Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 06:33:08 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Suspiciously cheap box sets from China

Started by kngen, January 09, 2022, 02:57:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

kngen

Like this Metallica one, where the official one goes for about a grand now on Discogs - https://www.imerance.top/products/me

Anyone taken the plunge on any of these 'seems too good to be true' bargains?

I haven't seen Chinese vinyl pressings that aren't waffer-thin, nearly see-through blobs of brown plastic in a while. So I suppose it's feasible there was a surplus of 'legit' vinyl from the Czech pressing plant and they cobbled these together around those with some cheap CDs etc. Almost tempted to buy one, just to see the quality, particularly on the vinyl. If China has has upped its pressing quality standards, the S/H market is going to be a fucking nightmare.


Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Not music, but somebody bought me a fake box set of The Sopranos one year, and all the discs were DVD-5's that had been burned and then had the disc image printed on the top. Half of them were warped, so you put them in the player and could hear the discs scrape against the inside of the machine.

I'm not a fan.

kalowski

No. It's probably shit and it seems to be sets that are unattainable suddenly being available.
On eBay there are often coloured vinyl versions of things like Tom Waits' The Black Rider. Just CDs copied onto vinyl.

kngen

Quote from: kalowski on January 09, 2022, 03:13:04 PMNo. It's probably shit and it seems to be sets that are unattainable suddenly being available.
On eBay there are often coloured vinyl versions of things like Tom Waits' The Black Rider. Just CDs copied onto vinyl.

Yeah, looks like a new pressing plant was opened in Shanghai a year or two ago. Think we'll be seeing a lot of that sort of stuff now

badaids

My favorite Chinese DVD is one I saw for the Sixth Sense, where they had put the tagline on the front of the box as « He's a ghost! ».

Crenners

Even with the attempts to abolish the black/grey markets in China, legit physical media don't really exist. Culturally, it's never been a thing outside of the very wealthy. Whereas Westerners and Japanese have long fetishised the object and the authenticity, Western pop culture is held in pretty low regard in China. They will grade tea with precise, minute distinctions but don't give a fuck about genuine slipcovers or whatever. If you're rich enough, you can import the real stuff.

In short, anything that looks too good to be true will be a knock-off. The quality may be comparable (I got a great Hayao Miyazaki Blu-ray collection off Wish for £30 vs £200 here for an OOP release), but it's fake.

Starlit

I think the link in the first post is more likely to be scam site to just steal money rather than a site selling fakes.
Generally these Chinese knock off box sets have focussed on the relentlessly sellable artists (Beatles, Dylan etc.), and have been relatively simple box sets. On close inspection they are usually a little bit wrong in a few ways, boxes are either slightly too big or too small for the discs to sit nicely in, booklets are cut or stapled slightly off centre, small print will be unreadable, but at a quick glance appear to be real.
Things like the Metallica and Guns and Roses will be less sellable than others, and contain a range of different items (badges, laminate passes, patches etc.) that increase manufacturing costs and time. I'd be surprised if it was worth the extra effort by counterfeiters. To post that Metallica box from Asia to Europe would cost about the same and probably more than the price they are claiming to sell it for because of the size and weight.
Also, that site has a vast range of items offered for sale, but no categories, so I don't think it's a real webshop that has any intention of sending items out, fake or real. They'll get enough money come in the next few weeks that thye spirit away and when enough complaints cause the site t get shut down they'll be long gone.

Starlit

It is interesting that the only Metallica item that they claim to be selling is the most in demand box set. For that cheap price they may as well have listed the other ones too.
As far as I know, the Chinese knock off box sets are based on new titles, rather than someone trawling second hand sites to see what deleted box sets are in high demand, so that is a bit odd.

kngen

Yeah, my mate sent me the link and said 'do you think this is legit?' My immediate thought was that it was just a scam/phishing site. But there's that voice in the back of my mind that says 'Maaaaybeeee ....'

After all, all those Louis Vitton and Air Jordan fakes are just made in the factories next door to the real ones using the same templates etc.

But like you say, all those extra fripperies would drive up manufacturing costs, as opposed to this shonky Metallica box set, which just seems to be a bunch of CD-Rs in a badly stamped case.


If it does exist, I'd still be interested to see what it looks like - I do love a good 'bad bootleg' - and have a right old laugh at song titles like 'Mister Puppets' or 'Buttery'. But I'm not 'have your bank account drained in seconds and your PC turned into a cryptomining machine outwith your control' interested.


boki

The real crime here is doing a repress of an hour-long album on a single disc.

kngen

Quote from: boki on January 10, 2022, 01:47:56 PMThe real crime here is doing a repress of an hour-long album on a single disc.

Christ, I just noticed that - even on the official fancy versions. I just presumed they'd made them all double LPs after that (vastly superior sounding) Music For Nations repress in 1987 or whenever it was but apparently not. What a bunch of cheap bastards.

jenna appleseed

I know this is the music board but 10 posts and no mention of Seimfeld?

iamcoop

Apologies for the thread bump but this is definitely one of those situations isn't it? Either that or just an outright credit card phishing set up...

Lol

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on January 09, 2022, 03:01:35 PMNot music, but somebody bought me a fake box set of The Sopranos one year, and all the discs were DVD-5's that had been burned and then had the disc image printed on the top. Half of them were warped, so you put them in the player and could hear the discs scrape against the inside of the machine.

I'm not a fan.

I bought a Cowboy Bebop box set that had woeful translation, to the point I didn't really know what was going on. The Fan-subs I'd already downloaded were perfect through.

Head Gardener

Quote from: iamcoop on June 18, 2022, 07:01:34 PMApologies for the thread bump but this is definitely one of those situations isn't it? Either that or just an outright credit card phishing set up...

Lol

�� I don't trust these ��