what are you saying? this guy is going around emulating Invaders work?

isnt it pretty obvious?

although ive no idea why he would wanna do that though. cos some of the street pieces look exactly like SI's... isnt it just helpin SI in SI's campaign.

Anyways, Space Invader already knows about this and im sure they are trying to sort it out.

The ebay auction looks fine? It's for 'the runner', one of the invasion kits...

Hi all,

Just a heads up on two fake sealed invader kits i bought (and accidentally sold) . As you know space invader does not give out COA's on his kits and prints so when i saved up enough money i decided i would buy from a gallery. I thought that it was a save bet when i bought the sealed kits from them. How wrong was i....

I've bought the Japan and the Vienna kits (unsigned) through this forum from a gallery and when they arrived they looked stunning. I never seen other kits so all seems fine. I send them both to my framer and instructed him how i would like them framed in their seal. He thought it was strange but he did as i told him. 

He stretched the seal and put a nice frame around them and flattened the seal against the glass so the seal was hardly visible. We loved both kits and were very excited as we love invader but could never afford his pieces. Now we were the proud owners of our first invader kits.

After about a year there was a WTB thread on this forum asking for kits. As i just found out that my misses was pregnant we could use some more cash i decided to send the WTB member a message. The member who wanted to buy both kits made a great offer and we decided to sell the kits.

We send the kits to this member and when they arrived he send me a message that both kits arrived safely but that he thought that one kit was fake. This member has a couple of other kits and he compared the kits to his other kits and quickly found out that my vienna kit was re-sealed in a anti static bag. (See picture below).

He send me a message that he thought that also the kit could be a fake and i was shocked.... I bought from a gallery and i bought two properly sealed kits.... how was this possible ?!?!?

I immediately mailed the gallery i bought them from and send them the picture of the re-printed static bag.
The gallery contacted me right away that they were shocked too. And if the kit was fake that they would reimburse my money. The member i sold the kits two did not trust the Japan kit either so i reimbursed the member all of his money and apologized for all the mess he was in.  

A week later later i received the kits back from the member and in the meantime i was in contact with this gallery. They contacted the guy who sold both kits to them and this guy confessed faking one static bag and reprinting it so it would look exactly like the original bags. He used some sort of excuse that he burned the original bag with a cigaret and that's why he made a new bag, but the kit was real! 

The guy is a proffesional screenprinter so re-printing was not hard for him. I immediately contacted Orbi (from space-invaders) and explained the entire story. Orbi could see that the sealed bag was reprinted so that he would also think the kit itself was fake. I checked the Japan kit and it is difficult to see but it seems the bag is also re-printed. So i will send both kits back to the gallery.

The gallery could not pay back the entire amount but they would reimburse the entire amount i payed for and the costs i made (shipping) over a couple of weeks. Seems a little weird to me, but the gallery seems legit. So i agreed. I gave Orbi the name of the gallery and he would press charges if both kits (numbers known) would ever hit the market again. Orbi will contact the gallery and send out a warning.

The only thing that worries me is that the gallery told me that they bought more invader kits and prints of this guy..... And they also sold those to other costumers.

I am not saying that those other kits and prints are fake, but i write this because i (and the member who bought the kits from me) wanted to let you know that these things happen!
There must be more fake kits in circulation and buying from a gallery is no guarantee....

So please check your sealed bags and if it is a re-print contact the person/gallery you got it from or contact Orbi straight away!

(NOTE : Orbi is a bit busy at the moment with Invader doing his tour at the moment, to get a reply could take some time)

I'm not naming people because it is not my intention to harm the people involved in this. They know who they are. And i believe that no one involved intentionally tried to scam people. With the exception of the guy who sold the fake kits to the gallery of course. I don't have his name, the only thing i know is that this guy is French, but the gallery is pressing charges i believe.

Cheers Json


I hope you can see what i mean:
The sealed bag original print was cleared and then re-printed on top of the older print. You can see the older print in the reflection white bit and also the embossed 2012 stamp in the bag.

I was lucky enough that the member who bought the kits pointed it out to me. I would have never seen it as being a fake. I framed them straight away and i did not check them properly when they arrived...

I hope these two are the only two fake kits out there... But the gallery sold a couple on this forum too i guess. Before i bought mine. I kept an eye on the gallery in the meantime when all of this was happening. 

Edit : And i don't have all my money back yet, but i really don't care about that anymore. I waited with this post until i got my money back. In case i offended the gallery, but that took too long so i decided to post the story. I just wanted this to be sorted and at this point i am waiting for the birth of my kid which i can happen any minute now thats way more imported
The gallery got all my money back! Cheers mrquirt

I have about 1/3 back from the money i spend and the gallery told me that they wired the rest straight away a couple of days ago.

But that's not really bothering me. I just hope that the story about the French guy who burned the original bag by accident is true. In that case he did not fake the kit(s). If he got away with selling these fake kits i think he did it before/again....   

That really sucks Json. Good on justdave for being quick on the uptake! hope this gets sorted, and i REALLY hope the gallery does the right thing by checking in on whatever the hell else they've middle-manned from this pro printer/forger!

Sucks to hear Json

But gotta acknowledge you for handeling everything so proper. Its clear you tried to make everything right to the best of your ability. Thumbs up!

Cheers mate, i never meant to harm people so i hope i sorted it out with everybody. But Justdave should get all the credits. He was the one who spotted the fake and he was very relaxed while all of this was happening. He was more worried about that there would be more fakes around with fellow collectors...

I am curious as to how someone would get all the tiles and stuff made, that alone cannot be easy to do I am guessing.

If this guy know's where to get the bags it must be easy for him to re-print as a pro printer. The tiles aren't that hard i guess... By doing a couple he makes a nice little extra ...

Cos I thought that the geezer that faked it claimed to have burned a hole in the original bag?

And do you know if the french guy refund the gallery for everything they bought to him?

Good point