AFA Scandal

[shadroch]

So tell us... how does the smell of a vintage card and vintage bubble assembled in 1977 differ from that of a vintage card and vintage bubble assembled in 1999?

[cousin itt]

So, this will basically be the action figure version of pressing? Sounds like fun!

 

Nah, I think Comicconnoisseur got it right... it's a "married" piece.

[Bronty]

It's married but with the added wrinkle that it may be hard to detect and that the grading co's have let it slip by. Ie he's drawing an analogy to the spoonstorm caused by pressing not the process of pressing

[Green]

authentic unused cardbacks, authentic unused bubbles and authentic mint figures were taken to a factory and assembled, perhaps using the same equipment the manufacturer would have used.

 

I don't get it. If everything is 100% authentic, and was even assembled on the same equipment - then how are they fake? If the only thing that matters is when the bubble is attached to the card, that is just absurd.

 

When i get some vintage inks/paper/plates how many AF15s can i put you down for at fmv?

[Pirate]

come on green, they are real but not that real

[shadroch]

authentic unused cardbacks, authentic unused bubbles and authentic mint figures were taken to a factory and assembled, perhaps using the same equipment the manufacturer would have used.

 

I don't get it. If everything is 100% authentic, and was even assembled on the same equipment - then how are they fake? If the only thing that matters is when the bubble is attached to the card, that is just absurd.

 

When i get some vintage inks/paper/plates how many AF15s can i put you down for at fmv?

 

 

When you get some AF #15 covers printed in 1962, and some unassembled sheets of the comic printed in 1962, I'll take all you can supply.

Any long time collector will recall when thousands of unused Marvel covers were unearthed in the late 1980s. If only the interiors had been found ,as well.

[asteroid-comix]

A wrinkle that I've not seen discussed here that I'll add is the issue of the date/COO stamp on the back of the figure. A very big component of SW collecting is the variations to the COO and date on the back of the leg of the figures. Certain COO's exist on figures from certain regions and also exist and help identify when a figure was created.

 

Figures have been observed in these cards that have no business on these cards based on their COO/stamp.

 

It would be like finding that the AF 15 you bought slabbed might be married...opening it, and finding it had the guts of a Dazzler #1.

 

Of course, that's a real possiblity if it were a PGX book, but that's a different thread.

[Bronty]

[rjrjr]

authentic unused cardbacks, authentic unused bubbles and authentic mint figures were taken to a factory and assembled, perhaps using the same equipment the manufacturer would have used.

 

I don't get it. If everything is 100% authentic, and was even assembled on the same equipment - then how are they fake? If the only thing that matters is when the bubble is attached to the card, that is just absurd.

 

 

It has not been determined they were assembled on the same equipment or factory. In fact, recent examples in the thread have many believing the sealing process matured over time, starting with a home iron, different types of adhesive sprays, etc. until the process was perfected.

[rjrjr]

authentic unused cardbacks, authentic unused bubbles and authentic mint figures were taken to a factory and assembled, perhaps using the same equipment the manufacturer would have used.

 

I don't get it. If everything is 100% authentic, and was even assembled on the same equipment - then how are they fake? If the only thing that matters is when the bubble is attached to the card, that is just absurd.

 

When i get some vintage inks/paper/plates how many AF15s can i put you down for at fmv?

 

 

When you get some AF #15 covers printed in 1962, and some unassembled sheets of the comic printed in 1962, I'll take all you can supply.

Any long time collector will recall when thousands of unused Marvel covers were unearthed in the late 1980s. If only the interiors had been found ,as well.

 

So, you would have no problem marrying the cover to the interior using modern staples? Would you disclose this information or just pass it off as an "original"?

[originalisbest]

Concerning AFA

CGC weathered a micro-trimming debacle. AFA will weather this as well. They will try to learn what they missed and try to find methods to identify it moving forward. Like, CGC they are the only real game in town. This is not an AFA issue, this is a really good forgery (for lack of a better word)

There's a tried & true 2-step formula AFA could use:

Issue a press release declaring it "undetectable" and those complaining as "unreasonable purists" who hate AFA.

Done, and move on. Easy peasy.

 

Another positive contribution

[Pete Marino]

It's married but with the added wrinkle that it may be hard to detect and that the grading co's have let it slip by. Ie he's drawing an analogy to the spoonstorm caused by pressing not the process of pressing

 

Sorry, I don't use words good.

 

This is what I was alluding to....

[Guardian Comics]

A wrinkle that I've not seen discussed here that I'll add is the issue of the date/COO stamp on the back of the figure. A very big component of SW collecting is the variations to the COO and date on the back of the leg of the figures. Certain COO's exist on figures from certain regions and also exist and help identify when a figure was created.

 

Figures have been observed in these cards that have no business on these cards based on their COO/stamp.

 

It would be like finding that the AF 15 you bought slabbed might be married...opening it, and finding it had the guts of a Dazzler #1.

 

Of course, that's a real possiblity if it were a PGX book, but that's a different thread.

 

How ya gonna see the back leg of a figure, in the back of a bubble???

 

Jim

[creeps]

All of the sudden my vintage moc figures with beater cards, original price stickers, and slightly yellowed bubbles are looking good. Nobody's faking that.

[valiantman]

All of the sudden my vintage moc figures with beater cards, original price stickers, and slightly yellowed bubbles are looking good. Nobody's faking that.

If there's profit to be made, someone will figure out how to do it.

 

Artificial "aging" is a problem in most antiques, so it can become a problem in our more recent "paper and plastic antiques".

[comicwiz]

Hey everyone, I'm on vacation and just checked-in. Upon returning, I will post what I know at this time, and in the interim I could direct you to a a post on the RS boards, but it does look like this will have a much greater impact than merely a reputation shiner for toy certification.

 

One point of clarification before signing-off, AFA isn't the only certification company effected by this, and on a comparable scale, nothing comes close from a peer-hobby comparison if the allegations swirling are in fact confirmed to be true.

 

As for how I'm effected, I have one piece I bought directly from the source, and possibly a second piece which I didn't have a chance to check because I was leaving for my trip when I remembered I had it.

 

This is an individual who is alleged to have performed this manipulation and outright fraud has a steeped history in vintage toys (tin toys to be exact) which I will elaborate more on when I post at a later time.

 

This is a video I did before leaving for me trip on a suspected piece (Palitoy ROTJ Fett) that came from this source:

 

[B-Smooth]

Wow. I'm speechless. I'm going to probably state the obvious here, and say you had more than a couple of bucks into it. I hope you get some or all of that money back. I agree that this could be a devastating blow to AFA.

[Bronty]

off topic, but maybe one of you SW guys can comment on the state of SW action figure / vehicle art? I'm just curious about it.

 

I know there isn't much to speak of since most of the cards are photos, but I remember a small piece of art from the early cardbacks (extremely underwhelming I thought) sold for 40 or 50k in a CIB/tom derby auction about 4-5 years ago.

 

As I recall the A-wing (?) vehicle art sold in the auction also in the 20-25k range.

 

I'm a little fuzzy on the details but it was something like that.

 

What's happened on that type of material in the last 5 years?

[Anfield Fox]

Hey everyone, I'm on vacation and just checked-in. Upon returning, I will post what I know at this time, and in the interim I could direct you to a a post on the RS boards, but it does look like this will have a much greater impact than merely a reputation shiner for toy certification.

 

One point of clarification before signing-off, AFA isn't the only certification company effected by this, and on a comparable scale, nothing comes close from a peer-hobby comparison if the allegations swirling are in fact confirmed to be true.

 

As for how I'm effected, I have one piece I bought directly from the source, and possibly a second piece which I didn't have a chance to check because I was leaving for my trip when I remembered I had it.

 

This is an individual who is alleged to have performed this manipulation and outright fraud has a steeped history in vintage toys (tin toys to be exact) which I will elaborate more on when I post at a later time.

 

This is a video I did before leaving for me trip on a suspected piece (Palitoy ROTJ Fett) that came from this source:

 

 

That sucks. I hope you haven't been burned on that figure

[comicwiz]

Thanks AF.

 

To wade through this whole mess, I want to try to explain the more important developments in as close to the chronological order they occurred to help people better understand what has happened.

 

In order to do this, we need to review the subject of doubt swirling around one Palitoy 12 Back vinyl cape (VC) Jawa. While this scandal does not to my knowledge effect the Palitoy 12 Back line, it is a central talking point to the whole matter.

 

For years, there was suspicion and doubt surrounding the authenticity of a Palitoy 12 Back VC Jawa. Then earlier this year, AFA had authenticated a Palitoy 12 Back VC Jawa MOC and while one would think the doubt would lift, it only raised more questions. To better understand the gravity of how important this development was to the vintage Star Wars toy line, finally having a certified example of something considered to not have existed would be akin to finding a 10 cent price variant of AF 15.

 

Some of these questions emerged partly from the way the authentication loop seemed to lack credibility itself. The submitter claimed to have sent in the MOC, had it graded, and AFA returned it with a 75 grade IIRC. Then more questions emerged, and the submitter requested that AFA provide a COA, which it did, but the COA was not signed or dated. Keep in mind, this happened during a point in AFA's history where CIB had decided to part ways, at least in so far as providing the authentication aspect "in-house" on AFA's behalf for rarer toys. I don't want to dwell on this point too much because there are a number of additional questions concerning who actually performed the authentication on the Palitoy 12 Back Jawa. Suffice it to say that the COA was meant to put to rest the remaining doubts.

 

Nonetheless, as we move forward on this particular topic, the reason why these doubts and questions of concern were not only continuing to persist, but seemed to gain more steam is because one of the people who was believed to own one, or had been the source of the example that had passed certification was a Jason Joiner. The allegations against this individual are storied, and revolved around incidents where he passed of fake props as original.

 

This is the backdrop to the much larger matter which I will get to now. At the point where the debacle over the authenticity of the Palitoy VC Jawa reached a boiling point, Jason Joiner alleged that another dealer by the name of Antoni Emchowicz, also known as Toy Toni (toytoni.com) had purchased some 25K unused cardbacks from Palitoy when they closed the factory.

 

When this claim emerged, people began to compare notes on what they had purchased from Antoni Emchowicz, and started noticing some problems, mainly with the way the seals of the blister were attached the card. This note comparison evolved further when a collector who claimed to have an example of the "unused" cardback, and compared it with an MOC that came from Toy Toni, and a childhood MOC. He quickly started to notice issues on the MOC originating from Tony, claiming the cardback had registration and printing errors not found on his original owner cardback.

 

This wild variation in printing did raise concerns over the legitimacy of the MOC's coming from Antoni Emchowicz. The primary belief is that these "unused" cardbacks Antoni Emchowicz purchased were "unused" for a reason - they failed to pass quality control. And while it is a salient point in the discussion, especially when there are three known variations caught in the wild for a single character (C-3PO), there are also a number of seasoned collectors and experts (Tom Derby and ChrisG to name a few) who aren't yet ready to consider these types of production anomalies as confirmation of something being amiss.

 

I contacted AFA (Chad Thompson) and UKG (Stephen Ward) just before going on holiday, and both confirmed they were aware of this situation. I also managed to speak to Stephen Ward on the telephone, and one of the things that came from the discussion is that Antoni Emchowicz has primarily used AFA to submit his items, but UKG had also graded some of his items, which included toy lines like Meccano.

 

For the most part, the way Jason Joiner came forward with this information (which he claimed to have known for a number of years) screams diversion/deflection. It's also highly irresponsible to not have come forward with what he knew about the number of "unused" cardbacks he claimed were floating around, but then again what can you expect from someone who is known for passing off fake movie props as real.

 

While Jason's reputation certainly didn't help the legitimacy of the claims, Antoni Emchowicz didn't do himself any favours by remaining silent on the allegations, nor did it help any that he was found to have several eBay accounts, one of which was used to buy "mint" loose figures which seemed to be consistent with the character MOC's he sold through his online store. When the fiasco erupted, it is also alleged that he switched his profile to private and had changed his alias over 30 times from the time the account was first created.

 

The main thing to take away from all this is that it has created a high degree of suspicion on the Palitoy line of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi action figures. The more valuable being the double-stem Palitoy ROTJ Boba Fett, and the 45/65 Back Boba Fett with unpainted knee.

 

I have attempted to communicate my concerns directly with Antoni Emchowicz with no response. Prior to this scandal, he was known mostly for being a co-author/photographer of a New Cavendish Books published work called " Future Toys."

 

I have not yet decided how to approach the situation of being compensated for the piece I bought from him, but Antoni Emchowicz needs to realize that he can't use the same same cage he uses to photograph sharks to deal with the monsoon of allegations surrounding him.

 

In fact with the exception of coming clean on what he did, nothing can save him from the ferocity of the accusations made against his image and reputation. The sad irony, if the allegations turn out to be true, is how a writer/photographer who covered the "Future Toys" beat stands to have single-handedly decimated the future of the Palitoy vintage MOC line, all in the name greed.