Andyclarke wrote:Thought I would add what I know with 15 years of collecting experience and having been around the block.
I used to talk to Toni often and got quite friendly, I even met him down at Sandown. I never had any issues and he gave me first choice on a collection he landed with probably the finest conditioned set of 30 and 41 backs I have seen. Many of which Gary Smith and Jay Rathour ended up with.
I do recall a long conversation probably back around 2004/5 about how someone was accusing him of fixing bubbles to cards, he seemed genuinely shocked. I remember he joked about how ridiculous the very notion of someone still producing new Palitoy carded figures. Interesting to know who that was, maybe Jason Joiner.
I am in no doubt that anything Toni had from 45a and earlier is extremely unlikely to have been tampered with. I recall he used to have multiple 45a Star Destroyer Commanders, obviously 45a Black Bespin Guards and 41 Han Hoths. All had varying degrees of wear. The Hans had creases and the BBGs had yellowed bubbles, which is consistent with all the ones I have seen since.
Toni used to acquire his figures from local auction houses, contacts and because of his advert in model and collectors mart he would get collections offered to him. There may be huge doubts over the stuff in Jason's list but a lot of the stuff he sold was genuine.
Andy
Thanks for your insight Andy. I have no doubts he sold a lot of genuine stuff as well as he was a big scale dealer. He sold a lot of Tri logo too which is legit.
Cheers Jason