In July 2018 Ebay seller jbeerd (aka carplatespro) from Moscow in Russia was trying to sell this replica Zimbabwe plate. He usually has up to 10 copies of each plate with the same numbers.
In 2011 a large quantity of mint samples for various African countries appeared in Germany, presumably from one of the manufacturers there. They were obviously samples and there is absolutely no such thing as a genuine, mint African plate anyway.
This replica is supposed to have been copied from one of these German samples that was bought by a German collector from a Russian collector earlier in the year. The original German samples were wrong in various details and this copy has even more mistakes; crooked hologram, no overprinting and no laser etched serial number as well as problems with the coat of arms.
Do you really want in your collection a fake plate that is not only obviously wrong but that many other people also have? You can’t even boast about your latest plate to other collectors since they will laugh at you for wasting so much money on rubbish when they see what you bought.
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 VERY carefully against the huge number of photos of genuine plates available on the www. You are always welcome to send me an email through this site to ask if a plate is genuine.
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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