Amanaman Staff Repros

I recently picked up this Amanaman, and I took some time looking at the staff pretty closely before I paid, but my initial research on TIG made me wonder if it's even possible to tell the difference between a repro and the genuine article.

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Sure there are a handful of really bad quality reproduction staffs, but the V1 Repro on TIG simply says that it's "high quality". That is an understatement. As far as I can tell there is no visible difference.

TIG goes on to describe that the original sinks and this "high quality" repro floats (mine sank   ) but when someone is in a buying situation, an on the spot float test could be unlikely to happen.

Here is the repro in question on TIG, you can see more photos of it here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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Having a really high-res side by side might yield some more obvious physical differences (this is not on TIG). This just got me wondering if anyone has had one of these repros, or if they know of any other weapons that are virtually impossible to distinguish from the reproductions.

I might be really late to the party on this one, but it's interesting that the old float test supposedly works in this instance, when there may be no other way to tell.

This is unfortunate, I did not realize there were high-end repros. The tell for a repro was "the paint application is bad."

One thing to note is, the Kenner staff always seems to bend, even if just a wee little bit.

Also, looking at the photos of the repro here, the original Kenner looks to be a bit more red, more of a sienna brown.

I agree, but the white balance of a camera can easily make the brown plastic look more red, that’s why a side by side with the same lighting conditions would be beneficial in my opinion.

I always was under the impression that the high quality repro is very brittle and breaks very easy . im not saying bend it and if it breaks its fake but if I had a repro id have to know for sure .

Some time ago I heard a rumour (at a toy fair) that these high quality Amanaman staffs originate from a guy in the UK who had them (along with Yoda's cane, orange snake, Ugnaught bag & some weapons) factory made in China, hence the high quality.

Well the strange thing is that, if they are molded off of a production toy, you should really be able to tell in a side by side cuz the skulls can’t be as nice lol

I just want someone to send me a fake so I can take such a pic my new one sank so supposedly it’s legit as that’s the only defrentiating factor on TIG.