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How do you know your Thunderdome CD is real?

With the ever increasing Thunderdome item prices, it's normal, altough unfair and disgracefull, that fake items and copies show up. Some of them are easily spotted by a regular collector, others can fool even the largest die-hard collector. In fact, some items like flags, shirts and even caps have shown up and turned out to be fakes. Not to be confused with items that do not appear in ID&T catalogues, but are quite real, some of them special. A good example is the Thundertaste banner, which is not in any ID&T catalogue but it's quite real. In these cases, the best you can do is get informed. Contacting a fellow good collector is a good ideia.

But once it comes to CDs, things get hectic. All people want to complete their collection, and right now, for some items is probably impossible for all collectors to complete it. Simply there might not be enough copies for all. Nevertheless, this brings another problem. While with Thunderdome XIV Megamixes the chance of getting a fake is slim, and you can check with anybody if yours is real... this does not happen with Thunderdome Best of' 97 Megamix.

This CD was extremely limited, and only a handfull of collectors have it. Until 2007 it was unknown to almost all collectors. In 2009 more and more of these CDs appeared in markets, but the fight for them was overwhelming, and people paid sometimes over 500€ instantly to grab them. Once they got a CD, it looked good and played good, they were convinced and kept it, even showed it with pride. Since only a few people had the original, ironically some people from outside Holland, it was hard to tell it was a fake.

It's time to put and end to all this, someone made a lot of money fooling fellow collectors, and this brings low credibility to markets and fear to everybody wishing to pay for an item. And makes a truly rare gemm look cheap and common, loosing it's "magic". So here goes a small tutorial on how to see if your Thunderdome Best of '97 Megamix is real:

1. The cover should look shiny and the paper should feel good quality. It can happen with sun and bad care it becomes rough and fragile, or even discolored, but always suspect that.

2. The CD should look like this in the front (notice the lines in the center):

3. The CD shoud look like this in the back. Notice the lines in the center, notice how it looks silver with no color tone (not greenish, redish or blueish like CDr), and how the recorded section is well defined. Also notice there is an outer rim, that is usually absent in CDr.

4. Let's look at the center closely, and read the codes. They should not be in mirror, or start with RFD80M (google it, it's a 80 minute CDr code!). There are no Belgium editions (LOL), or special misspresses. It's just a good copy. Bear in mind most Thunderdome Megamixes were printed by Dureco back then, hence this code (DUR-NL) makes sense and will show up in most other Megamixes released. And the 7000075 is the catalogue code of Thunderdome Best of '97 Megamix, as you probably already know.

5. Compare these pictures with one of the back of a fake Thunderdome Best of '97 Megamix CD:

6. What is too good to be true, usually (but not always) is. Check the seller's story, and just because the seller shows a picture of the cover or CD, does not mean it's not fake. For this item, a lot of people were fooled, and it seems like an organized scheme. They know what they are doing! They might even send you a picture of the backside of the CD, with all this. Suspect if the photos look too "neat", or are scans - because they use these scans to print you copy. Contact a fellow collector if you have doubts.