Anyone remember these fake Mego Banners?

[megoscott]

Came across these photos in the archives. In the old Levy mailing list days these surfaced on eBay: Cool vinyl hanging signs with odd Mego style design. The claim was that they were from a store manager at Walgreens or somesuch and that they were vintage signs that were to hang in the store. A "miraculous" find. Several of us bought them and Brian and I both took them to sign makers to have them checked out. Turns out they were laser cut vinyl signs and couldn't have been made prior to 1990 or something like that. The fraud was exposed and the guy selling them refunded money and then disappeared. I always thought he was a fool for trying to pull a fraud. They were great signs, if he had been open about them he could have sold way more than he did with his ruse.

I have Batman, Superman and Spiderman. I think he did Apes and Trek.

[ScottA]

Rob is holding a set for me. I hope to make enough money at MM08 to get them.

[Wee67]

They are really well done. I might have bought one, even knowing they were fakes.

[Meule]

Ooooh, that Batman is really cool, would've bought that one for sure... if it wasn't too expensive that is

[rchatlin]

Scott,
this is the first I heard about any refunds.

Is it too late for me to file?

r
o
b

[jayihdz]

Dont you love these people, as a Superman collector I came across a lot of people trying to pull some good scams. This guy on ebay was selling a rare 1966 Superman figure bending a metal rod, he used an old plastic bag and made nice repro artwork like when you you buy the Superman puppet from Ideal, althoug you were able to see that it was printed at home as you could see the pixels on the image. Lots of people were bidding on it. Once I took a closer look at the figure it turned out to be a 1980's Superman cup holder from Burger King, he cut the base from the figure and added a bended metal rod and place it on the figure's hands. I e-mailed a few people that were bidding on it and let them know about the scam.

[megoscott]

Andy Fish--that was his name. He was very nice when I confronted him, he never admitted he made them, but he ended up giving me 3 for the price of one.

Scott,
this is the first I heard about any refunds.

Is it too late for me to file?

r
o
b

[Merlyn1976]

If anyone has any of the apes ones they'd be willing to part with please LMK...

[Action Martin]

The Batman one screams "fake" to me as Mego was using the circle oval and modern logo on the figure and packaging. I think it would be odd that they would use the "Golden Age" look and logo.

[megoscott]

I think at the time the oddities about them actually lent them some credibility. That old batman certainly jumped out, but it was kind of like "It's too wrong to not be right" if you know what I mean.

[Mr Havoc]

Hey I have a buddy with the machine that can make these. if there is a way to get a better pic i could have him make some up for us. He owes me anyhoo. let me know...

[megoscott]

Enh, let's not and say we did. Making reproductions of fakes just doesn't make any sense to me.

[The Toyroom]

My thinking is along the lines of Action Martin. The Superman one I could see as being legit but the Batman one to me would've stood out as fake...to my knowledge, Mego never used that old Batman logo ("with Robin" besides) anywhere and even though that Golden Age-50s pose looks similar to the Infantino one that Mego did use it's too much of a throwback (even in 1973) to have been used at that point. And he's "oval-less" besides.

[palitoy]

Golden Age-50s pose looks similar to the Infantino one that Mego did use it's too much of a throwback (even in 1973)

Not if you look at those 7-11 cups, the Dick Grayson one is probably from his first appearance.

I have a Superman somewhere that is a bit rumpled. I should probably give it away here. I absolutely hate it.

A friend of mine and I bought one each and were given two more for free after we both had them evaluated by sign makers and confronted the seller. When mine arrived, I had a vinyl sign guy in my office, I opened it and he said "That was made last week". This "miracle find" in a garage was a complete and total pile of rubbish.

[Marvelmania]

Even though they're fake they're still beauties!