12back.com : Features : The Vinyl Cape Jawa

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By Gus Lopez and Chris Fawcett
The Vinyl Cape (or VC) jawa is one of the higher priced Star Wars figures. Since it is a variation only in the cape, many fakes have been surfacing over the last couple years. If you are thinking about buying a VC Jawa, the best advice is to have if confirmed by one or more experts.

Loose

Here are some key things to look for on loose VC Jawas:

The cape should match the color of the Jawa. Many fakes are being made by cutting Ben Kenobi capes to the size for the Jawa. The Ben capes however are a deeper reddish-brown than the Jawa cape. It is good to compare the VC Jawa cape to a Ben cape and make sure they are very different colors.
The arm holes should fit very snuggly. Often on fakes which have been hand cut, the holes for the arms are fairly loose. On real VC Jawa, the arm holes are very tight.
The cape should have the same thickness as the Ben capes. Many of the fakes out there that are not made from Ben capes are the correct color. But since these capes have been made recently, the material is different from the real VC Jawa cape. Many of these capes are much stiffer and thicker than real capes. The VC and Ben capes are made from the same material, so check both the thickness and pliability against a Ben cape.
The Jawa cape has a very faint crosshatch pattern on the inside. The outside is very smooth. Check for this pattern as it would be very difficult to fake this detail.

Carded

There is also a rash of FAKE carded vinyl cape Jawas on the secondary market right now. There are reports that these are being sold by a "collector" from Long Island, New York, who has an attrocious reputation for manufacturing and selling fake collectibles over the past several years.

Anyone shopping around for such a piece should take extra care in examining the make sure you are getting the real thing. Some seasoned collectors have been fooled by these well-made fakes. Fortunately, there is a way to tell the fakes from originals.

Here are three shots of bubbles that were used for the Jawa on Star Wars cards, but not all these bubbles were used for vinyl cape Jawas. The perpetrator is using bubbles from 12/20-back cloth cape Jawas to seal a vinyl cape Jawa on a 12-back card.

The bubble on the left is the correct bubble for the vinyl cape Jawa. It is thin and flat and is the only bubble that was ever used for the vinyl cape Jawa. If you see any other bubble on a carded vinyl Jawa bubble, it is fake.

The bubble to the right is the one used on many 12-back cloth cape Jawas, but not on any vinyl cape Jawas.

This bubble is the third bubble that was used on 12-backs Jawas, but was only used on cards with cloth cape Jawas. This bubble is being used on these fakes that have been turning up. They look real, because they are real bubbles, even though such bubbles were never used on original carded vinyl cape Jawas. If you see a carded vinyl cape Jawa with this slanted bubble shown in the illustration in the middle, then you have a fake in front of you. I don't care what dealers say about different bubbles being used on vinyl cape Jawas, it is simply not true. If you spot any of these fakes, please contact us immediately.

Please feel free to spread this information and copy the image and text. Only by getting the word out, will the perpetrator get stuck with these fakes instead of innocent victims.