Be warned that there is a huge amount of counterfeit Beatles Mono and Stereo box sets that are all over Ebay and the web - selling for considerably less than retail. These are counterfeit versions made in China that are far inferior in quality. Most of the fake mono sets come in cellophane wrapped (wrapped the way an Xmas package is wrapped) - whereas the real ones are shrinkwrapped. Here's some YouTube videos regarding the fake ones. The counterfeit Mono Box Set:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBHT_O2_NU The counterfeit Stereo Box Set:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K28gwepnLzg The woman explaining the fake Stereo box has wrongly identified the lack of both the anti-piracy logo and the Capitol logo as a means to detect it, but the fact is, they counterfeit version is based on the European copies that don't contain the Capitol logo. The best way to tell is to look at the green title print on the back insert sheet. The real ones use light green text - the fakes are dark green. As for the mono box, the cellphone wrap should give it away immediately - but also the green Apple logo on the front of the box has much darker shadowing on the fake version. The real one is green all the way through (the fake one fades almost to black along the right and bottom side of the logo). The wholesale price of these fake versions being sold out of China range from $16-30 each, so the sellers are making hefty profits even when they sell them at $90 (which is clearly a steal price give that the real ones retail in the $200-250 range). The bottom line is: if you buy one of the box sets on Ebay or on the web for half the price that the real stores sell them for, the deal is probably too good to be true and you're probably going to end up with a counterfeit. I have samples of each counterfeit here, so email me directly if you need additional assistance in telling the real from the fake. Rod
| 
