Knock-off toys, also known as bootleg toys, counterfeit toys, or fake toys, are toys that are not officially authorised, and some of them are meant to imitate real products, which are known as imitation toys. They come in many forms e.g.;
- figure sets that are meant to be of a specific franchise or mixed up with various characters that are not from the same franchise
- figures that have different names rather than their official names to avoid copyright infringement
- figures that are recoloured or made translucent
- Transformers-themed with characters from another franchise
- Voltron-themed with characters from another franchise
- toys that run on batteries and play music or sound effects e.g. eurodance
- toys that mix characters together into one
- toys that are hollow, cheap and have sloppy paint jobs
- toys that are ugly and look too weird to be official
- toys that look official and are meant to be imitations of official products and include the real names and the company's logos to trick people into buying them
- toys that are of characters that never were made into official toys
- toys that have light up chests that come in laser form or glow in many different colors that flicker
- plushes that look really cheap and poor in quality
They are usually made in China, Mexico and other foreign countries.
Where They Can Be Found[]
- They can be found in some places e.g. flea markets (the most common places they are at), convenience stores, dollar stores, Asian malls, some thrift stores, shady mall kiosks, Chinatowns, online stores (e.g. eBay, Amazon, AliExpress), low-budget toy stores, fun fairs and sometimes collectable stores.
An entire wiki dedicated to these bootleg toys can be found here.
Gallery[]
An example of an almost indistinguishable bootleg from the official. Differences being lack of copyright sticker, different joints on the arms, and the poor paint job