The Truth About Re-Casts
January 12th, 2013
I have received about 20 emails from fellow collectors saying that they bought a Predator kit on eBay and when it arrived were totally disappointed in the quality of the casting. That, my friend, is because you bought a re-cast. What is a re-cast? Simply put, a re-cast occurs when someone (the crook) gets a real kit and then makes molds from it and starts producing and selling the resulting counterfeit kits. It is illegal but it is so common and wide spread that virtually no one ever gets arrested let alone goes to prison. This practice results in the original artist losing the profits from their artistic labor and you ending up with an inferior copy-of-a-copy. True kit artists like Randy Bowen and Narin limit the number of kits they produce from a single mold. They do that because as the mold is used it starts to deteriorate and lose the crispness of its details. The re-caster couldn’t care less. They will keep cranking out inferior kits until the mold falls apart. And that is why you get kits with rotten details, pin holes, seam lines and made from poor quality resin. So, how do you know if you are buying a re-cast? If the seller is in China, Thailand (I know that is where Narin lives but he does not sell on eBay), or any of the so-called Pacific-Rim countries, stay away. Those areas are hot beds of re-casting and you can assume you will be getting a counterfeit kit. Let me quickly add that the sole exception to that characterization is Japan. They have brilliant artists (remember Fewture?) turning out quality work. Our policy here at Predator Stuff is to NEVER sell re-cast kits.
Please do not be seduced by the unbelievably low price of a kit. As the expression goes, if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.
You can also research the kit on the internet. Many times the original will be cast in a different color resin the the recast. Another giveaway is if the item for sale is cast differently than the original. An example would be that the teeth an mandibles were all cast separately on the original, but the recast has them cast as part of the head.