what I'm seeing is a reflection or some serious gouges.

My experience is that the makers of scrappers try to get it as close to real as possible, but they tend to stick to the easier pins to replicate. So pins like that glow in the dark and the "steampunkish" stitch are less likely to be replicated by scrappers simply due to the level of difficulty and effort necessary to make them. Does that make sense? It seems like you got good pins for a great price!

I can't say for certain but the colors on your pins look good, so I don't *think* most of them are fakes. I've seen fakes of a few, like toddler Prince Eric, but the fakes are usually paler/blurrier or tend to have a yellow-greenish hue (if that makes any sense). I'm not sure if it's the camera lighting/angle, but it looks like there are dips on the nerd Stitch? That doesn't mean it's fake (lately, many real authentic Disney pins have dips), but it's iffy.

Nerd Stitches ears are perfectly smooth, I just got a funky reflection on them. This all sounds like good news! Hopefully I'll be able to find that booth again at future cons because they really did have great prices! Thanks everyone for weighing in on them

The mechanical stitch is real. I have that pin which I got from the disneystore.co.uk and it is identical to mine.

The backside looks good on all of them. Fakes or scrappers tend to have a border along the back edging. Authentic pins show the mickey head stamping falling off the edges, just like yours. I think you got a good batch. congrats!