Uncovering The Real Fakes At Last Pt. 2

Uncovering The Real Fakes At Last Pt. 2

Alright! As previously mentioned, I wanted to continue building up our “database” of known forgeries offering both descriptions and pictures to help thwart future rip-off attempts as well as provide a reference for would-be buyers (new collectors in particular, but I’m sure those of us that prefer factory pressed silver will all benefit).

As an aside, basically all of my examples will be Floyd-related at this time as that is the nature of my collector experience for the most part, but by no means should these “revealing” articles be limited to this alone, so I do encourage everyone to contribute their own expertise and evidence over time.

Again, I must stress that on one hand, as a fan and musician myself, the music is what really matters in the end, and given the widespread availability of material in a plethora of formats, these articles might not make a difference to the most devout listener – however, for the serious collectors, archivists, and those who want the highest possible quality, genuine factory-pressed silver on the original labels, this reference “database” will be indispensable.

Also, I strongly recommend any new collector take the time to read through the older post that essentially is a tutorial in differentiating a real silver disc from a CDR first for the basics.

Now, in this edition, despite my preference for silver pressings as well as this site’s overall focus, we’ll take a look at some genuine Ayanami Pro-CDR releases from Asia and once again some fake versions originating from South America (and by no means am I ever suggesting all the fakes originate from there, nor that there aren’t some valuable contributions from there either – I’m simply documenting what I know to be forged, and focusing especially on items related to recent listings on eBay, etc.)

Here, we have a counterfeit CDR pressing of Ayanami-221 “Live At Technical College”:

Now this one, unlike the high-grade “faux Sirenes” documented in part 1 of this editorial, bears ALL of the hallmarks of a homemade reproduction: fuzzy and dull one-sided inserts, the discs themselves have the green tint inherent to CDR burns, and they have the black inked code in the clear center circles of the discs. Additionally, these have some really strange selections for printing on the discs’ faces; a half “man in the moon” on one disc, and an old Buffalo Indian Nickel motif on the other! Bizarre!

I’ve seen others that surely came from the same forger with a variety of geometric shapes or currency motifs – basically in all cases having absolutely no relation to the contents of the discs themselves. One of these has the following printed over the black inked matrix: “IPC Base B. UG 48X 80 min. Industria Argentina ” which is why I suspect the origin of these fake Ayanamis is also South American (despite procuring them from a US-based eBay seller).

Now, let’s take a look at a genuine Ayanami Pro-CDR release “Rainbow Day 1” (Ayanami-212):

I know these pics are far from hi-res, and I’ll work on upgrading these along with the rest in the future, but it should be immediately apparent that the inserts are double-sided, the printing is professional on regular matte CD stock, the discs themselves though CDR, have matrix numbers burned into the center silver ring, and the title/catalog number appear in a font Ayanami commonly use. All the genuine Ayanami releases I’ve seen have most of these traits in common.

I know the fact that these are CDRs either way make this a bit of a “grey area” to begin with, but there IS a difference from a quality, professional pressing vs. some cheap burn anyone could do on their home PC!

It pains me to say that I’ve just watched a couple of the fake Ayanamis sell for far more than a brand new silver disc just in the last 48 hours, and obviously, I’ve ended up with a couple frauds myself…but I figure I’m making lemonade out of lemons here, right?

Once again, the music contained within does appear to be what it’s supposed to be, and in that regard, I can’t complain. That being said, if I wanted a homemade CDR of any gig, I’d download it and burn it myself you know?

Anyway, I wanted to include some information and evidence on fake Blue Cafe, STTP, and others in Part 2 here, but I’m going to wait a week for some new arrivals here so that I am able to compare the exact same titles against each other, and I will in fact update this post to reflect that as soon as possible.

I’m going to cut back on the background info a bit on the next installments and focus more on the visual evidence, so as to cover more labels at once. 

But, as these Ayanamis and Sirenes are near and dear to my heart, I figure they can stand alone for now.

Again, anyone that wants to contribute other bands, labels, information, please do so…any contributions will be appreciated and are undoubtedly useful to countless others! Cheers!

Update: I mentioned some other “designs” found on some other fake Ayanami discs being sold regularly on eBay, and thought it would be a good idea to include a couple additional examples here.

Since the cover and inserts are typically scans of the original Ayanami releases, there’s no sense including those here so I’ll focus on the actual discs themselves.

The forgery will appear on the left, while the genuine article is on the right.

Bath (Ayanami-142):

At Free Concert 1971 (Ayanami-190):

As you can see, there’s not even a vague resemblence and the fakes are quite absurd to be honest, almost funny (unless you paid a large sum for one).

Remember, the forgeries also do not have 2-sided inserts and upon close examination, it’s clear the covers are scanned/printed cheaply, whereas the real Ayanami releases are obviously professionally done.

Cheers!

Plomerus, July 5th, 2008