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