In March 2018 Ebay seller jbeerd (aka carplatespro) from Moscow in Russia was trying to sell these replica Dubai, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Tchad plates. He usually has up to10 copies of each plate with the same numbers on each.
The problem with these plates is that they all have something wrong or very wrong with them. African plates especially never look so mint and are at best heavily used if genuine.
Some collectors want mint looking (or mint) plates but they will always be ripped off by fake/replica makers. Other collectors of genuine plates (the majority of collectors) will just laugh at the mint collector’s plates and the collector for being so stupid. With mint plates like these you cannot even show them to other collectors boasting about your wonderful collection as you will be pitied not envied. Save your money for real plates.
Problems with these plates:
Dubai brand plate – wrong base and the A and brand logo are the wrong fonts.
Dubai Burj Al-Arab plate – terrible printing on the Burj graphic and the actual embossing is all in slightly the wrong place.
Ethiopia – the Amharic and English letters are wrong.
Gabon – the CEMAC logo, the blank, the hologram, and the font are wrong as well as the barcode being missing.
Guinea Bissau – the font, date area and blank are wrong.
Mauritania – wrong blank and blue band.
Senegal – the big problem is that serial DD will not be reached for many years to come.
Tchad – the CEMAC logo is wrong.
Do you really want in your collection a fake plate that is not only obviously wrong but that many other people also have? Why not just make a drawing of the plate on a piece of cardboard or have a picture printed on card from the www of a real plate and put that in your collection. Much cheaper and better than a fake plate.
The big problem is going to come later when some of these plates get into the market. From a photo during a sale or trade it could be difficult to tell if the plate or plates are genuine or not to someone without the correct knowledge. It just proves that any plate you bid on or trade for MUST be checked against the huge number of photos of genuine plates available on the www.
This just makes everything difficult for everyone. Reproductions are very bad for the hobby and if you care about the future of the hobby, it is better you do not buy reproductions, especially such poor quality ones like this seller makes.
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