Suspected Modern Reproductions
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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:51 pm 
 

Hi,

to quote Ian Fleming:

Once is happenstance,
Twice is circumstance,
But THREE times, Mr Bond, Three times is enemy action

Cheers,
Malc

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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:46 pm 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote:The DunDraCon City Modules sold by Noble Knight Games are fake. They are ink jet printed on thin laser jet paper. Whether Aaron is aware that he is selling fake goods or not, I don't know, but these are the thire confirmed set of forgeries that Noble Knight Games have all of a suden found a large stock of.

First Gamelords Montie Haul Dungeon
Then Gamelords Complete Tavern
Now DunDraCon City Map Modules

And there is suspicion over their stock of Manual of Aurania.

When will they stop this? Who is photocopying their stuff for them? And will Aaron appear hear and account for this 'stock error'?


I was saying the Dundracon City map modules were fakes for years, but I got shot down.  They don't look, feel or smell like they are 30 years old.  Regardless, this is one of the most useless, ridiculous and overpriced items (even if it was only $1) ever released with even a tenuous gaming connection.  To be blunt, I was glad to get rid of the copies I owned for exactly what I paid; I couldn't charage a penny more seeing as I couldn't be 100% sure they were created the day before on a photocopier.

I don't know anything about the others unless they are the same stock that I got off that ebay guy a few years ago where it was definitely proven they were high quality photocopies. Like everyone said I think Aaron pulled these long ago.

Mike B.


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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:30 pm 
 

well of course they are crap, but i still had to have one copy of each of these crappy items, but I do want the genuine item, which is why i bought my copy from bombadil last year (and ended up getting a mention from Ian on the silliest price thread iirc). by the way Mars, i picked up something else done by bigglestone a few years ago titled Dundracon I Proceedings Volume II (c. 1978).

  

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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:44 pm 
 

stratochamp wrote:... which is why i bought my copy from bombadil last year (and ended up getting a mention from Ian on the silliest price thread iirc).

:oops:  :oops:  I bought 6 copies (literally) from NKG on the back of that auction.  :oops:  :oops:
stratochamp wrote:By the way Mars, i picked up something else done by bigglestone a few years ago titled Dundracon I Proceedings Volume II (c. 1978).

I remember going after that at the time. Still have the auction piccie somewhere here. It was a convention program or bulletin or something of that sort, wasn't it?


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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:01 pm 
 

stratochamp wrote:by the way Mars, i picked up something else done by bigglestone a few years ago titled Dundracon I Proceedings Volume II (c. 1978).


I will have to keep my eye out for that one.  There is another item that I am working to obtain as well but I don't want to bore you with the details of that ;)

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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:10 pm 
 

stratochamp wrote:well of course they are crap, but i still had to have one copy of each of these crappy items, but I do want the genuine item, which is why i bought my copy from bombadil last year (and ended up getting a mention from Ian on the silliest price thread iirc).


Yes, that was a turn-around of an older ebay win of mine for not far from the same price that you paid, Bill.  Not a Noble Knight item, but I can't recall the name of the ebay seller I got them from.  I recall after winning them there was a post here somewhere pointing everyone to the NK items that were available for much less.  Of course, I felt like an idiot, but nothing new in that.   :D


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Post Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:24 pm 
 

bombadil wrote:Yes, that was a turn-around of an older ebay win of mine for not far from the same price that you paid, Bill.  Not a Noble Knight item, but I can't recall the name of the ebay seller I got them from.  I recall after winning them there was a post here somewhere pointing everyone to the NK items that were available for much less.  Of course, I felt like an idiot, but nothing new in that.   :D


I remember your auction win because you beat me out so I was shaking my fist at you for a while thereafter :)  The seller was the Acaeum member Zander but I forget his Ebay name (I think it has changed a few times).  It was a while after (and unexpected) that NK listed copies.

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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:45 pm 
 

Aaron Leeder, owner of NKG here.  A customer brought this thread to my attention.  I have not read the other threads but have read this one thoroughly.  I will attempt to answer everything here directly and to the point.

We have never sold ANY fakes (that I'm aware of).  From my recollection of the Gamelords issue the picture on our website was of a fake but we were selling real copies.  I don't know where the picture came from, but there are sites that let us their pictures and there are customers that send us them, we put them up and don't track that sort of thing.  When it was brought to my attention we changed the picture to the correct picture.  Many of the Gamelords items on our site were purchased directly from the owner of Gamelords (yes he is still around!).  Some Gamelords items, as well as the Dundracon and the Manual of Auranias were purchased from the owner of a current wargame company who has an old barn filled with stuff.  From that barn has come old TSR modules in the shrinkwrap (run of the mill stuff like Boot Hill), old Avalon Hill games in the shrinkwrap, super old PC games, tons of old dice, etc.  He could not have bootlegged all of that and most of it you wouldn't want to! I have even picked dead spiders and scorpions off of this stuff, right out of the original TSR cartons! If you look at all that stuff, its obviously over runs of stuff that didn't sell well 20+ years ago.

>>I remember e-mailing them at the time, as I did about the Gamelords stuff, and received nil response<<

I have personally answered 99% of the email here at NKG since the time I started 12 years ago (this will change soon as I've gotten some help for that finally).  I did not receive any email from you, I know so, because I never delete any emails needing any sort of response.  It is possible it got caught in a spam filter or something, I suppose, but that is not likely as I also check our spam filter for legitimate emails 1x per day.  Also, I care about my company to the point where I would address such an issue immediately.  

The bottom line is we have not, and will never, sell "fake" items knowingly.  I do not have the time, patience, or the financial need to make or sell such things.  Your talking to someone who doesn't let his friends borrow his CDs because he knows they will copy them and not go buy them! :)  I would also never jeopardize what puts bread on my table (as well as my 7 other employees) by introducing fakes.  That would be beyond stupid. Also the prices and straight forward nature of the items I'm selling should indicate an honest approach.  I'm not taking anything posted here personally and understand why people would question such things.  And I really value the opinion of you guys here on the Acaeum!  I love this site!  Many of you are long time old customers of mine and I have fond memories of all our trades and discussions together in the old days and hope we continue to do business together.  However, it obviously irks me that someone would post openly about our stock being fake when they really have no idea what they are talking about.  All this does is slander and defame me and my company, something I have worked tirelessly to build up virtually my whole adult life.  Go ahead and post things for analysis, I encourage that, but there is a tactful way to do such things, you know?

I'm always here to answer questions and if anything I'm selling is questionable, please ask me or bring it to my attention or post it here for analysis. If anything is found out to be fake, I'll gladly toss it (or burn it and post it on youtube, that would be fun!).

Is it possible to reach a consensus on the items in question?

Aaron Leeder
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Noble Knight Games
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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:26 pm 
 

Welcome back to the Acaeum.

I bought two Dundracons from you a few months back.  I sold one and gave the other away, so I have no horse in this race.

Thanks for the explanations and the understanding.

  

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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:04 pm 
 

Noble Knight Games wrote:Is it possible to reach a consensus on the items in question?


I can restate my stance that I believe they are all genuine.

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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:30 pm 
 

I am convinced.
Ignorance is no excuse.

I hereby offer my apologies for my first post on page one. :oops:


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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:20 pm 
 

Other thread Ian bumped for reference:  viewtopic.php?t=5848


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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:27 pm 
 

For the record, an expert (or at least, someone who's done this sort of thing before) can easily tell the difference between dot-matrix printing, inkjet printing, and laser printing / copy machine toner.  You do need a good-quality magnifying glass or a microscope.  I waxed eloquent about this in the PotVQ thread from a few years back, if some intrepid threadcrawler can dig that back up.  :)

Foul

  


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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:42 pm 
 

FoulFoot wrote:For the record, an expert (or at least, someone who's done this sort of thing before) can easily tell the difference between dot-matrix printing, inkjet printing, and laser printing / copy machine toner.  You do need a good-quality magnifying glass or a microscope.  I waxed eloquent about this in the PotVQ thread from a few years back, if some intrepid threadcrawler can dig that back up.  :)

Foul


I worked in printing in the record industry to about 10 years... Plus I have a friend that was a pressman (ran an AB-DICK360). I bet I could tell you how it was printed. I would need it in my hands though. If I couldn't my buddy could.

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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:56 pm 
 

Hmmm, here it is:

viewtopic.php?t=1869&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=vampire+queen&start=100

It appears I was mis-remembering; I only spoke about the offset printing process.  Most commercial printing in the last fifty-odd years has used the offset process (and still does today).

More relevant to this discussion:

1) Dot-matrix printers are impact-based, like a typewriter.  The most common were 9-pin printers (the print head is a vertical line of 9 pins, which sweeps across the page from left to right, and presses against a cloth ribbon of ink).  Under a microscope, you can clearly see each "dot" is an impact crater.  Ink will generally "pool" a bit in the center of the crater, and become slightly ragged on the edges (I call it a "splash zone").

2) What does it look like when you photocopy a dot-matrix page?  A photocopier (or a laser printer) uses toner, which is dry ink particles that attach themselves (via static electricity) to a rotating drum.  Heat is then applied to melt these particles onto the paper.  No impact is made on the paper, so you don't have "craters".  The melted ink actually sits on top of the paper.  Resolution isn't good enough to actually mimic the "pooling" and "splash zone" of the dot-matrix, so what you end up with under the microscope are melted ink clusters instead of a well-defined "dot".  Around the clusters will also be random scatters of black dust, which is toner particles that stuck to the drum where they weren't supposed to.

3) Inkjet printing is just that; jets of melted ink are squirted through tiny nozzles onto the paper.  Since this is melted ink, too, the resultant image under the microscope looks a lot like toner.  However, you won't see that random dust scatter.

There's obviously several other technologies, but toner and inkjet are the two used in most counterfeiting operations in the last decade.  Now you can have fun scouring your collection for all the fakes you've bought!

Foul

  

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Post Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:57 pm 
 

I tested and rebuilt laser printer cartridges for a year, dirty job working with toner, and my current job still uses the old printers that require them.  I have a good handle on the various signs they produce on paper.

ShaneG.


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Post Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 6:14 am 
 

The dot matrix printer is a misnomer. I doubt anything we're discussing here was printed on a dot matrix printer.


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Post Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 8:57 am 
 

I can certainly weigh in on Aaron's behalf. As far as I am concerned, he is top notch. Noble Knight is probably the only RPG retailer I would purchase from.
I strongly suggest this thread either be renamed or deleted. Without concrete PROOF of an entity deliberately acting in a deceitful manner, it is unethical to suggest the possibility, especially here.


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