After some discussions the Beastformers team has decided to launch an Authenticity mark. The reason for this originated in the succes of the Battle Beasts and especially the Laser Beasts line amongst collectors all over the world within the last years.
Where the Battle Beasts and Laser Beasts have slowly become accepted and well known vintage toy lines their succes also brings a more dark side that can place (new) collectors in difficult situations without knowing.
Over the past year the Beastformers team has been actively involved in discussions about newly produced reproductions of the old vintage line fighting for the rights and the history of the original Battle Beasts and Laser Beasts items out there. The call for reproduction items is fed by the thought of the high prices for which some genuine, rare and hard to find items go for these days leaving a group of collectors with a limited budget or collectors who are not willing to pay these prices completely out on certain items.
Its important to respect the choices of fellow collectors to start making reproductions of original items that are rare and in relation to that priced as such. But the moment they start to produce items that are almost a perfect copy of the original items this becomes a direct threat for the genuine items out there. The past years, since 2011, some rare and so called high end items have entered the market meaning that repro items have been sold are were offered which were almost exact copies. As long as they are mentioned as such and or do have a little mark on to them, like some of the current reproduction releases that clearly hold REPRO 2013 on them, there is not a real big issue because they can be noted and remarked as such. And although the topic on its own of making reproductions from vintage and rare items is worth a discussion on its own as in the vision of the Beastformers team these repro’s do take away a bit of the romance that is found within the hunt and trace of finding the remaining rare pieces for your collection. Where some of these items only showed once a year or even less they now might be ordered right away on Ebay or somewhere else as a reproduction. So with this the urge for real collectors to group and discuss on forums online in the hope to find these missing links, sharing information with each other becomes also less while were not even talking about the damage these could to do the collectors market as such.
Because the moment reproductions start to hit the market, with or without markings, they have a direct impact on the original prices as they are offered for only a fraction of what the genuine items they are replacing are worth. This effect will only last for a while because in the end the genuine items are they only ones that hold the true nostalgia in them representing the history of this toy line. Things become more critical and messed up the moment unmarked and well copied repro’s are being sold or end up in the wrong hands because this could mean that fake items are being sold for the original prices and this is something that can end up pretty worse for all collectors because this can cause a chain reaction with fake items penetrating the collectors world without being noticed. This is something the Beastformers team is trying to prevent as much as possible and where and whenever we can. So far it has succeeded by convincing some of the collectors who did feel the urge for manufacturing reproductions to add a clear mark to all of their items by which they can be clearly noticed being reproductions or fakes. But we still have a long way to go and none is able to let any guard down for the sake of keeping the true original story around this live by spreading genuine and authentic items amongst collectos worldwide.
This blog and the Beastformers crew will always be supporting those who look for the original items which is the reason for launching this Mark of Authenticity to make sure that the item offered is a true original and genuine item from the 1980’s and not a fake reproduction produced several decades later.
ALL Beasts and articles, unless mentioned differently, on this site have always been based and always will be based upon the true figures and with the original details from the decades way back when the items still smelled like new. Due to the fact that the Beastformers team is on top of current scam and reproduction activities we will always keep our guards up and develop our skills to remain up to date concerning future developments related to activities like these that can harm the Battle Beasts line as such as well as collectors all over the world. With this knowlegde the Beastformers team has built up a decent experience in recognising issues and they hold some of the most strict selections criteria when it comes to the conditions (C) of the figures, all being executed and based upon having the figures in hand because even well detailled pictures can fool a good eye leaving a true in hand and in person judgement the only true option.
On one hand its good to see an Authenticity Mark as such but on the other hand the reasons for it to be launched are sad as they are based upon scams and items that can harm a the true history of a vintage toy line. But unlike other vintage toylines like Star Wars the Beastformers team wont let this happen to the Battle Beasts and Laser Beasts lines because even though;
They Battle For Fun!
this Battle is a serious one for the sake of Battle Beasts because with these threats the whole history and their value for collectors is at stake!
History has already been writen so lets treat and value the genuine items with the respect they deserve because most of the collectors out here were and are driven by nostalgic feelings so especially they should be aware of the fact that there is nothing better than to hold and cherish a true piece of history. So for those who do search for authentic and genuine items please feel free to contact us in case of any doubts concerning certain items because we will always have our guards up.
The Beastformers Team
Beastformers Blog 