Counterfeit and Fakes
We can't emphasise enough the importance of avoiding the purchase of fake reborn kits and illegally produced dolls.
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With the exception of the RealBorn kits (legally produced by Bountiful Baby using scans of real babies) all the reborn kits used in the making of reborn dolls are first sculpted in clay by individual artists.
These individual artists dedicate their life to working hard perfecting their skills and sharing that talent with the reborning and collecting community.
The practise of stealing these kits with the intention of illegally copying them and making cheap plastic dolls, or poor quality kits is on the increase, and even some of the large shopping platforms and big social media pages are full of them.
These counterfeits steal directly from the pockets of the industry's sculpting artists, and their continued production could jeopardise the art as we know it.
Not only this, but many of the sites claiming to sell reborns will use photographs stolen from top artists of dolls which sold for thousands, and advertise them at very low prices. These sites will at best send you a very low quality plastic or rubber "replica" of the pictured doll, and at worst will send you nothing and simply keep your money.
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Avoiding them can be hard, but there are some steps that you can take to avoid being scammed.
1) Buy doll kits from reputable dealers, or from the artist direct. The kits sold on large or generic shopping platforms are likely to be fake.
2) Fake and counterfeit dolls are not only poor quality and unappealing, they are also made from products which might not be up to the correct safely standards.
3) Buy reborns direct from the artist, or from a shop with a physical location that you can visit. Reborns are artist made, not mass produced and all genuine reborns will come with information on the person who sculpted the kit, and the person who reborned it to life. If a website or a seller can't provide you with a sculpting and reborning artist, then it is likely to be fake or a scam.
4) Don't engage with sellers who approach you on social media claiming to have dolls to sell. This is a new technique of scammers to pose as other collectors or even artists to try and sell you a fake doll.
If you are in the market for a reborn baby, do your own research and contact a seller yourself.
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5) Be aware of the correct terminology. A SILICONE baby doll (full sized) will cost £1000 upwards. Smaller and mini dolls might be available on a lower budget, but if someone offers you a full sized silicone doll for a few hundred pounds, it is likely to be a vinyl doll, or a fake. Please do your homework and if in doubt, ask around and get a second opinion.
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6) Don't be tempted to buy fakes, even if you feel you would be happy with a cheap plastic baby for a low price, please consider the massive impact it has on our industry, and the heartache it causes to the sculptors who have had their work cloned and their livelihoods impacted.
I have included some images on this page of what you are likely to get if you do purchase a fake doll...
#supportoursculpters
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