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Grave Fake patches

Left Hand PatchTue, 12/09/2017 - 23:53

Fakes patches that I've bought online over the last few months, all advertised as vintage originals. Be careful when buying these designs as there are fakes out there. Don't make my mistake!

Patch

Not for sale or trade

Year: 2017

Bands:

Grave Dissection Morbid Angel Mortician Cannibal Corpse Samael

Nater90 on Wed, 13/09/2017 - 04:34

The term vintage pisses me off....Gets abused a lot.

Cheers for posting!

Catball on Wed, 13/09/2017 - 10:31

Judge them by the border

Left Hand Patch on Wed, 13/09/2017 - 18:26

I've updated the post with some more photos.

As BHMOXM says the border is the biggest giveaway, but for some of these it is very hard to tell unless you can compare next to a vintage. The Samael patch is very close to the original but the pillars are slightly darker and the occult symbol is less well defined. Once you have both in hand you can feel they have a totally different texture.

The Covenant is a pretty poor knock off, the colours and fine detail on the patch itself are well off.

The Grave patch is a decent attempt, but they have left an area of black space next to the right side Border which is not there on the original, and haven't been able to copy the shafts of light effect on the left side.

All of these have puffy new style borders and crisp feeling white backs.

Morbid_Welshman on Wed, 13/09/2017 - 19:29

They don't actually look that bad in the photos, but I wouldn't be too impressed if I was buying what I believed to be genuine and received different

Valinskas on Fri, 15/09/2017 - 17:31

good job, very important info for patch collectors!

Knightwhosayni on Fri, 20/09/2019 - 16:47

All from the same seller?

RnReiner on Fri, 21/01/2022 - 01:07

I know I'm picking up dusty threads here, sorry for that, but I have some doubts about that bootleg theory.

I've purchased some 80s/90s patches almost twenty years ago when nobody actually gave a sh*t about patches, rendering the profession of bootlegging unattractive to sellers. There are many patches from that period with rather modern borders, different backings and slight divergences when it comes down to certain details of the patches. The different backings don't prove anything to me (the small Live after Death of Iron Maiden is a pretty good example of how many different versions there can be), nor do the aberrations in terms of the borders and the designs, as these might be explained with newer looms being used. If these patches shown were actually the recent work of some bootleggers, I'm pretty sure they would not have opted for some of the lesser known and/or sought after patches (Mortician? Samael? Seriously? If I ran an operation, I'd not stick to that kind of band..).

Apart from that, I've struggled to actually find a manufacturer able to deliver the looks of vintage patches as the resolution has become way higher than back in the day. Just take a look at all these bootlegs around, none of them (or maybe that Cirith Ungol patch with the added white dots a couple of years ago..) could possibly resemble these almost lo-fi designs from the 90s.. However: to conclude, I'm pretty sure that these are not bootlegs but simply second runs from the 90s on different machines. :) Just my two cents, and I might have already been disproven in another thread here, but I just wanted to share my assessment - thanks for your attention ;)

Left Hand Patch on Fri, 21/01/2022 - 14:46

These aren't from the 90s. They appeared in the 2010s from one supplier. They are unofficial reproductions (bootlegs). It is a bit surprising that they didn't choose Death or Bolt Thrower I guess, although the OG of the Mortician patch if fairly desirable now. Its difficult to see in rhe photos, but the bootlegger put a 1993 copyright on this patch... a bit of a giveaway when the album wasn't released until 1999!

RnReiner on Fri, 21/01/2022 - 15:12

That's interesting! Did somebody actually manage to trace these patches back to just one supplier?

As I tried to point out, I find the assumption very unlikely. Especially taking into additional account the fact that you'd need a design that would have to be so accurately replicated that only a few minor flaws (i.e. divergences from the actual original version) were to be found in the final product. I am not an expert in graphic design, but that kind of 'reverse engineering' (ahem..) seems quite challenging (and maybe disproportionate when you sell the final product for a comparatively low price).

Another explanation could be that someone found a box of patches without borders/backing and added these parts himself. Everybody's probably seen these vintage patches sold from that guy in the UK, so there might be a similar case here. This would not only make sense considering the somewhat "weird" choice of designs to be sold, but also with respect to several other patches which do not have that classic border or backing. For instance, I do own several other patches (e.g. Benediction - Dark is the Season, Venom - Black Metal and Kreator - Pleasure to Kill) that would qualify for the same "flaw" of minor changes in the design (Black Metal for instance seems a little bit shrunk) or the border (Benediction, Kreator), and these patches have been with me since way back when - as I've already said - nobody was making money with patches. These were good times, actually.. ^^