Any way of telling if this is legit?

[Jarmel]

I have a friend with less than money and was going to throw out on this:
http://smjsearch.com/cgi-bin/b.cgi?k145830827

I've already argued with him about it being a waste but I would atleast like to confirm it's legit before he buys it or even a way to confirm its authenticity. How rare are counterfeit signatures in Japan anyway? It has to be much lower than the US.

I've looked it up to see if I could look the autograph session but there's way too many possibilities. The signatures seem to match their 'confirmed' signatures.

[ReiTheJelly]

Counterfeit items are pretty common on Yahoo!Japan. Cutiebunny would probably be the best person to talk to about something like this.

That being said:

The seller has pretty high feedback, but 350000 JPY (~$4,242.95 USD) seems excessively high just for a signed poster. For that price, I'd expect original art by the character designer, or something, IMHO.

[Jarmel]

Counterfeit items are pretty common on Yahoo!Japan. Cutiebunny would probably be the best person to talk to about something like this.

That being said:

The seller has pretty high feedback, but 350000 JPY (~$4,242.95 USD) seems excessively high just for a signed poster. For that price, I'd expect original art by the character designer, or something, IMHO.

Well if the person has been selling counterfeit stuff and the buyers didn't know it, then the feedback could still be high. As for the price being high though, that might be because of Fate/Zero airing and so therefore jacking up the price to see if anyone who buys into the FZ hype is crazy enough to buy it.

[cutiebunny]

Fake signatures are a real problem when collecting signed goods. Normally, you'd hope that the high moral code that most Japanese have keep them from making copies, but every week I can point out at least 10 shikishi on YJ that are supposedly signed by Eiichiro Oda, Tony Takeuchi and Masashi Kishimoto and most end up selling for several hundred dollars.

Anything TYPE-MOON, especially hand drawn anything by Takashi (Tony) Takeuchi sell very high. I've seen his signature alone go for several hundred dollars. But in this case, it doesn't look like the poster was signed by Takeuchi, but by the seiyuu of Saber & Rin (or at least that's what Google is telling me).

Normally, signed posters, books, and other non-shikishi/blank paper items don't sell high. They're harder to scan, often don't feature original artwork, and in some cases, like a signed/drawn slushie maker, are difficult to store. So if the seller was trying to make a quick yen, taking a poster and signing it probably would not have been the best media choice. It also would have likely cost him a good 3000-5000 yen for the poster alone, and generally your counterfeiters try to invest as little money into their wares as possible.

Rei already mentioned the seller's feedback, and that's a solid piece of advice. If their feedback was recently earned within the last couple of weeks, it's likely a fake. Another thing to look for is any kind of proof (ie. picture of person signing) but lately there's been a bunch of fake Mandarake 'letters of authenticity' being sold with fake shikishi on YJ, so, take that with a grain of salt. And if that fails, try doing a Google image search under both the English and Japanese characters for a person's name, name of the anime/manga, etc. You may find some signatures of other signed items that you can use to compare to the signatures featured on the auction. I've had pretty good luck with the last method - in some cases, I've found the exact shikishi featured either on the publication's website or on some promotional material the publication released that someone scanned.

I'd hate to make a final evaluation on the authenticity of the item, especially since I'm not super familiar with TYPE-MOON stuff. I didn't take a look at the bidder list, but I'd recommend checking to see if there are multiple bidders and not shill bidders. But if everything looks solid, then I'd lean towards its authenticity. Judging from the price, other YJ users seem to think so too. That's a good sign, as the counterfeit Tony Takeuchi shikishi generally end for about 1/10 the price.

[Jarmel]

Fake signatures are a real problem when collecting signed goods. Normally, you'd hope that the high moral code that most Japanese have keep them from making copies, but every week I can point out at least 10 shikishi on YJ that are supposedly signed by Eiichiro Oda, Tony Takeuchi and Masashi Kishimoto and most end up selling for several hundred dollars.

Anything TYPE-MOON, especially hand drawn anything by Takashi (Tony) Takeuchi sell very high. I've seen his signature alone go for several hundred dollars. But in this case, it doesn't look like the poster was signed by Takeuchi, but by the seiyuu of Saber & Rin (or at least that's what Google is telling me).

Normally, signed posters, books, and other non-shikishi/blank paper items don't sell high. They're harder to scan, often don't feature original artwork, and in some cases, like a signed/drawn slushie maker, are difficult to store. So if the seller was trying to make a quick yen, taking a poster and signing it probably would not have been the best media choice. It also would have likely cost him a good 3000-5000 yen for the poster alone, and generally your counterfeiters try to invest as little money into their wares as possible.

Rei already mentioned the seller's feedback, and that's a solid piece of advice. If their feedback was recently earned within the last couple of weeks, it's likely a fake. Another thing to look for is any kind of proof (ie. picture of person signing) but lately there's been a bunch of fake Mandarake 'letters of authenticity' being sold with fake shikishi on YJ, so, take that with a grain of salt. And if that fails, try doing a Google image search under both the English and Japanese characters for a person's name, name of the anime/manga, etc. You may find some signatures of other signed items that you can use to compare to the signatures featured on the auction. I've had pretty good luck with the last method - in some cases, I've found the exact shikishi featured either on the publication's website or on some promotional material the publication released that someone scanned.

I'd hate to make a final evaluation on the authenticity of the item, especially since I'm not super familiar with TYPE-MOON stuff. I didn't take a look at the bidder list, but I'd recommend checking to see if there are multiple bidders and not shill bidders. But if everything looks solid, then I'd lean towards its authenticity. Judging from the price, other YJ users seem to think so too. That's a good sign, as the counterfeit Tony Takeuchi shikishi generally end for about 1/10 the price.

Thanks for the bit of info.

I did find something where the seller sold a similar poster signed by the same two VAs. That said it could have been an autograph session and they could have gotten multiple copies.

That's weird though as I've never seen anything signed by Takeuchi on YHJ. I've personally looked a few times and there is always nothing by him so I thought he never really went out in public. I've only seen one thing by him and that was run by Aniplex on a different auctioning site.

[ReiTheJelly]

I didn't take a look at the bidder list, but I'd recommend checking to see if there are multiple bidders and not shill bidders.

There aren't any bidders, yet. The starting price is 350,000 JPY.
http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k145830827


Jarmel - your friend might be better off waiting to see if the seller will relist at a lower price. Or, they could always have their deputy message the seller and offer a lower BIN price, if he is determined to purchase this item.

[cutiebunny]

That's weird though as I've never seen anything signed by Takeuchi on YHJ. I've personally looked a few times and there is always nothing by him so I thought he never really went out in public. I've only seen one thing by him and that was run by Aniplex on a different auctioning site.

Last year there was a game that was released that featured Tony's designs, and apparently there was an event where three colored sketches were given away to one winner. The winner apparently auctioned two of them on YJ and I remember they were hovering around the 400,000 yen mark when I stopped watching. I didn't bother to save the pics.

Still not the most expensive shikishi I've ever seen sell...that title goes to a Kenshin shikishi signed by the mangaka for 15K.

[Promethium]

As someone mentioned, those are the VA's (Ayako Kawasumi and Kana Ueda) autographs. I'm no expert but comparing them to legit autographs, they look questionable to me.

Kawasumi's autograph is in English. The A in Ayako is one stroke and really smooth, so it seems weird that she'd stop halfway and start back up. I'd take that as a tell-tell sign that whoever signed it hesitated and had to double check. The rest of her autograph looks really bunched up - that marker bloch mid-name in her autograph looks weird too, like a correction. There's also a weird lead-in on the first stroke of y in Ayako. None of these things are there in her legit autographs and usually ppl don't screw up their name.

With Kana Ueda, her autograph is in Japanese and she usually writes her character's name on the loop of "な(Na)" in Kana or on the right side or below her name - not above like in the poster. She also writes her character's name relatively small usually.

The seller doesn't say how he came about this poster, so if you are going to ask a deputy to negotiate with him, I'd ask how he got it.

Like I said, I'm no expert and it could be perfectly legit but personally, I wouldn't recommend purchasing this, even if it were relisted at a much lower price. Unless it comes with a photograph of them signing it or ticket stubs to the event he got this from, I think the risk is too high. Hope this helps.

[cutiebunny]

Since you mentioned that you've never seen anything authentic of Tony Takeuchi being sold, I figure I'd point this auction out to you -

http://page17.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/a ... v246429553


It's currently at 602,000 yen, with four days left.

[Thanatos]

I was wondering what justifies the price of this kind of items. Are the posters/other items signed by the artists so rare ?
*Thanatos, still a lot to learn.*

[Jarmel]

Since you mentioned that you've never seen anything authentic of Tony Takeuchi being sold, I figure I'd point this auction out to you -

http://page17.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/a ... v246429553


It's currently at 602,000 yen, with four days left.

That's actually Tony Taka not Takeuchi. I do see some Taka stuff pop up every now and then, Takeuchi is very very rare.

[Jarmel]

Speaking of fakes, found this.

http://smjsearch.com/cgi-bin/b.cgi?g109241644





Yea, I was going to bid on this until I decided to look through his old shikishi. If you're going to blow over $500, it seems you would atleast check first.