Test ! Barada/Yak/Nikto Staff - real or Repro

I recently bought a Nikto Staff. 100% original to go with my loose figure, checked photos and float tested. Perfect on both It prompted me to check my Yak & Barada Staffs.

I was gutted to find my Barada was Repro. My Yak I got worried about as via Imperial Gunnery guide the staff did not look right when matching pictures, but it floats well and I bought that here from a member on here just before Christmas and I was 100% sure it would not be fake, as this forum tends to have honest people overall, thank god

So having drop tested and then float tested. Two Floated. Two sank. There in lays my proof of them being ok, even though still not 100% matching on imperial gunnery photos To me they all sounded the same when dropped as I said.

So here is the challenge. Two of the below photographed are, I think, real. Two. Repro....which ones are which ??

So pissed over the Barada situation ( think Yak is ok )

Left two are fake

Yeah, two on the left for sure.

aussiejames said:

Left two are fake

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Agreed

Left two. The paint is glossy ergo repro

poncho said:

Left two. The paint is glossy ergo repro

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Painted.

"Impressive. Most impressive"

Correct of course.

Although spooky that the pictures on Immperial Gunnery do not exactly match the two which are real....

However those suckers did not sink no matter if I pushed or not

Shame I got tucked up on the Barada figure though as it was from here. Buyer beware always

As well as the finish/colour you can see the sculpt is wrong all over the place. One thing I've noticed about all the grey staffs is there are two distinctly different plastics used on genuine ones. A darker smoother finish plastic and a lighter rougher finish plastic.

Is have guessed left too, (shiney and sculpt less detailed) as well. As for the one bought here, personally I'd at least let them know even if you don't expect a refund (given the time that's passed). Any decent seller would at least offer you a partial refund to go out and source another one.

The shiny ones. Dead give away. They look wrong and feel wrong. I have one the same.

I don't know a lot about the repro stuff ( clearly or I'd not have been caught ) I was thinking though...some company somewhere went to huge lengths to reproduce the weapons to flog on, so why the hell did they not match the plastics more correctly or the sculpts ? If they could be produced in the 70/80's then surely some bright spark could have reproduced a more matching modern set of replacements ?

I am pleased it is obvious what is fake generally, but even so these days you would expect a closer match.

Consider it a blessing. We can tell many of the fakes thank God because the plastics don't match.

This has been discussed before, and I may be wrong, but I think the old plastics aren't available anymore. Good thing too 8)

An easy enough spot for sure if you know what you're looking for but I've always been surprised by how nearly all the repos on the market differ in sculpt to the originals. Does this mean that they're all sculpted? Why on earth would someone go to all the trouble of trying to copy the original when they could just make a cast off of the original?!

I know a bit about making molds and I would find it way easier to cast an original than try to make an exact copy.

Just something I've often wondered and interesting to hear if someone has any thoughts on this.

Ian

I looked into this a while back and my conclusions were that a genuine staff had a small less distinct circle just below the two large ringed circles on one side but perhaps that's just a mark left behind when the plastic (stue?) has been removed so sometimes if that's been done cleanly you won't see a third circle. Which is good news (hopefully) for me since I always thought my two recently purchased staffs were fakes.
Are these examples the only types of fakes out there?

Hard to say, but I would guess a lot of them are from that guy in Spain. As these look like mine then I would say they came from the same source :roll:

Is that the chap "restore nation" that is on EBay ?

He seems to do really well at times with his repro cards

Hmm ..yeh I think that's him. He appears to have changed his trading name (no surprise). Same **** though

Basically a **** destroying the hobby.

I heard a good tip on how to determine if a weapon is a painted repro or not the other week.
As well as the obvious look & feel of them, there is the scratch test but it seems some people aren't willing to really dig into the surface of a weapon with a blade in fear of damaging an original item.
The other method is the 'draw/write with' test. If you take a painted repro & try and draw a line with it on a piece of paper it will leave a coloured line behind where the paint has rubbed off. Originals don't.
I tried it with 3 painted repros out of my kids collection & it worked on all 3.

Jimi

Jimi Woolley said:

I heard a good tip on how to determine if a weapon is a painted repro or not the other week.
As well as the obvious look & feel of them, there is the scratch test but it seems some people aren't willing to really dig into the surface of a weapon with a blade in fear of damaging an original item.
The other method is the 'draw/write with' test. If you take a painted repro & try and draw a line with it on a piece of paper it will leave a coloured line behind where the paint has rubbed off. Originals don't.
I tried it with 3 painted repros out of my kids collection & it worked on all 3.

Jimi

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Good tip !

x-pack said:

Hard to say, but I would guess a lot of them are from that guy in Spain. As these look like mine then I would say they came from the same source :roll:

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restorenation, costablancastarwars... that Nathan Edwards who lives in Spain.