BUYER BEWARE: Undocumented Mandarake Toy Restorations
 

Sadly I have to report a bit of bad news about one of our favorite online bargain retailers. Mandarake, known for reselling various new and vintage products at discounted prices for years, has recently engaged in omitting information regarding restoration done to vintage toys. And not just low level restoration.

This information began circulating thanks to members of the Toy Box DX facebook group and has just been corroborated by a Mandarake employee today. The company has actively been fully repainting, repairing, and otherwise restoring numerous vintage tin toys, gokins, and other vintage action figures and selling them as authentic unrestored products. Reports have come in from several buyers who've noticed the restorations and had to return entire orders.

One order in particular, from a buyer whose name I can not release, had to be fully returned very recently. He luckily knew a Mandarake employee well enough that this individual was willing to disclose to the buyer exactly how many figures in his order had restoration. Of nearly two dozen vintage toys, only 3 or 4 were entirely authentic.

It was originally assumed to be only cosmetic touch ups but we now know the company has been fully restoring toys from the ground up to pass off as authentic unaltered product. While it primarily seems to be affecting higher dollar vintage toys that range from the 60's through the 80's the possibility that this could be happening to other newer figures is also highly likely at this point.

This IS NOT a case of Mandarake buying second hand collections with touch ups and unknowingly selling them. They are actively engaging in high end restoration and purposefully not disclosing it to buyers to make high dollar profits.

Well shit. I'm not much of a vintage toy collector but even the thought of buying a fake... ew.

At least put a tag on the product page and make people aware what it means, selling them like that is just pure deception.

Thanks for the info.

While in the long run this doesn't affect me all that much as I don't really buy a lot of vintage stuff...wow, that's incredibly deceitful of them.

Will make sure to pass this on, thanks for the info.

Damn that sucks. I'm amazed people found out, since Mandarake is overseas, but glad there enough connections for the truth to come out

Really? Interesting. It doesn't affect me much, as I don't generally buy figures older than something from the mid-80's, but that is a little shady.

Shit. So now what do we do with Mandarake? Should anyone still order from them?

Wow, that sucks!

That depends on whether you disapprove enough to take your business elsewhere or not. It isn't going to affect most of the toys people on this site use it for.

You may disagree with their practices, but where else can you find Rider Belts older than 3 years without paying over $100? :p

*looks at Amazon's and eBay's Kivat Belt prices and cries*

MMMMH... I don't know if this is bad or not, if the touch ups are good quality... But ripping me off is not good... But I like how Reprolabels exists and want to see a rubber tire producer pop up... But lying to the consumer base...

I've bought from them for years and very recently even with no problems of restoration. I have however on more than one occasion bought something that was listed as new only to find physical damage to the toy later but that's a different matter.

As is I believe you could possibly still shop with them. The low dollar amount items I still purchase from them would be so low rung as to not warrant restoration so I'm doubtful I'd receive something that had been tampered with anyway. But in the case that you do receive such an item, contact them IMMEDIATELY and request a return on the grounds that it has undocumented alterations.

It seems to be affecting mostly higher dollar items currently but that does not mean they wouldn't restore cheaper toys at some point as well. Nor does it mean they haven't already engaged in that anyway. order at your own risk basically.

There's no questions it is definitely BAD. They're passing off restored product as authentic, at authentic prices. That's absolutely unacceptable.

Wow, this is disgusting. If they would at least divulge that they're doing this (although ideally not do it at all), I wouldn't really be phased, but to not say anything is horrible.

Unfortunately, assuming it is just targeted at vintage items, it does indeed not impact me. So while my use of Mandarake isn't as frequent as many others here anyway, it probably won't impact what I do get from them. Just not an alternative I like any better.

Eh I really don't care since all I buy are more recent items and the oldest, stuff from the 90s. It's shady but I'll still go about using them.

Such a shame to hear. I haven't bought anything from there in a while since I tend to go on Mandarake if I can't find something on other websites.

Wow, that's messed up. Fortunately I don't ever buy vintage items, but I think I'm only going to use Mandarake as a last resort from now on if I can't find what I want anywhere else. I'd prefer not to give my business to a company that does this.

Wow, that is a bit disappointing. It's not that the practice itself is bad, but rather, the lack of disclosure.

Mandarake has always worked on trust, and that trust is how they get their customers. Maybe the local fans (who make up the bulk of their customers) will pressure them to at least adopt full disclosure.

Anyway, I don't think this affects most of us, unless we're collectors of really vintage stuff. Mandarake does sell some toys that can more or less be considered antiques. Their Nakano store has this nice Japanese-themed museum display with toys that are possibly even twice my age. I'm guessing that it's these types of toys that will be potentially problematic, not our usual Sentai/Rider/action figure stuff.

This. I don't mind the idea of restoring vintage toys, but they shouldn't say it's original when it isn't. It's just dishonest.

If people knew they were getting restored toys and bought them with that knowledge, then sure that's cool. But the fact that it's been done in such a subversive way makes it pretty awful.

Kinda worries me, but I havent bought from them in forever, and when I do, its newew stuff anyway.

Still a dick move.

I'm not sure I understand. If Mandarake is fixing damaged vintage toys, repairing them, and what not, what is the issue? That sounds awesome to me. I wouldn't want to buy broken or damaged vintage toys.

There isnt anything wrong with buying restored toys, the problem here is, they are selling the toys as AUTHENTIC. Never been touched up, redone, or fixed. Whereas it in fact, they are doing that. Falsely describing an item and selling it as original is kind of wrong.

Did you even read ANY of what was posted?

People are receiving high dollar toys they've ordered from Mandarake, with the assumption that these toys have not been altered from their original states. They're paying top dollar prices for vintage 60s and 70s product, mostly tin toys and gokins, only to find out after receiving them that Mandarake heavily restores them. That's a big freaking deal man. It's one thing to advertise an item with restoration and then sell it based on that knowledge. When the buyer is made aware of that, then you attract a buyer who wants that.

But it's an entirely different situation when a company secretly does this, omits any of that information that would indicate this from it's listings, and sells these items to buyers at their regular prices that authentic vintage pieces would go for. That is absolutely a despicable tactic.

Or think of it this way:
http://growingupgabel.com/wp-content...National-1.jpg
Imagine if these hotdogs were made with 75% premium kosher beef and 25% a mix of premium kosher turkey and chicken. Yes it's still premium kosher meats and still quite tasty and kosher (if such a food regulation applies to you), but they're still lying about the use of the poultry fillers while saying it's an all beef frank.

That is the most perfect way to describe this, bravo.

I like to think of it as if you were to buy, say, a Marvel Legends figure and somebody did some sort of joint alteration to it that improved the figure. Sure, theoretically, it makes the toy better in the long run, but there's many collectors out there that prefer having their toys in an unaltered form. For Mandarake to attempt to pass these off as unaltered figures is scummy on their part. Luckily, I don't purchase from Mandarake much in the first place, but I don't think I could stop shopping from them, mainly because there isn't another second-hand site for import figures that I'd like more.

I think the easiest example is with the MMPR morphers or Dinobucklers (especially before the Legacy release). A lot of collectors wanted them in mint condition and would obviously pay a lot more for them with the better condition they're in. Ideally you want something unopened and untouched. Damaged, repaired or replicas are worth a lot less.

What Mandarake are allegedly doing is repairing damaged versions to pass off as mint condition items to sell at the maximum value.

It's kind of hard to understand if you don't care about that sort of thing, it certainly doesn't bother me if something has been repaired to look as good as new, but the problem comes from the fact they're lying to customers to make more money.