Hi all,

Sorry it has been a while since my last update. Health issues have put me out of action for a few weeks. I do though have to take the time to briefly mention the BBC1 show ‘Fake Britain’ and their discussion today of the ‘Toy Toni’ scandal. Don’t worry if you missed it, someone kindly shared this with me on Facebook:

https://vid.me/d8mO

In December 2013 it was alleged that Antoni Emchowicz (aka ‘Toy Toni’) had been selling non-factory sealed mint on card figures as original factory sealed MOCs (AFA even subsequently graded many of these as authentic) for 20 years. Allegedly he purchased a large amount of unused cardbacks and bubbles when the Palitoy factory closed down. He then purchased loose figures which he sealed to these original cardbacks with the original bubbles. I actually own two of these allegedly fake figures, one of them being a Palitoy Hothtrooper with the suspected iron marks on the bubble and front of the card.

Here is the original thread on SWFUK where the scandal was first unearthed. Great work by the guys on that forum!

http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=257747#p257747

I’m not going to go into any more detail about the scandal but I just wanted to congratulate Jason Smith (aka ‘Mr Palitoy’ and founder of the largest vintage SW group on Facebook’) for doing a sterling job being interviewed on Fake Britain. Was cool too to see footage of Jason’s vintage collection room.

Jason was stung significantly by the scandal but rather than being knocked down by it, he worked tirelessly to record on a matrix all of the cardback/figure/bubble combinations potentially affected by the scam. On behalf of the collecting community I’d like to express our gratitude to Jason for this. Check out his Toy Toni matrix here:

http://www.freewebs.com/mrpalitoy/