How do you determine originality?

[Rob9874]

I'm looking for some buying advice from the Mego community. I'm sure this question is asked often, and likely answered somewhere on this site or forum, but my searches did not find what I was looking for. I joined this site over a decade ago, but never started a collection, but find myself coming back to it lately. I'm looking for original MOC WGSH figures like I had back in 1978. I'm wanting to know what you look for when buying, to determine repro cards, bubbles, resealed bubbles, etc. How do you determine everything is original before buying? Thanks in advance.

[Megotastrophe]

It used to be easier. There is an originality guide for parts but I don’t know if as much attention has been paid to packaging. Most home printing is done on white paper so look for the gray center to see if it’s vintage.

[Wee67]

If you can, get pictures of the items and share them here. There are plenty of people who are pretty good at raising questions and/or spotting repros.

Many times, repro packing looks to good to be true. Look for wear in the usual places like corners or edges. Megotastrophe's suggesting is one that's always helped me. Seeing white on the inside of boxes is a pretty strong giveaway. Resealed bubbles can sometimes be seen when graphics on a card do not line up properly. Look around the bubble's edges for disjointed or unaligned graphics.

As mentioned, the Galleries here at the Museum include parts comparisons.

ALL of these can be circumvented by a really good repro artist. Try and combine techniques with questioning the seller. The more info they can provide on the provenance of the figure and their reputation in this very small community can help build your confidence.

[Rob9874]

Thanks guys, much appreciated!