How to make sure Flutter wings are original?

[Nella]

Ok, I know there are real-looking reproductions of the flutter wings. How can you make sure they are original? What's the thing to look at?

[Baby Sugarberry]

The tabs, mostly.  Repo's have white tabs if I remember right, while originals (first style) are coloured to match the pony they went with.  Not sure about second releases, the ones with the oversized clear bits that didn't really fix the fragility problem.

[Nella]

Do you happen to know if there are comparison pictures?

[Nella]

What are these:
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[Baby Sugarberry]

Those look like repos to me, bit hard to tell with the poor exposure but they're either reproductions or all from Honeysuckle (if pale pink, and that seems *really* far fetched that there'd be four perfect intact sets from her alone.)

[Nella]

According to the seller they are white and original.

[Taffeta]

There are no white flutters, and so no white tabs.
This is one of the reasons I am not in favour of repro wings and repro things that look so close to the original. People start selling them as authentic...whether by error or by design.

In any case, unless the white tabs got fixed by someone to old wings to repair them (and one of them looks a little like that happened), I'd say they're not real.

The 2nd year ones have clear tabs. They slot in and out more easily than the first year ones, but are definitely not white.
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[Baby Sugarberry]

There are NO original flutter pony wings with white tabs.  None.  They're reproductions.

[LadyMoondancer]

They're reproductions.    Real flutter wings will either have tabs that match the body color of the flutter OR (for later flutters) will have a kind of thick, translucent plastic base.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Taffeta, I have to disagree with you on that. Reproductions of wings and other such things are quite the boon to people who want complete things but official replacements are rare, extra-pricy, or both. I think the solution to the potential of fraud is for makers of repro parts to brand them as such. Which the maker of these repros kind of has via the telltale white tabs.

[Carrehz]

Mmmhm, that's my thoughts on repro stuff, too. As long as it has *something* to clearly denote it as a reproduction and not the real deal, I'm fine with it and see no harm with it.

[Skeen]

The white tabbed repros seem to be the most prevalent but there is another style that is out there and looks great too.  They more resemble the second set wings with the extra thick folded over clear tabs, except Hasbro originals have curved tabs like in Taffeta's pic (see how the tab looks like a quarter of a circle?), whereas the repros are cut straight across. 

EDIT - the ones in your pic, OP, are 100% repros.  Point your seller to this thread and run a search for others.  They're definitely not original, sucks if the seller was told they are. 

[Taffeta]

Taffeta, I have to disagree with you on that. Reproductions of wings and other such things are quite the boon to people who want complete things but official replacements are rare, extra-pricy, or both. I think the solution to the potential of fraud is for makers of repro parts to brand them as such. Which the maker of these repros kind of has via the telltale white tabs.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have any issue with people who want to fill gaps in their collection that way. I don't do it myself (although I do have one repro shell because I needed a stand for Sea Breeze so maybe I am a little bit a hypocrite), but I understand why people do it.

The problem is that if you have repros that look similar to the real items then you get things like this. It doesn't matter if the tabs have difference from the original, the question asked by the OP and the view of the seller in this case demonstrates that unless you have the prior knowledge that white tabs equals repro, you aren't going to know. And that can lead to fraud or accidental purchase of something not original by someone who wants the original.

Repro wings can't be marked with a manufacturer stamp the way the shell I have is, and the white tabs are distinctive to us as collectors who KNOW, but not necessarily to someone who doesn't because we're not out there making a big deal about real vs repro wings. Mostly because we're not thinking about whether people might be confused or misled by very good reproductions.

I am not bothered if people want to fill their collection gaps knowingly with reproductions. I am bothered about the people who get hurt because of a lack of proper information along with those repros and the risk of people being cheated or misled.

Having spent much of my early time online disabusing people of their mistaken belief in a white haired posey as a UK release (rather than just a faded original) and also having seen the scandal over fake reverse Gusty ponies, I'm afraid I've already seen enough people hurt because of people who lie to make money. And WE wouldn't do that, and the makers of the wings certainly wouldn't do that. But once they're out of the hands of the creator and targeted at a buyer who doesn't know...that's not a good thing.

So yeah. In general, I don't support repros. Especially wings. Because it's so much harder to protect buyers who don't want repros from accidentally buying them.

[Nella]

Is there a website with comparison pictures or is someone willing to add something like this to their website? I think it would be great to refer to something like that. Maybe it even would show on Google if someone is looking for it.

The seller got them from a fellow collector and thought she had bought the real deal.

[Baby Sugarberry]

Probably something that should be added to the Wiki - I would, but I don't own any reproduction wings to take pictures of.