And now, the counterfeit customs?

Funny situation on the market for counterfeit products, some manufacturers are now inspired by customs offered by some sellers. Obviously, it is difficult to claim ownership of a design used by a Chinese manufacturer specializing in counterfeit LEGO products. No one will therefore legally prevent the Decool brand from supplying itself without notice or contract with original designs to offer, as is the case here, new products.

With this batch ofIron men, Decool was therefore "inspired" by the creations of HJ Media Studios, some of which are printed and marketed by Minifigs4u. The designs are almost identical, and the final rendering is in any case much superior to a good part of the customs currently circulating on the parallel market, whether they are made in pad printing or digital printing. And for 9 € the 6 minifigs, delivered in an attractive packaging and accompanied by a few parts and a mini-comic, I think the calculation is very quickly done ...

Print quality is uneven on the legs and torsos where the alignments are sometimes very correct but often rough. The helmets are even less successful, with some burrs and other tasks that spoil the final rendering. The minifig is of fairly good quality, unlike what I had observed on counterfeit TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) products from the same manufacturer: Even if the minifig itself is overall of lower quality than the version official LEGO, I do not notice any transparency effect on the plastic, the torso does not crush under the pressure of the fingers and the helmet fits perfectly on the head with double impression of the face. Looks like the manufacturer has made really big progress in a few months, except for faces that have very poor print quality (burrs, off-center, misalignments).

I am far from the idea of ​​making the apology for these poor quality products, but I just underline the fact that sellers of custom minifigs are going to have to improve their printing techniques even further in order to hope to compete with these products sold for a handful of euros. We can always take comfort in thinking that the minifig sold by Decool is not an official LEGO product, but I'm not sure that the argument will hold up for long with fans in the face of the ridiculous price asked for these minifigs. There are already many collectors on flickr who have fallen for these minifigs.

Decool, by marketing certain products whose versions Mark 39 Gemini (3rd from the left) and Mark 41 Bones (4th from the left) of the Iron Man armor that LEGO does not produce, therefore becomes a seller of custom minifigs like any other, who produces his own minifigs ...