Fake CMF Series

[paanjang16]

The video shows the minifigures from Decool. From what I was told, the Decool versions are much more closer to the Lego ones than the ones I just compared. So if I come across a Decool minifigure which is similar to the original one which I own I will want to do a comparison.

Looking at the video of the Decool minifigures, they have double printed heads and the printing on the Batman looks better. Plus it comes with a comic, trading cards and a even batarang! And it all come in 1 minifigure pack! Sometimes I wish Lego will do the same and not spread out all the figures in large sets. For example like in LOTR, TMNT and Superheroes you need to buy some of the large sets to get that 1 exclusive minifigure or to complete your Avengers Team.

A few months back the Decool TMNT packs were very popular because it was very cheap and also TLG never officially brought in the TMNT sets. For approximately RM 50 you can get all 4 turtles plus Splinter and Shedder. All turtles come with skateboard, the signature weapons and a comic sheet. This was the first time a KO product has beaten the originals to the market.

[ToaJaller78]

[Bobskink]

Some knockoffs are hilariously funny or strange, and that is what makes them cool to collect.

I have 4 Lego knockoff Turtles, since I'm a Turtle collector, but otherwise I would never buy knockoffs, unless they are old and I find them on a flea marked.

However, when buying knockoffs you should keep in mind that

1) the used matherials are probbly cheap and unsafe for children.

2) you have no idea were these come from, how they were made, sweatshops, child labour (I have no clue about that)

3) it's stealing creative property.

[Vindicare]

This is very disturbing. This will surely tarnish LEGOs good name, to an extent. Someone buys these thinking they're genuine, then they break and/or the buyer discovered what utter crap they are, and they blog about it or what have you. The blatant copies added to the fact that it says "LEGO" on the receipt(in the mentioned case, anyways). They've even stolen box art right down to the screaming Darth Maul.

[Tom Jurassic]

This is extremely dissapointing. Lego employees put hard work and labour into designing well made, accurate looking figures and products, so it is wrong that someone should rip this products off and claim credit for them. Extremely dissapointed, some people in this world have shocking attitude.

[Hrw-Amen]

I have even heard parents referring to cheap knockoffs in the UK as LEGO when shopping. It is really disappointing that the local Toy stores insist on selling the horrid knockoffs right next to the real thing. It is just asking for it to be misunderstood. When I queried with one of the store's staff why they were doing that, they said that the owner had told them to put a lot of the cheap knockoffs next to the official LEGO sets so that parents would compare the price of something that appeared to be the real thing with the real thing and buy more of the cheap ones. Apparently they had to order another load of cheap knockoff ones as they sold by the dozen whereas across the aisle the real LEGO had only sold a couple. It is really depressing to see this kind of thing.

[1974]

What TLG do is not rocket science (TLG's logistics is though and you'll never find these knockoffs worldwide as such) and soon the IP pirates WILL be able to produce bricks/minifigs just as good. I'd really stay clear of evilbay (who doesn't seem to give a damn) when looking for items likes this

[JeagerEX]

I hope those chinese knockoff companies will not bootleg LEGO Movie minifigures.

[LegoPanda]

for the love of god, stop this horror

[JeagerEX]

for the love of god, stop this horror

I definitely agree, those Chinese bootleg companies must stop making fake sets.

[Lego Spy]

What am I looking at?

[Freddy Bricker]

I tend to laugh when I see these, but I feel bad for the kid who asked for a small Lego set for Christmas, and ends up getting one of these clone brands instead. But these businessmen don't care, they don't care if they're ruining someones Christmas, or ripping off a multi-billion dollar company, they just care about the moeny. And that's probably the ugliest part of this hideous picture

[JeagerEX]

Or maybe Decool, Sheng Yuan and some of the other Chinese bootleg companies will planning to bootleg The LEGO Movie sets and minifigures once if they released. I hope they will not do that because when the actual toys released, they will be less thieves and shoplifters.

[TheLazyChicken]

Or maybe Decool, Sheng Yuan and some of the other Chinese bootleg companies will planning to bootleg The LEGO Movie sets and minifigures once if they released. I hope they will not do that because when the actual toys released, they will be less thieves and shoplifters.

Noooooo!!!! PLEASE!!! Noooooo!!!!!

Those companies can NOT steal LEGO's wonderful and creative ideas. I can understand the clone brands but copying the real thing is just wrong! I just hope they don't do that.

[BrickBuilder3213]

They'll make bootlegs of anything... Even Hero Factory Brain Attack sets. ;o;

[LEGO Historian]

I am not surprised by this bootlegging. However, TLG and their deep pocket licensees such as LucasFilms, Marvel and others, are awash in the cash they made off of these licensed minifigs, and I'm sure they have sent their legal bloodhounds out to close down as many of these as they can find.

The CMFs are a billion dollar gravy train for TLG and the licensees, so they're certainly working overtime on this problem.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over this... and I doubt that the TLG employees that worked on these aren't either. After all they're just hourly paid employees that make these megabuck designs for TLG. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, his 3 children Thomas, Sofie and Agnes, and Star Wars George Lucas are the billionaires that are suffering the consequences on this...

Sorry I sound so callous... but the reality of the situation makes me so...

P.S. Since his sister sold him her share of Kirkbi A/S (the parent company of TLG) in 2007... Kjeld has given each of his 3 children a 12.5 % stake in LEGO, while he retains 62.5 %. They're worth a combined $7.3 billion. I guess that the rest of us that aren't worth 10 digits... we have enough other stuff to worry about....

Edited December 27, 2013 by LEGO Historian

[62Bricks]

There are knockoffs, and then there are those products that are produced "officially" but find their way out the back door of the factory. This is one of the risks of production in China and elsewhere. These "bootlegs" may actually be the identical product as the official one, produced on the same assembly line in the same factory and virtually indistinguishable from the "real" ones.

[JeagerEX]

If some bootleg companies start producing fake LEGO movie sets, TLG will be losing their creativity because of this.

[LEGO Historian]

There are knockoffs, and then there are those products that are produced "officially" but find their way out the back door of the factory. This is one of the risks of production in China and elsewhere. These "bootlegs" may actually be the identical product as the official one, produced on the same assembly line in the same factory and virtually indistinguishable from the "real" ones.

That prospect is probably a serious source of worry for TLG... when being able to distinguish between real and bootleg (versus actual fake) LEGO parts raises problems in the collectors marketplace...

[paanjang16]

There is even a bigger worry; these knock-offs are getting AHEAD of Lego when it comes to minifigure releases. An example would be the Green Lantern figures. As I know TLG only release the normal Green Lantern minifigure. Even then it was a SDCC exclusive. Now this "S" brand decided to make an 8 figure set featuring Green, Yellow, Red, Orange etc lantern. I do not know the Green lantern universe that much, so I do not know if there are other "Lanterns" in other colors. The picture below I took it from one of the sellers in the Facebook forum I go.

Then there are these Superman 8 pack minifigure packs. I believe the Bizarro and some of them are SDCC exclusives. The Clark Kent one I think only from a pre-order exclusive I think. The picture below I took it from one of the sellers in the Facebook forum I go.

There is another 8 pack set with Iron Man, War machine, Iron Patriot, White Ironman, Black Ironman, Gemini armor etc too. I can't seem to find the picture however.

I saw the Superman 8 set in some of the toy shops in Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur. I think for a pack of 8 it is selling for RM 40, so RM 5 for each. For the Green Lantern ones I saw it was sold in Sunway Pyramid, Petaling Jaya for RM 7.90 each.

I got to wonder why TLG never put a Green Lantern minifigure inside a normal set and why they make it an SDCC exclusive. Same goes for the Superman minifigures. Maybe TLG have future plans for Green Lantern but unfortunately the knock-off has overtaken TLG in delivering the minifig to the market. Seriously TLG, first the KO TMNT figures from Decool entered the market before your official sets (the TMNT sets never entered the Malaysian market), now Green Lantern and some of the Superman figures have arrived before the official ones.

I can only hope the Lego Movie and Simpsons figures arrived here before the KOs do.

[JeagerEX]

Clark Kent minifig is only exclusive in the DVD and Cyborg Superman is one of the custom minifig that was made by somebody, not an official minifig.

I hope someone file a complain to the LEGO group regarding those KOs are planning to bootleg LEGO Movie minifigs and sets. So they raided to their shops and never steal any of the creative ideas.

Edited December 31, 2013 by JeagerEX

[Dorayaki]

Oh, should we be surprised?

Sen Bao also copied many other toys from different brands. Well, If they are willing to produce characters that TLC have made non-physical design but just don't actually produce, maybe TLC have to be responsible for this even though copy is illegal. For Decool, they're.... uh..... really shameless. They have no rights to copy the works created by TLG themeselves at all!!

I really want to say that since these companies have that kind of copy techniques, why not designing even cooler things to beat TLG down? It's really a waste of their capabilities and I'm sad because we're all Asian.

Or maybe Decool, Sheng Yuan and some of the other Chinese bootleg companies will planning to bootleg The LEGO Movie sets and minifigures once if they released. I hope they will not do that because when the actual toys released, they will be less thieves and shoplifters.

The LEGO Movie might be something useful. Once those Chinese kids have heard "LEGO" enough times in theaters, they might start to wonder what is Lego? Are they different form Decool and Sen Bao? Why the original creator is valuable? Then they would stop buying those fakes when they understand.

Unless the copycats would even put the "LEGO" mark on their products and we can't differentiate them from real Lego products.

For Sluban..... uh...... can't you at least be a good copycat? Those inaccurate fake faces are really horrible .

Edited December 31, 2013 by Dorayaki

[Bobskink]

There are knockoffs, and then there are those products that are produced "officially" but find their way out the back door of the factory. This is one of the risks of production in China and elsewhere. These "bootlegs" may actually be the identical product as the official one, produced on the same assembly line in the same factory and virtually indistinguishable from the "real" ones.

I have some of those and they are defenaitly not the same, the printing is not that good, the quality of the plastic is more or less the same as magnet minifigures when they were at their worst. But the legs are different, the two pins Lego minifigure legs usually have are different, you can easely see the difference. So they don't come from the same asembly line, maybe the same factory. But you are correct, this is the risk of producing in China.

I have some of these knockoffs because they are funny. But I would never let my kid play with them, you never know which matherials they used, if the paint is toxic etc... You can easely spot them between your real minifigures, which makes your army look stupid.

Here you can easely see the pore quality:

Edited December 31, 2013 by Bobskink

[jonwil]

Plenty of brands are registered with eBay for their vero program and fake product is taken down all the time.

There is no reason (other than LEGO being unwilling to put in the effort or possibly the costs involved) that LEGO couldn't participate in the same program and have the fakes, bootlegs and other things taken down from eBay (and the people who listed them put through whatever eBay has for banning sellers)

[Bobskink]

I don't think eBay is the problem, there are other sites were you can buy them. (I don't think I can tell which ones)