Does anyone know if there is any place on the internet, or anywhere in general? Where AFI fans can see every single legitimate merch/music/patches/etc AFI has ever released in some sort of archive? If not, I feel it is our duty as loyal fans to weed out the bootlegs and scammers. I have been digging through this forum for around 4 hours and I have seen at least 1,000 different items just here alone. Ive seen countless releases on Discogs and eBay. Please help join the force to force out the bootlegs and frauds.
@Cher_I_Despair
I feel like you could be the one to start this archive or movement. I’ve never met such a committed fan of AFI. Or any other band for that matter. Imagine a world where you could look up anything a band officially has sold. This is especially meaningful in the AFI community.
As far as old clothes go cinderblock stuff was legit people would bootleg the designs on cheap ass gildan shirts I dont know about clothing too much cause I dont collect clothing like I do vinyl but setlist fm and the HQ had a vault of every setlist online most of the bootlegs are super easy to identify. I dont have the time to dedicate myself into a website I work way to many hours in a week and barely have time to do anything:joy:
I generally use these forums as an archive when searching for merch, and enjoy looking through all the different shirts and patches and vinyl etc on the collectors threads. There are also a few afi collection Instagram accounts I follow, @afi_nick and @derek.afi . I’m pretty sure those guys are also on these boards, but their collections are laid out very nicely on Instagram
xD
I didn’t mean to go that far, I just meant you have influence in the community. If we could find a way to isolate original presses of vinyl away from depressed or just could tell the difference between all the marbled vinyl. I’m a vinyl fanatic as well. <3
Back in the day my go to was ‘Slinch’ and ‘4Ibanez’ (both on these boards). Learned about loads of little discrepancies between promo’s etc from those guys which accelerated my collection between about 2007 and 2010. CD’s were and still are my main draw and have a reasonable amount of knowledge when it comes to those. My vinyl, clothing and other bits have just grown by circumstance rather than really going out of my way to build (but still really haven’t done too badly at all with minimal effort on that front)
As mentioned above. Derek and Nick these days on insta are a good place to go so see collections of all sorts of different afi bits.
EDIT: As with most things in life, when collecting, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. If a promo goes up that seemingly none of the big hitters have in their collection, probably means it’s fake. Any brand new clothing that has older designs to it (99% of the time selling from Asia) and the seller has several of, fake.
In terms of CD’s probably the biggest bootleg is the Days Of The Phoenix EP. Only 500 of these were produced, and only sold during the UK shows in 2000 or 2001 (and for a cd with such a limited run it appears fairly frequently for sale, more so than stuff with higher print runs). There are 2 variants to the bootlegs. One is fairly easy to spot once you know what you are looking for (have posted about it in the collections thread in the past). The other is pretty much impossible to tell the difference. My advice with that cd is either buy from a known collector or someone from the uk. In either of those instances the chances are it’s legit. In any other case, don’t go spending a fortune on it.
Okay, so that’s two yay-says for Derek and Nick insta. Thank you for putting so much time and thought in your response. Are Slinch and 4Ibanez still reliable sources, or even around?
I’m not very big on CD’s at the moment, unless they contain exclusive songs but who knows how far this obsession will go. I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum of wealth and options, so I’ll stick to collecting all transparent red vinyl AFI has for the moment. This has all been very helpful and I am very appreciative.
Both were extremely reliable back in the day, and pop up on this forum from time to time. They’ve been a lot less of a presence online since ‘deadformat’ shut down.
This is an interesting idea and concept but I don’t personally feel that the amount of contentious bootleg merchandise out there would really justify listing every official item that has ever been released.
There’s some good points of reference for you in what @STORMS has put together on this forum with historic screenshots of merchandise available from afireinside.net. You could also use Discogs specifically for music etc. and Dereks Instagram is also awesome and something I regularly refer to.
Failing that if there’s something in particular that your unsure of then just post it on here or message another person that has that specific item. I’ve had loads of people message me on Instagram to check tags on shirts against my own collection to make sure the item they are looking at is genuine and would be happy to do so for anyone else. If you can find someone else that has the same item you’re looking at buying, preferably that bought it new and the labels match then you know you’re ok.
The problem with listing everything is that even with collectors that have so much (myself and many others on this forum included) it’s probably just a drop in the ocean on everything that has ever been released with every album/ep release and different merchandise available on each tour.
As @Hammonds said if it looks suspicious then just avoid it. From experience anything coming from Russian Federation or Asia that has every size available on an older design is clearly dodgy!
Unfortunately you can’t stop people from listing bootleg merchandise and a lot of us myself included probably still buy it where either AFI don’t make the that specific item or if it’s a old shirt design where the original goes for hundreds of dollars and your happy just to have a reprint.
My Instagram is AFI-Nick if you want me to check anything.
Yeah I think some of us have done a real good job of posting pretty comprehensive pics and if you ever needed more clarity, we’d love to look further into specifics.
