Pearly brushables: bootleg vs. store bought

[MintySocks]

So how does one know if they are bootleg vs real when they are direct from china and there is no Hasbro packaging?

Others can chime in here too, because they might have had different experiences, but in my experience, the fakes have a lame attempt at the "My Little Pony" logo that is obviously not accurate but close, and like you said, have manufacturing details that look "off" like plastic edges not smoothed out, poor paint, etc. All the genuine Hasbro factory ones, even "rejects" (and by "bootleg" I just mean sold unofficially by a private party who got their hands on it some other way than retail), all have a year, the Hasbro name, and a correct logo on their hooves.

[lostpony]

Thanks!

Sooo...if I understand correctly, we are calling bootlegs any unauthorized ones that come from a Hasbro mold or a convincing copy of a Hasbro mold, whereas a fakie comes from another mold which might be reversed engineered from a pony or originally created or something like that.

So the 'bootlegs' in the OP are theoretically rejects for some reason like the color might be too far out of range or some other detail and instead of being melted down were grabbed by someone possibly working at a factory or rummaging their trash or whatever...or they could be extra production runs done secretly or stolen inventory or even extra molds made or copied or some such thing (the possibilities are endless) but at any rate for whatever reason these are not taken into Hasbro inventory, inspected, packaged and sold through the intended distribution channel.  Which means that they might have unexpected differences and could even become some sort of rare collector items in the future or could be worth nothing or anything in between...

Values in the future are speculation...I think it's premature to say G4 will have no value in the future...there is at least a chance that when Hasbro stops making them, the demand could continue on into the future...possibly bronies will eschew G5 and generations of them will fixate only on G4 for decades to come and G4 ponies could be a rare resource that could make a collector rich 60 years from now...then again, there are plenty of non-Hasbro G4 merch and in such a scenario those would keep getting made probably.  I'm not saying it's likely that G4s will be a rich limited commodity later, and the conclusion G4 will have zero value seems more likely.

My uninformed and unqualified guess is that in the future the Hasbro branded ones still mint on card might have some value, and possibly could be the only ones that have any value at all. 

[Sunset]

Thanks!

Sooo...if I understand correctly, we are calling bootlegs any unauthorized ones that come from a Hasbro mold or a convincing copy of a Hasbro mold, whereas a fakie comes from another mold which might be reversed engineered from a pony or originally created or something like that.

So the 'bootlegs' in the OP are theoretically rejects for some reason like the color might be too far out of range or some other detail and instead of being melted down were grabbed by someone possibly working at a factory or rummaging their trash or whatever...or they could be extra production runs done secretly or stolen inventory or even extra molds made or copied or some such thing (the possibilities are endless) but at any rate for whatever reason these are not taken into Hasbro inventory, inspected, packaged and sold through the intended distribution channel.  Which means that they might have unexpected differences and could even become some sort of rare collector items in the future or could be worth nothing or anything in between...

Values in the future are speculation...I think it's premature to say G4 will have no value in the future...there is at least a chance that when Hasbro stops making them, the demand could continue on into the future...possibly bronies will eschew G5 and generations of them will fixate only on G4 for decades to come and G4 ponies could be a rare resource that could make a collector rich 60 years from now...then again, there are plenty of non-Hasbro G4 merch and in such a scenario those would keep getting made probably.  I'm not saying it's likely that G4s will be a rich limited commodity later, and the conclusion G4 will have zero value seems more likely.

My uninformed and unqualified guess is that in the future the Hasbro branded ones still mint on card might have some value, and possibly could be the only ones that have any value at all. 

IMO, some of the G4 ponies will hold value or increase slightly only if it is a pony who was released in limited quantities and therefore not available to a significant number of collectors.

But no gen will ever match g1 in holding or increasing value simply because there were virtually no adult collectors when they were readily available in stores.  And additionally, there was not the Internet such as it is today.  Even so, most of the common ponies can be picked up for less than $10 which is actually less than retail when you consider inflation. And that from a time when Hasbro rarely reissued characters.

These days, there is a high number of active adult collectors who buy things directly from the store and if they can't find it locally, they can just hop on the Internet and order it from somewhere else.  And now that China has discovered eBay, you can still get lots of things that were never even produced. and even if there are new collectors coming in, there are always some collectors desolving or reducing there collections.

In regards to the bootleg discussion,  I have most often heard the term in regards to the unlicensed factory-made plushes.

[lostpony]

Sunset those are very good points.

However, G1 hasn't really caught on with a lot of G4 fans so haven't become HTF as the base of collectors hasn't expanded to G4 proportions.  Even so, with the points made by Sunset as to availability of huge numbers of ponies, Baby Sugarberry is probably correct about G4 having no probable value in the foreseeable future.

If anyone was convinced otherwise by my baseless imaginings, they really shouldn't listen to me too closely...

[Baby Sugarberry]

Limited editions or otherwise scarce & popular characters will, as always be the exception, in regards to G4 and value.  Such is true for pretty much every secondary market. 

'Bootleg' to me implies anything that was made without the copyright holder's permission.  'Fakies' would be ponies that are wholly/partially recast or original sculpts made to mimic the MLP brand.  Even some lines that were not really intended to piggyback on MLP's popularity, such as the Magic Meadow CPK's - which incidentally were made by Hasbro and /not/ bootlegs - are considered by some as 'fakies'.  So there's overlap in the two terms, but some cases that are exclusively one or the other.

[MintySocks]

Limited editions or otherwise scarce & popular characters will, as always be the exception, in regards to G4 and value.  Such is true for pretty much every secondary market. 

Agree, I think the first run of brushables secondary characters might become like that down the road since distribution was so uneven. I mean have you seen what a Honeybuzz goes for now? Always hard to say if the current run will go scarce in the future. Who knows whether the pearlies will go that way.

[AlmostApplejack]

Not fakies or bootlegs at all, just factory rejects!

Personally, I don't think they're going to be worth any extra, because anyone can acetone the zap code off, but it'd be clear if someone "faked" the zap-code if they were super valuable in the future

[Baby Sugarberry]

The vast number of supposed 'rejects' severely calls that into question, especially given how many poor quality ponies actually make it into retail packaging.  It's far more likely that the factories are doing extra runs with the intention of selling them without Hasbro's blessing.

[Wardah]

The vast number of supposed 'rejects' severely calls that into question, especially given how many poor quality ponies actually make it into retail packaging.  It's far more likely that the factories are doing extra runs with the intention of selling them without Hasbro's blessing.

I think what happens is the factory makes extra just in case of really serious quality errors. After all its better to make extra and toss a few good ones that to make just enough and then not have enough because you had to toss the failed ones.

[Baby Sugarberry]

If that were the case, why are so many flawed ponies still showing up on store shelves? 
Last I heard they still hadn't fixed the QC issues with the G4 line.  Many of the direct offerings are also some kind of 'variant', which wouldn't help or even exist if they were being made to exchange against flawed ponies.  Even these pearly ones are missing the zapcodes thus are themselves technically 'flawed'.  It also doesn't make sense in a country and industry where margins are paper thin and companies are doing everything possible to maximize profits for them to run off a few hundred extra ponies 'just in case'.

I don't know exactly how much Hasbro pays the factory for each pony, but can confidently say it's not anywhere close to what we pay at retail.  Factories that illegally sell merchandise on the side directly to consumers make a /huge/ markup compared to what they get through the contracts they have to bid on, and that's why these ponies exist. 

[LadyMoondancer]

Can anyone tell me the keywords to search for to find the pearly ponies without zapcodes?  I hate the zapcodes so I'll gladly buy the China ponies to avoid them.

[Wardah]

If that were the case, why are so many flawed ponies still showing up on store shelves? 
Last I heard they still hadn't fixed the QC issues with the G4 line.  Many of the direct offerings are also some kind of 'variant', which wouldn't help or even exist if they were being made to exchange against flawed ponies.  Even these pearly ones are missing the zapcodes thus are themselves technically 'flawed'.  It also doesn't make sense in a country and industry where margins are paper thin and companies are doing everything possible to maximize profits for them to run off a few hundred extra ponies 'just in case'.

I don't know exactly how much Hasbro pays the factory for each pony, but can confidently say it's not anywhere close to what we pay at retail.  Factories that illegally sell merchandise on the side directly to consumers make a /huge/ markup compared to what they get through the contracts they have to bid on, and that's why these ponies exist. 

I think you misunderstood what I meant. I don't mean that Hasbro ordered extras just in case but that the factory made extras just in case. All Hasbro cares about is that they get the number of ponies they ordered at the standards they find acceptable. While what they find acceptable is what we might consider flawed, I imagine it could be much worse. At least they usually have eyes and a cutie mark. It's no loss for the factory to make extras since they can always toss them on ebay. Tbh I wouldn't be surprised if that is how factories have always worked even before ebay since there used to be stories of finding such goods on the street markets.

[Baby Sugarberry]

I don't believe I've misunderstood; that's just not how overseas factories work.
If any production factory makes 'extras' (and they generally don't, because that costs them $$$, they'd run the line until they have enough approved to fill the order) they are almost always legally obligated by the terms of the contract they're fulfilling to destroy any remaining product - generally recycling or otherwise disposing of the item.  They don't get to just 'sell it on the side' if they want to for extra cash.  No contracting company would tolerate that overtly, so the stuff that's bought factory direct is bootleg: unauthorized, made after hours or on the sly or reported as destroyed.  The main problem is that it's hard to catch.  Companies like Hasbro have their own agents that visit the factories to make sure that they're not doing things they aren't supposed to (seriously there's a whole industry of people who do nothing but make sure the clients they represent aren't being cheated!) but they don't catch it all, and China's laws in regards to intellectual property are near non-existant.

Most if not all of the ponies you're suggesting are 'flawed/rejects' often look better than a good percentage of the ones that make it into retail packaging, so how does that make sense?  If they were indeed seconds, you'd expect them all to have notable problems like head/body mismatch, misprinted eyes, wonky symbols, missing symbols, dirt, etc. but that isn't the case from what I've seen.  Even if it /was/, selling 'seconds' is still likely illegal and a breach of contract.

Edited for grammar fail.

[Wardah]

No contracting company would tolerate that overtly, so the stuff that's bought factory direct is bootleg: unauthorized, made after hours or on the sly or reported as destroyed.

I would say it's probably the last. I'm just saying these "extras" are probably made during the actual run with the excuse that they are in case too many get seriously flawed at later steps. It doesn't make sense to fire up the machines and call in the workers for 5 missing ponies. Or maybe it's they just keep running until there are enough ponies at the finished end but then there's still all the ponies coming down the line that still get finished. The weird thing is I know worse flaws can exist (if hoof hearts can be missing than eyes could be missing) but even these Chinese seller ponies don't have such drastic flaws. I'm guessing those ones actually get destroyed since they probably figure nobody wants them.

[Eternia]

I have the ones from china and they absolutely do not seem like 'bootlegs' however I have noticed that some of mine have paint flaws and they don't have the heart thing so I think they were a mis-run of production.