A Darren Orme shaped hole

Capetown

Capetown

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Hey guys,

Bought a Cantina playset and made the beginner's mistake of not asking for more pictures and ignoring several (in hindsight) glaring red flags. The seller assured me that everything was original, including the cardboard insert (in which I was especially interested).

It wasn't.

The guy said that he had bought the playset in the nineties and has been the pride in his collection for years. I'm inclined to believe him as he seems a nice guy and is willing to take back the playset without any qualms, but there's possibly a Darren Orme shaped hole in his story.

The insert looks like it's one of Darren Orme's repro's at least, from the time he didn't mark them yet.

Do you guys agree? And do you know if Darren was active on ebay in the nineties? If he wasn't, my guy either has a faulty memory or is full of it.

IMG-20210225-WA0007.jpg
IMG-20210225-WA0005.jpg
IMG-20210225-WA0003.jpg


A real one from Paul Naylor for reference

IMG-20210225-WA0009.jpg
 
I can't help with the insert but ebay UK didn't start until 1999 four years after the US site.
 
Looking around at internet pictures i certainly can't see an insert like yours which isn't good. I'm sure there's a 'what's in the box' thread on here somewhere that might help but I'm sure there are others who can chip in.

It might not be one of Darren's inserts but it could well be someone else (who uses cardboard with white on one side).

Sorry to hear about that, so frustrating!

Ian
 
The sellers full of it, it may well have been his prize piece but that could still mean he has all ways known the insert is repro.
 
I can't help with whether it's an Orme insert or not, but I do know there were a few repro inserts for vintage Star Wars boxed items knocking around back in the nineties. They certainly weren't common, but they did exist, and usually seem to be DIY jobs by collectors wanting to make their own. I certainly don't remember there being a market for repro ones back then as they wouldn't have sold for much.

It's certainly possible the seller in your case didn't know it was repro, but then again it's also quite possible, even likely, that he did :-(

If you need further reference on what a real one should look like, you can see mine here:

https://starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37378

Jeremy
 
Thanks guys. Yeah, it's definitely a repro, it doesn't look like yours at all, Jeremy. But it looks too professionally done somehow to be a DIY project, and so I thought it might have been Orme. It doesn't have that vintage cardboard smell too, which I think even 20 year old 'repro' cardboard might have by now. But as you say, nobody would have been interested in fake inserts in the 90's, so I'm thinking it is more recent, which makes my seller a liar.

I'm hopeful he will return my money though as he has a reputation to lose.

Back to hunting!
 
That sucks. Unfortunately there are some very disingenuous people out there. It does leave a very bitter taste in your mouth when you get ripped off by 'respected' collectors, so let's hope it was a genuine mistake. It does not look like a recent Orme reproduction, I think he puts a repro stamp in the middle of his (not on a flap which can be torn off) and pin pricks the letter R on his.
 
I'm glad you got your money back. Let's hope the seller's true to his word and describes the inner accurately when he relists it.
 
If I remember correctly there was quite a few sellers on eBay offering repro inserts for vintage boxes in the late nineties, there wasn't a great uptake for them though and many was hand cut.
 
There were a few mini rigs up with what looked like reproduction inserts recently. I had bid on a couple before I really noticed. Fortunately the seller didn't try to claim they were original when asked and I noticed in time to cancel my bids. Need to be careful now some of these boxed items are getting expensive. Until recently it wouldn't have been worth putting repro inserts in.
 
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