Help!

[danielsard2]

Hi comm

I need your help badly please! I'm in a bad situation, as something unexpected happened with a plushie I sold.

If you remember, recently I held the plush auction on which kingwillko won the swampert. Today kingwillko contacted me with suspicions that swampert could be bootlegged because its hang tag and the tush tag don't match

Comments

[miss_fuu_chan]

It's very strange - the more I look into this the more questions it throws up XD

Firstly, a US hang tag on a Japanese doll is very unusual, and not something I have seen before, but reading the comments above did happen :) A hang tag could have been later attached to the doll, either by Nintendo to resell in the us, or by a collector to increase the dolls value (although the latter is unlikely).

The hang tag itself at first glace looks quite legit - the front doesn't have shadowless text common with bootlegs, and the Nintendo World sticker is a good sign. There are a few things that stick out though when comparing to my US dolls - the name 'Swampert' is all in Upper case. On the dolls I have, only the first letter of the name is upper case, and the rest is lower. 'Made in China' is also written more than once on the tag and isn't usually. The dolls I have also have an 4-digit number underneath the name. Unfortunately my Swampert (and other Hoenn evo dolls) are Japanese so I can't do a direct comparison tag-wise. The missing bar code is also something very strange. The only explanation I can think of (which I think was mentioned above) was that this dolls may have been given away at some kind of promo (explaning the missing bar code) and then dolls that were left sent to Nintendo world, stickered, and sold there.

Looking at photos of the doll itself, the pattern looks identical to my Swampert - there are always little differences in dolls - but a few things stand out - the stitching doesn't match up at seams on the head ridges, the mouth isn't very well defined, and one of the eyes looks sunken. The lines on the tail also look further apart, and the gills look longer. It might have been the end of a line, but its impossible to tell.

I dont want to say its definately bootleg or defiantely legit. My gut instinct tells me that something isn't quite right, but without another US tagged Swampert to do a proper comparison, it's difficult to tell. It might just be that it was imported and retagged - after all, going to the trouble of bootlegging a Nintendo world sticker would be a bit mad!

I'm sorry that I can't help more :(

[miss_fuu_chan]

My Swampert is also 2004 - from the side view photo it looks like the lines across his ridges on his head don't quite match up - its likely to be nothing to worry about though - pattern differences are quite common - I was probably being over-analytical! :)

From the other comments here though, I dom't think you need to worry - I think he is legit, just a bit of an oddity! (perhaps even a rarity!)

Enjoy him! <3

[mew_ricle]

For clarification, the 2005 Plusle pokedoll my cousin got me at the E3 convention does have the barcode printed on the tag despite it being given out as prizes.