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In 2004 Gentle Giant Ltd released a Convention Exclusive set of Spirit of the Rebellion Bust Ups, 5000 in total were to be sold at San Diego Comic Con and Wizard World Chicago. Of those 5000, 500 would be Glow In the Dark Chase sets. All the boxes were blind boxed as sealed with tape so you did not know if you were one of the lucky 500 until you opened the package. At the time they were a sought after collectible, but nothing like what has happened with these in the last year. As the Bust Ups line got larger, so did the fan base and collectors wanted to have complete sets and started to hunt these down and pay top dollar for them, then all of sudden these sets were all over! E-bay had them and E-Tailers had them in stock! Collectors quickly grabbed them but after a closer look it turned out these were NOT authentic and all stores pulled them and offered refunds to the customers. The problem is now two-fold, one is that most collectors do not realize this and often spend a lot of money on e-bay only to get a bootleg set and even when they think they may have the real deal they are not sure. Until today all I had known was that the Leia in the bootleg set was the wrong pose and the joints were very loose compared to a regular Gentle Giant Bust Up. After a long search I was able to get my hands on a authentic set and having a bootleg set on hand as well (minus Leia's hand), I could now give them both a good comparison and in person it is obvious who is the fake! Let's begin with the Leia who has the most obvious flaw of them all, and that is the bootleg set has the wrong pose for Leia, see below (please not the gun hand in computer generated because the knock off's limbs are very loose and I lost it):
On top of the very obvious, you can even see a difference in the plastic used. The bootlegs have a "creamy milk" look to them where the authentic have a almost semi-gloss shimmer to them, and very mild hints of lime green. Also, with the bootleg Leia, the hand does not go into the sleeve properly so it can't sit on her waist as it was intended, it is also smaller than the colored version it was modeled after.
Next Up is Han! Yes it's true, Leia is not the only tell tale sign of a bad set, all of the bootlegs have imperfections to them and all of them share the loose limb problem.
Two things are wrong with Han, one is that the bootleg is shorter than the authentic and the head is smaller. I assume this is because like I mentioned earlier the limbs are looser on the bootlegs and so the pieces that click together also seem shorter. You can see a better example when I get to Luke. Also, with Han his neck is much shorter on the bootleg and again you can see the "creamy milk" look to them where the authentic have a almost semi-gloss shimmer to them, and very mild hints of lime green.
With Luke we have the same height issue and neck issue and before the e-mails come flying in, I realize that the bootleg is lower on the base, but the authentic (at least the one I have) will not go any lower and even if yours would reach the base, it still will be taller, all the bootlegs are a little shorter. I even compared the wrong leia to the authentic colored version and again the bootleg was a little shorter. The neck is also longer on the authentic.
The C-3PO shares the same fate as the rest, the bootleg is shorter and has the "creamy milk" look to them where the authentic have a almost semi-gloss shimmer to them, and very mild hints of lime green. One last thing I noticed is that the bootlegs didn't glow as bright in the dark, I didn't get a great picture of it but you can see below that the bootlegs don't really glow as much in the center.
Hopefully I helped a few people out there to know the difference and know what to look for this summer convention season when I'm sure these will be floating around. Here are some key points to remember when looking for these: *Only 500 sets were made and they were Sold Out in 2004 after the cons *Most of the people who bought these are collectors and those were not probably sold them back in 2004 when they were hot *If you see a dealer with multiples of these, odds are they are the bootleg version because of how limited they were *When at a con, don't take what a dealer may have on display for what is in your box, before spending your money, ask the dealer to open each baggie and inspect them. If they don't let you, then walk away. *Both the authentic and the bootleg sets come in the exact same plain white box and are each packed with a black sealed bag with a hole punched in each side. Do not assume because the box and bag look the same that the set is authentic. *When shopping on e-bay, ask the same questions as you would at a con. Sometimes even the sellers think what they have is authentic and it's not. *95% of the ones on e-bay are not authentic.
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