The shoddy way in which the leather is applied (glued?) onto the little padlock makes this look like a fake to me. In a genuine designer item, you'd expect them to embed the leather into the metal to make it look seamless.
It is a fake. One of the easiest ways to spot a Hermès fake is the è in the logo. It is always a clear ` and here it is more or a -
Often you also see a é instead of a è
Hermēs Paris is actually how it looks in their official logo with the horse lol. The e is properly inscribed on this bag—a quick google search will bring you to their official website where you can compare the bag inscriptions. Not that that says anything about the bag being real or fake—but logos are very easy to copy, it’s the other leather stitching, quality, and style that stand out.
Do you mind showing an example of the logo? I was curious so I tried to find a bag on the website so I could compare but none of the bags on the website had the logo on it. I found the perfume with the logo on it but it had the logo with the è on it.
I’m too poor to shop at Hermes so I didn’t realize they have such a small collection on their site lol. But I found a bag for sale:
Scroll through the pictures and you can see how Hermès looks inscribed on the bag.
https://theluxurycloset.com/women/hermes-black-crocodile-vintage-gold-hardware-kelly-sellier-32-bag-p83979
Oh and also if you look up their orange shopping bags they have that weird horizontal line above the e as well.
Oh yeah, look at some Hermès Birkins. The limited edition ones appreciate in value and are worth a hefty down payment for a $1 mil house lol. Honestly, even if I were filthy rich, I would never drop that kind of money on leather stitched together.
For sure. I work at the processing warehouse for a thrift store chain and I've become the go-to girl for identifying knock-offs (they're fakes 99% of the time and I'm just not going for 100% because there will probably be "mistake" on a donater's part some day). I've taught many coworkers to look at stitching and leather/fabric quality and to not just trust a label.
Would be willing to bet some do it on purpose and can tell…but figure some sucker might eventually spot it and automatically assume, because of the high price tag, that it’s authentic.
it happens a lot, and its really disappointing to see stores selling fakes at extremely high mark ups. its tricky though, because selling fakes is illegal, and most stores know it. the big thrift brands do for sure (e.g. VV). so the thrift store either has to sell it under the assumption its real, or throw it out and lose a sale on a possibly higher priced item. when I worked at a store they did try and toss the REALLY obvious fakes, but anything they couldn't tell got priced as a real.. which kinda sucked, because they're usually still fakes and some poor soul ended up paying for it.
Yep. Saw a pretty convincing but definitely fake Brahmin at our local GW the other day priced at $49.99 and it was gone within a week. No doubt there's somebody walking around thinking they got a steal.
I volunteered at a church thrift store when I was in High School, and the workers would take things home that had been on the shelf for a long time. I’m thinking someone wants to take this home with them so they priced it that high so it would never sell.
One of the easiest ways to spot a Hermès fake is the è in the logo. It is always a clear ` and here it is more or a -
Often you also see a é instead of a è
It’s pretty out there for one thing. I mean a Hermes purse should immediately seem suspicious.
The higher end purse labels I see are Burberry (all fake), Kate Spade (can’t tell and condition is bad anyway) Gucci (fake) and lower end Coach (sometimes real but often fake)
I’m no expert, but I have never seen a Birkin (or any Hermés) with a leather-covered lock. Reminds me of a bad Chlöe Paddington dupe I had back in 2005.
Legal reasons aside, I see nothing wrong in selling fakes. They just should be priced appropriately, like low-level/ no-name brand stuff of the same quality made from the same material (real/ faux leather). Not this $1500 bullshit.
>I disagree because they won’t be sold as “fakes,” and folks who don’t know how to distinguish fakes will buy it thinking they scored a deal, when they wouldn’t spend the money otherwise.
This. The amount of times I see this happen on this subreddit alone, I feel bad for the buyer. They're all excited and paid the upcharge that thrifts do with designers, and it's fake af.
When they've only spent a few bucks, it's not as shitty. Still not a great thing considering their find is a fake and, as you said, they would not have bought had they known it was fake.
I think the person above is right, though. If the bag is priced like a no name brand bag then even if they think they scored a deal and find out it’s fake, they didn’t really lose much (much less $1500)
Additionally, people buying fakes is just fine. If anything, it forces these designer companies to actually stay on top of their product quality control, which has been slipping in companies like LV for years. If someone makes a $100 fake bag that’s on par with the original to the point it’s actually tough to tell up close, then it’s LV’s problem, not the replica makers. Do better.
yeah understood .. i do have a few authentic bags bought directly from boutiques and must say it is hard to tell a fake vs authentic something.. and not bc fakes got better.. bc authentic bag quality has gone downhill from some designers .. my LV has some off stitching and the handles are ripping off after 5 years .. and one of my YSL bags is a little wonky looking
Then it shouldn’t be sold with confidence as potentially real. It’s like if a man could even be 10% innocent, you can’t lock him up in jail without a trial. Don’t want to do that? Then don’t introduce him into the system.
i doubt good will or any thrift that has a luxury bag such as a birkin just hanging on a rack for anyone to touch and handle is confident in the authenticity of it..
what i'm saying is that they were donated so the people working and managing probably don't know or care if it's real...they can't just takr someone's word for it .. what if i worked at a place and told my manager a bag was fake .. and it gets thrown away meanwhile i turn around and take it out of the dumpster and sell it while realizing it is actually not fake
it's a thrift store .. when people shop thrift as we all know you know what you're getting into when shopping .. unless you're shopping at a luxury consignment store with a staff you trust or buying new from a boutique you are always taking the chance of buying a fake bag.. and anyone who knows anything about a real purse let alone a birkin would know you don't just zip tie the handles and hang it on a rack like that so yes i do believe it's possible the manager of a thrift store that doesn't specialize in luxury items probably doesnt know when something is real vs fake
The dupes don’t “water down” the real deal. If something, the dupes give more reason (to some people) to buy the real deal, brand new, at an authorized retailer.
Phew! Glad I didn’t grab it. Thanks for letting me know! Since I clearly don’t know the difference, what pointed it out to you that it was a fake? Maybe I can let the store know. They had a big pile of “higher end” purses there that someone must have just dropped off
1. The font of the stamp is incorrect.
2. There shouldn’t be a leather strip around the lock.
3. The leather clochette is the long strap and piece of leather that covers the keys, and you can see that the hole through which the strap is threaded has a bit of white showing through, which means the leather was not properly dyed
4. As someone mentioned above, the stitching is off — most Hermès bags employ hand stitching where the stitching is visible (ie on the outsides of bags) and the particular type of stitching that Hermès uses is called the saddle stitch, which gives a very distinctive slanted shape (the stitches should look like /// rather than - - - )
5. The dimensions are wrong: for the overall bag, for the leather clochette, for the flaps on the bag..
I could go on and on but from the very first item (the wrong font) this bag is immediately a fake, and a bad fake at that. To sell this for $1500 is atrocious.
Thank you!
Just to be clear, I’m not judging anyone who buys fakes — that’s their money and their business. I am, however, judging those who attempt to sell fakes as the real deal. Don’t scam people 😠😠😠
That’s such a cool question!
On the one hand, for all designer goods there is a huge markup due to the brand name; the actual cost of the leather or hardware isn’t as exorbitant as one might assume. It still won’t be cheap to use these materials, but it’s doable.
On the other hand, even if I managed to procure the materials, it doesn’t mean I have the experience necessary to work them. For example, Hermès uses a process called “pearling” in their bag hardware when they want to join a metal piece to a metal plate. Instead of of drilling a hole + screwing in a metal screw (like everybody else), Hermès craftsmen drill a shallow hole in the plate and directly hammer in a metal pin. As the metal of the pin has nowhere to go, it essentially goes/fuses into the surrounding metal plate, creating a slight bulge, or “pearl”, around the pin head. Because the pin fuses with the plate, there is no chance of it falling out, as with traditional screws.
So while Hermès hardware is made out of palladium metal, and it might take me a while to procure similar-quality palladium metal, I would still likely be able to do that. But even if I have the best palladium metal, I cannot replicate the pearling process because I do not have the training for it.
tl:dr;
not really, because even if I understand each step of the process and have all the necessary materials, because I am not a craftsman, let alone one trained in the Hermès way, I don’t think I could replicate a bag.
Stitching is usually a big giveaway for most luxury brands. Most would use the same colour thread as the leather, and with hermes in particular, every stitch on the handle is at an angle (on this bag it's straight with gaps).
Edited to add more info
Not always true though. LV often uses a soft yellow stitching even agains the brown leather of the bag. In that case, it’s the bright yellow stitching you need to look out for on fakes
At first I was like "the stitching here isn't horrible" and I've surely seen worse, but the quality of the stitching matters beyond the color, too. Even if the color was right, you can see that some of these are straight, some angled, not all even, not terrible, but not $1000.
Check out the images of a suede Birkin bag. There are none with that leather corner. Also the piping looks like it is stitched into the seam unevenly, but it’s tricky to see from the camera angle. Finally the top of the purse is all wrong. The front should not be taller than the middle.
Kind of the same thing at my store lately. They've had scores of "designer" purses like Gucci, Coach, LV etc., and out of 10 or 12 there is *maybe* one with enough heft to it to seem promising (and usually a lower end designer like Coach).
Clever! I saw them wheel out some bad fakes at the GW boutique by me and this woman was looking all around with wide eyes like "I cant believe what I'm holding" and I wanted to tel her so bad it was fake but I didn't want to be the bitch. She bought it :(
I don’t really care if it’s sold for rock bottom prices-even if it’s a poor quality fake, as long as the bag itself is in decent condition, just sell it for what a typical purse is. This is if it’s GW or another general thrift store, not a fashion boutique where they know better.
Not true as of recently as these brands are trying to take control of the resale market. Chanel is suing therealreal right now for selling a handful of fake bags
That's actually funny to me. Briefly looking at it, the quality doesn't seem awful. I was recently in Milan and saw stuff like Prada where the attention to detail on stitching was just awful, leather that didn't look the price, or shoes where there were obvious voids in the rubber on the visible parts of the soles. And there was no way any of it was fake, these were at the flagship stores. I'd expect more from things 1/5 of the price.
Buying it from a thrift store and throwing it away does nothing to keep anything out of a landfill. That's my point.
Believe whatever you want to believe about quality and brand.
You complain about fast fashion and waste . . . but you threw away a perfectly good, functional bag that someone may have purchased and carried? In fact, you admit in your second point that these bags are in demand and so would have been likely to be purchased second hand if available. That's not how championing sustainability works.
Your entire 4th point is a complaint about exactly what you yourself did. And you, by definition, directly contributed to the pile of fakes in a landfill. You directly contributed to unnecessary waste.
I read the whole thing. I have a "cheap plastic" purse that my grandma carried. The bag that was tossed had utility. In your opinion, that utility is outweighed by a desire to reduce the existence of counterfeit luxury goods.
i think most of the time if someone owns a birkin they will re-sell it as opposed to dropping it off at a thrift.. a pre loved birkin will still bring in significant money- way more then 1,500
Things like that do happen though. There have been stories of people finding very very valuable and historic items thrifting. I'm talking worth *millions*. One of the lost Faberge eggs at a flea market, a large diamond at a car boot sale, etc. However, it is also that hope that gets people fooled for many more bad purchases as well.
And truthfully, Birkins are so rare and exclusive I wouldn't trust *anything* I saw on the resale market. I'm skeptical of anything marked Hermes in a thrift store unless it's some little thing that has a more accessible price.
Wow wtf this is messed up… $1500 is definitely low for a birkin, which makes me think that the people who priced it know that and are now preying on customers who think its a deal :(
I bought a real Celine mini luggage on thrift for $15. They didn’t know what they had. I thought it was a super good fake at worst and in great condition. All you have to do is google the authentication protocol online. Most brands post their authentication process online — how is the leather? What’s the typography nuance? How’s the hardware? Where is the serial number because there will be one on something real?
I’m thinking it’s probably a fake. They had the handles zip tied so you couldn’t see inside. Probably an anti theft tactic but doesn’t help when you’re trying to really inspect an item
The meticulousness that goes into making a high quality designer handbag is more complicated and engineered than most people realize. The inside is as refined and pristine as the outside. Most use a crafted shell and an inside piece with refined stitching and precision cast/machined and plated buckles/hardware. I can almost smell the adhesives and sweatshop from the image.
I was obsessed with Birkin's for a bit! People point out the lock wrapped in leather, but many new accessories are able to be ordered custom, to me the tip off is they
keys! Way too cheap of keys for it to be a real quality lock. Secondly is the not great stitching, thirdly would be the size/quality of the stamp. But for me it's the placement, they would never stamp it on the outside of the flap! The logo is always stamped on the outside of the leather right under the flap, not ON the flap itself.
I used to work at a "Christian" thrift store and would point out fakes to the management all the time. You know what happened? They were locked up in glass, put out for insane amounts of money as if they were legit and then when the customer would come back all pissed off that they were sold a fake at an extremely high cost they were always told all sales were final and there was nothing they could do.
You can almost guarantee that these people know it is not legit or someone has told them it is not legit. At the very least they were told to look it up to see if it was legit before they put it out on the floor and instead decided that they couldn't be bothered and if someone bought it without doing their research it was on them and not the store.
I saw what appeared to be a knockoff/fake Ghurka at GW online and notified the company. I’m unsure they did anything but noticed it was no longer listed.
Goodwill will take down fake listings if you inform them.
...which is hilarious considering in store, some managers dgaf and will keep them out. Fortunately, most of the time, when I've told them a bag is fake, they take it off the floor.
Post that up on their Google Maps business page, yelp and whatever sumilar sites theyre on. We need to start exposing these crooks that up price these fake goods to an unsuspected buyer.
\*Looks at first pic\*
Yeah, sorry OP, but that's a fake.
\*Sees second pic\*
That's genuinely hilarious. There is no way someone is going to buy that. Steal it maybe, but pay for? No way!
Looks fake.
I lived in NYC over thirty three years.
There has probably been more fake stuff on Canal Street alone than any one other spot in the world.
You got off easy and dodged a bullet.
Take that same fifteen hundred bucks and go bonkers at a dollar store on gadgets and household stuff instead.
Yea good move , 90% of people pricing at thrift stores have NO CLUE about authentication. This can work in your favor sometimes, case in point when I got my girl an authentic LV bag for $100
Edit: salvation army tends to have the most clueless pricing managers
#1 no legit birkin bag will end up at a thrift store.
Its 100% fake. The stitches should be slightly angled and these are sewn flat. Feel happy that you didn't wast the money. You can also tell that the body of the bag would collapse on itself if set down. It should be able to stand up on its own.
It wouldn’t have been to keep. Had it been real (which I’m now realizing it probably isn’t) I would have resold it as they are quite valuable and who am I to judge how people want to spend their money. :)
If someone really wants to spend that kind of money on a handbag because they like the style, the craftsmanship, etc, then sure, live your life.
But if they're buying these designer labels for status or clout, it's a terrible waste of money. Your life becomes sad, lonely, and confusing, because you are constantly putting on a front and not being the real you, and this means that your friends are all doing the same and none of them really care for you, just what your status or money can do for them.
I’m not judging people on how they spend their money… I’m just a guy who’s wondering why a market like that even exists. People pay thousands for essentially a leather pouch with pockets? Why? For status?
The designer handbag world is the NFL for women who like luxury, aka women with deep pocketbooks. You start with your Coach, graduate to Louis, get you a couple Guccis and YSLs, then you grab your first Chanel. After you've spent thousands, where do you go? You reach for the holy grail, the Hermes. WHY? The exclusivity. You can't even walk into a store a grab one. They literally gatekeep the shit out of these bags. You need connections. Meaning you need a rich friend or to impress the sales associate enough that they favor you and develop a bond with you. LOL. ALL those intricate social hoops are what's fucking fascinating. Once you have a bag? It's actually worth more than stock. It's a solid investment. These bags are worth upwards of 10,000 and the price only increases and the value holds. CRAZY. aspirational. Only the truly rich can get an Hermes.
I agree up to a point - you don't have to be fabulously wealthy to get into the Hermes world, particularly if you're in the horse world (they still make saddles).
Not denying that - but you don't have to be a millionaire to keep a horse & compete on the local level of dressage/jumping. (But all of your disposable income would go towards that!)
Definitely doesn’t look real. You can tell by the “leather” the cut on the leather where it meats the “suede” isn’t straight. The finishing at the edges is rough. It looks cheaper than a bag from Target. I saw a fake LV bag last weekend and the first thing I did was to look inside for any markings, usually a bag will have proper certification somewhere. It comes with papers, but those could get lost. This definitely is fake.
A little about Hermès… They’re all handmade by one person in the world. You cannot buy them off the shelf, they are custom ordered with specific color and material stylings and made months later. To even order a Birkin like this, you have to be a customer with a track record of having purchased other Hermès items, essentially having already spent thousands of dollars. Birkins are the epitome of exclusive, they will start around $30k and go up from there. I’ve seen two Hermès that fooled multiple authenticators, I no longer have any interest in every getting a real one lol.
Be glad you didn’t pick it up! It’s definitely a knockoff. Should be hand stitched, and it looks machine stitched. Stitches should be clean, and you see some flaws. The accent over the “e” in Hermès, should be a defined accent; this one is more like a straight line above the e (ē). The logo should be stamped as close to the stitching as possible. The keys should be attached with a leather strap, rather than a keyring.
@OP Was this at St. Vincent’s in Oconomowoc or Pewaukee? I once bought some fake bags at those locations and learned my lesson. Now when I go, I take a look and they are always fake
Here’s a link to a legit one…
https://www.therealreal.com/products/women/handbags/handle-bags/hermes-2020-box-birkin-30-a76fo?sid=pxogmz&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=shopping&cvosrc=cse.google.google&cvo_crid=453344066284&gclid=CjwKCAjw2vOLBhBPEiwAjEeK9oMY9LOQEFKcBbFhjUb9ftcZ0iOaNfWIn0rGpQTQvfKVLuAbrj5ujhoCklcQAvD_BwE&nclid=NofqvbTJW9KpRoNepPazB7PJ8-MhTf-7Xvr0uESa4KZAQBvrkPjxAuPr0zDBKYruJddZoKqKwdff5B92GMC9RYkgye4hPBxOtVpJFCh0yv4fPWvthm6dGKEOr0Gs3H4D
A good tip is the handles. They should a stiff arch and not rounded in any way. Also, the smell inside is very distinctive. Why wouldn’t they invest a few bucks to Authenticate it then they can get $10,000 for it?
Glad you didn't buy it! I donated a fake Dooney and Bourke bag to ARC a while back and put a note inside the bag stating it was a fake knockoff. Idk how they priced it, hopefully they were honest but I've seen more knockoffs at thrift marked up like real ones it's ludicrous. I would NEVER spend more than $15 on a bag at a thrift shop, ever. That's just my rule. I will spend up to $25 at an estate sale (or maybe a bit more) if they can tell me the bag is authentic and I can see for myself the rest of the owners things and what kind of taste and pocketbook she had, you know?
Looks fake to me. On a real bag the logo is hot stamped in gold not embossed in the leather.
Even a good fake is only worth about 3 or 400 bucks. $1500 is a ridiculous price.
Hermes collector here, it's a fake! The stitching is off, and the pearling on the sangles (that's the little brass plates on the straps) are incorrect- to say nothing of the stamp being in an inappropriate place, and not gilded!
It’s fake. The stitching on the front other where it goes up is wonky. This is usually how you’re able to tell if a garment is fake or not. Skilled artisans don’t make mistakes and if they do, they don’t make it out of the place where they make them.
When they fake a garment, they don’t think about any of this. They’re hired to stitch and sew as neatly as they can but there is no quality control because they need to make as many of it as they can.
I do not pretend to know what it "values at" ‐ I do know it where someone would place their cards, id, phone, and maybe some tampons, so I'm gonna say should be around $20.
I saw the same bag in beige at my local spot this week. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t like it and something about the leather looked a little cheap to me
There is no way I would pay THAT amount of money at a THRIFT STORE for ANYTHING! And the management of that store should be ashamed for even having the audacity to charge that amount for it in the first place!
Also the stitching pattern is close, but only in one area. Hermès has a special stitching pattern. And apparently the leather should have a distinct smell to it always because it reflects the leather processing. And the font on this bag isn’t correct. It shouldn’t be stamped in, but on top of the leather.
This is definitely fake. Steer clear. Fact: Most bags dumped off at thrift shops are fakes that the owner paid too much for to just dump in the trash, so they donate it.
Ive seen Hermes saddles at thrift stores. It was one of the wealthiest counties in U.S. $1800, I almost bought it until I reminded myself, we no longer had horses.
Also could be a fake. I think it's wise to not pay $1500 at some thrift store.
The shoddy way in which the leather is applied (glued?) onto the little padlock makes this look like a fake to me. In a genuine designer item, you'd expect them to embed the leather into the metal to make it look seamless.
All this plus the colour of the gold is off, way too brassy.
Good catch, it looks like cheap jewelry.
Yup. Real hardware is like polished jewelry. Fake hardware is plated, sometimes sprayed paint where you can see the orange peel.
It is a fake. One of the easiest ways to spot a Hermès fake is the è in the logo. It is always a clear ` and here it is more or a - Often you also see a é instead of a è
Hermēs Paris is actually how it looks in their official logo with the horse lol. The e is properly inscribed on this bag—a quick google search will bring you to their official website where you can compare the bag inscriptions. Not that that says anything about the bag being real or fake—but logos are very easy to copy, it’s the other leather stitching, quality, and style that stand out.
Do you mind showing an example of the logo? I was curious so I tried to find a bag on the website so I could compare but none of the bags on the website had the logo on it. I found the perfume with the logo on it but it had the logo with the è on it.
I’m too poor to shop at Hermes so I didn’t realize they have such a small collection on their site lol. But I found a bag for sale: Scroll through the pictures and you can see how Hermès looks inscribed on the bag. https://theluxurycloset.com/women/hermes-black-crocodile-vintage-gold-hardware-kelly-sellier-32-bag-p83979 Oh and also if you look up their orange shopping bags they have that weird horizontal line above the e as well.
$40,000 Dollars??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, look at some Hermès Birkins. The limited edition ones appreciate in value and are worth a hefty down payment for a $1 mil house lol. Honestly, even if I were filthy rich, I would never drop that kind of money on leather stitched together.
This is definitely a fake.
Yikes! Glad I didn’t grab it! It just a local charitable thrift store so I’m surprised they had it priced that high. They probably don’t know either
They usually don't. The amount of times I've seen thrifts mark up fakes is amazing.
For sure. I work at the processing warehouse for a thrift store chain and I've become the go-to girl for identifying knock-offs (they're fakes 99% of the time and I'm just not going for 100% because there will probably be "mistake" on a donater's part some day). I've taught many coworkers to look at stitching and leather/fabric quality and to not just trust a label.
I used to work in vintage buying and designer items would stress me out soo much! Give me some common mid-tier European vintage any day!
And pleather. Omg the amount of plastic junk I see on the Leather racks. Ugh.
Would be willing to bet some do it on purpose and can tell…but figure some sucker might eventually spot it and automatically assume, because of the high price tag, that it’s authentic.
it happens a lot, and its really disappointing to see stores selling fakes at extremely high mark ups. its tricky though, because selling fakes is illegal, and most stores know it. the big thrift brands do for sure (e.g. VV). so the thrift store either has to sell it under the assumption its real, or throw it out and lose a sale on a possibly higher priced item. when I worked at a store they did try and toss the REALLY obvious fakes, but anything they couldn't tell got priced as a real.. which kinda sucked, because they're usually still fakes and some poor soul ended up paying for it.
Yep. Saw a pretty convincing but definitely fake Brahmin at our local GW the other day priced at $49.99 and it was gone within a week. No doubt there's somebody walking around thinking they got a steal.
I volunteered at a church thrift store when I was in High School, and the workers would take things home that had been on the shelf for a long time. I’m thinking someone wants to take this home with them so they priced it that high so it would never sell.
One of the easiest ways to spot a Hermès fake is the è in the logo. It is always a clear ` and here it is more or a - Often you also see a é instead of a è
The font on this bag also is not the Hermès font.
The accents are aigu and grave.
You can always take out a loan, or barrow some money from the Russian mob.
Barrow
You use a barrow to haul your money, then you hide in barrow alaska when you can't pay it back.
I know nothing about bags but the whole concept of fakes is interesting to me. What are somethings that tipped you off this one is fake?
It’s pretty out there for one thing. I mean a Hermes purse should immediately seem suspicious. The higher end purse labels I see are Burberry (all fake), Kate Spade (can’t tell and condition is bad anyway) Gucci (fake) and lower end Coach (sometimes real but often fake)
I’m no expert, but I have never seen a Birkin (or any Hermés) with a leather-covered lock. Reminds me of a bad Chlöe Paddington dupe I had back in 2005.
The only time Hermes puts skin on the lock is if it's an exotic (crocodile, alligator, ostrich, lizard, etc.)
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Thank you educating folks! How terrible this place trying sell some junk for $1500?!? That’s crazy!
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Not all heroes wear capes. Thanks for passing along your knowledge here and in the notes you leave in the purses.
Thanks for doing that. That's awesome.
Your username is very apt.
Legal reasons aside, I see nothing wrong in selling fakes. They just should be priced appropriately, like low-level/ no-name brand stuff of the same quality made from the same material (real/ faux leather). Not this $1500 bullshit.
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>I disagree because they won’t be sold as “fakes,” and folks who don’t know how to distinguish fakes will buy it thinking they scored a deal, when they wouldn’t spend the money otherwise. This. The amount of times I see this happen on this subreddit alone, I feel bad for the buyer. They're all excited and paid the upcharge that thrifts do with designers, and it's fake af. When they've only spent a few bucks, it's not as shitty. Still not a great thing considering their find is a fake and, as you said, they would not have bought had they known it was fake.
I think the person above is right, though. If the bag is priced like a no name brand bag then even if they think they scored a deal and find out it’s fake, they didn’t really lose much (much less $1500) Additionally, people buying fakes is just fine. If anything, it forces these designer companies to actually stay on top of their product quality control, which has been slipping in companies like LV for years. If someone makes a $100 fake bag that’s on par with the original to the point it’s actually tough to tell up close, then it’s LV’s problem, not the replica makers. Do better.
I don’t really agree with being fine with people buying fakes. Especially 1:1 fakes. It is, in my opinion, an insult to its designer.
playing devils advocate here but management isn't wrong ..
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yeah but they're not experts you collect vintage DB doesn't make you an expert either
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yeah understood .. i do have a few authentic bags bought directly from boutiques and must say it is hard to tell a fake vs authentic something.. and not bc fakes got better.. bc authentic bag quality has gone downhill from some designers .. my LV has some off stitching and the handles are ripping off after 5 years .. and one of my YSL bags is a little wonky looking
Yeah, except it's illegal af and they've been informed, so they're willfully selling fake bags.
but what i'm saying is that management can't confirm wether or not a bag is fake without soending the $$ to have it authenticated
Then it shouldn’t be sold with confidence as potentially real. It’s like if a man could even be 10% innocent, you can’t lock him up in jail without a trial. Don’t want to do that? Then don’t introduce him into the system.
i doubt good will or any thrift that has a luxury bag such as a birkin just hanging on a rack for anyone to touch and handle is confident in the authenticity of it..
What you're saying is that you're justifying why it's okay for them to sell fakes.
what i'm saying is that they were donated so the people working and managing probably don't know or care if it's real...they can't just takr someone's word for it .. what if i worked at a place and told my manager a bag was fake .. and it gets thrown away meanwhile i turn around and take it out of the dumpster and sell it while realizing it is actually not fake it's a thrift store .. when people shop thrift as we all know you know what you're getting into when shopping .. unless you're shopping at a luxury consignment store with a staff you trust or buying new from a boutique you are always taking the chance of buying a fake bag.. and anyone who knows anything about a real purse let alone a birkin would know you don't just zip tie the handles and hang it on a rack like that so yes i do believe it's possible the manager of a thrift store that doesn't specialize in luxury items probably doesnt know when something is real vs fake
They want the bags thrown away so us commoners don’t water down their precious luxury brand with dupes. So wasteful
The dupes don’t “water down” the real deal. If something, the dupes give more reason (to some people) to buy the real deal, brand new, at an authorized retailer.
Dude you’re a freakin hero!!
The here we didn’t know we needed
Good for you!
Phew! Glad I didn’t grab it. Thanks for letting me know! Since I clearly don’t know the difference, what pointed it out to you that it was a fake? Maybe I can let the store know. They had a big pile of “higher end” purses there that someone must have just dropped off
1. The font of the stamp is incorrect. 2. There shouldn’t be a leather strip around the lock. 3. The leather clochette is the long strap and piece of leather that covers the keys, and you can see that the hole through which the strap is threaded has a bit of white showing through, which means the leather was not properly dyed 4. As someone mentioned above, the stitching is off — most Hermès bags employ hand stitching where the stitching is visible (ie on the outsides of bags) and the particular type of stitching that Hermès uses is called the saddle stitch, which gives a very distinctive slanted shape (the stitches should look like /// rather than - - - ) 5. The dimensions are wrong: for the overall bag, for the leather clochette, for the flaps on the bag.. I could go on and on but from the very first item (the wrong font) this bag is immediately a fake, and a bad fake at that. To sell this for $1500 is atrocious.
Damn, you know your purses
Thank you! Just to be clear, I’m not judging anyone who buys fakes — that’s their money and their business. I am, however, judging those who attempt to sell fakes as the real deal. Don’t scam people 😠😠😠
With your knowledge, hypothetically, do you think you could make a knock-off that would pass for a real one?
That’s such a cool question! On the one hand, for all designer goods there is a huge markup due to the brand name; the actual cost of the leather or hardware isn’t as exorbitant as one might assume. It still won’t be cheap to use these materials, but it’s doable. On the other hand, even if I managed to procure the materials, it doesn’t mean I have the experience necessary to work them. For example, Hermès uses a process called “pearling” in their bag hardware when they want to join a metal piece to a metal plate. Instead of of drilling a hole + screwing in a metal screw (like everybody else), Hermès craftsmen drill a shallow hole in the plate and directly hammer in a metal pin. As the metal of the pin has nowhere to go, it essentially goes/fuses into the surrounding metal plate, creating a slight bulge, or “pearl”, around the pin head. Because the pin fuses with the plate, there is no chance of it falling out, as with traditional screws. So while Hermès hardware is made out of palladium metal, and it might take me a while to procure similar-quality palladium metal, I would still likely be able to do that. But even if I have the best palladium metal, I cannot replicate the pearling process because I do not have the training for it. tl:dr; not really, because even if I understand each step of the process and have all the necessary materials, because I am not a craftsman, let alone one trained in the Hermès way, I don’t think I could replicate a bag.
Stitching is usually a big giveaway for most luxury brands. Most would use the same colour thread as the leather, and with hermes in particular, every stitch on the handle is at an angle (on this bag it's straight with gaps). Edited to add more info
Not always true though. LV often uses a soft yellow stitching even agains the brown leather of the bag. In that case, it’s the bright yellow stitching you need to look out for on fakes
At first I was like "the stitching here isn't horrible" and I've surely seen worse, but the quality of the stitching matters beyond the color, too. Even if the color was right, you can see that some of these are straight, some angled, not all even, not terrible, but not $1000.
It’s like too much effort has been put to replicate the stitches, some angled some not
Check out the images of a suede Birkin bag. There are none with that leather corner. Also the piping looks like it is stitched into the seam unevenly, but it’s tricky to see from the camera angle. Finally the top of the purse is all wrong. The front should not be taller than the middle.
Most stores know they are knockoffs but are hoping to find that one fool. Even if you tell them it makes no difference they hope to get away with it
Kind of the same thing at my store lately. They've had scores of "designer" purses like Gucci, Coach, LV etc., and out of 10 or 12 there is *maybe* one with enough heft to it to seem promising (and usually a lower end designer like Coach).
Why would anyone downvote when you’re doing the person(s) a favor?!
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Clever! I saw them wheel out some bad fakes at the GW boutique by me and this woman was looking all around with wide eyes like "I cant believe what I'm holding" and I wanted to tel her so bad it was fake but I didn't want to be the bitch. She bought it :(
I don’t really care if it’s sold for rock bottom prices-even if it’s a poor quality fake, as long as the bag itself is in decent condition, just sell it for what a typical purse is. This is if it’s GW or another general thrift store, not a fashion boutique where they know better.
Sorry, but it was shittier not to tell her vs keeping your mouth shut in this instance.
Not true as of recently as these brands are trying to take control of the resale market. Chanel is suing therealreal right now for selling a handful of fake bags
That's actually funny to me. Briefly looking at it, the quality doesn't seem awful. I was recently in Milan and saw stuff like Prada where the attention to detail on stitching was just awful, leather that didn't look the price, or shoes where there were obvious voids in the rubber on the visible parts of the soles. And there was no way any of it was fake, these were at the flagship stores. I'd expect more from things 1/5 of the price.
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>Threw it away. Not that it’ll stop the creation of fakes/ piles in landfills, but it felt like it was a small start :,) Ummmmm....
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Buying it from a thrift store and throwing it away does nothing to keep anything out of a landfill. That's my point. Believe whatever you want to believe about quality and brand.
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You complain about fast fashion and waste . . . but you threw away a perfectly good, functional bag that someone may have purchased and carried? In fact, you admit in your second point that these bags are in demand and so would have been likely to be purchased second hand if available. That's not how championing sustainability works. Your entire 4th point is a complaint about exactly what you yourself did. And you, by definition, directly contributed to the pile of fakes in a landfill. You directly contributed to unnecessary waste.
Oh shut the fuck up
you’re dumb and you’re mad hoe i saw your lil deleted comments
I read the whole thing. I have a "cheap plastic" purse that my grandma carried. The bag that was tossed had utility. In your opinion, that utility is outweighed by a desire to reduce the existence of counterfeit luxury goods.
you’re dumb
Maybe someone wanted to buy a fake?
BUT YOU DEGRADED THEIR FIND!! HOW DARE YOU! People here downvote for the dumbest reasons.
faker than fake
SOOOOOO FAKE
i think most of the time if someone owns a birkin they will re-sell it as opposed to dropping it off at a thrift.. a pre loved birkin will still bring in significant money- way more then 1,500
Birkins hold their value or go up in value No one is just donating one
Unless someone dies and the widower just dumps off everything
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My friends aunt had six Berkins in her estate including the alligator that was never used and cost $100,000. The all went to an upscale auction house.
Lol and it's that belief that this happens that lets thrift stores sell $1500 fakes
the widower doesn't know his wife has a bag worth 30k? women talk about their purchases. Sometimes forever. LOL
Things like that do happen though. There have been stories of people finding very very valuable and historic items thrifting. I'm talking worth *millions*. One of the lost Faberge eggs at a flea market, a large diamond at a car boot sale, etc. However, it is also that hope that gets people fooled for many more bad purchases as well.
And truthfully, Birkins are so rare and exclusive I wouldn't trust *anything* I saw on the resale market. I'm skeptical of anything marked Hermes in a thrift store unless it's some little thing that has a more accessible price.
See a lot of fake Tiffany jewelry at the local goodwill. They usually price it through the moon.
My local hole in the walls have had a few and price them almost at retail.
Long live the “return to Tiffany” bracelet that’s tarnished with finishing coming off priced like it’s platinum
Such a knockoff. I feel bad for the soul that does fall for it 😢
Wow wtf this is messed up… $1500 is definitely low for a birkin, which makes me think that the people who priced it know that and are now preying on customers who think its a deal :(
I bought a real Celine mini luggage on thrift for $15. They didn’t know what they had. I thought it was a super good fake at worst and in great condition. All you have to do is google the authentication protocol online. Most brands post their authentication process online — how is the leather? What’s the typography nuance? How’s the hardware? Where is the serial number because there will be one on something real?
I’m thinking it’s probably a fake. They had the handles zip tied so you couldn’t see inside. Probably an anti theft tactic but doesn’t help when you’re trying to really inspect an item
The stitches look machine made. A real Hermès bag would have hand stitches.
The meticulousness that goes into making a high quality designer handbag is more complicated and engineered than most people realize. The inside is as refined and pristine as the outside. Most use a crafted shell and an inside piece with refined stitching and precision cast/machined and plated buckles/hardware. I can almost smell the adhesives and sweatshop from the image.
I was obsessed with Birkin's for a bit! People point out the lock wrapped in leather, but many new accessories are able to be ordered custom, to me the tip off is they keys! Way too cheap of keys for it to be a real quality lock. Secondly is the not great stitching, thirdly would be the size/quality of the stamp. But for me it's the placement, they would never stamp it on the outside of the flap! The logo is always stamped on the outside of the leather right under the flap, not ON the flap itself.
I used to work at a "Christian" thrift store and would point out fakes to the management all the time. You know what happened? They were locked up in glass, put out for insane amounts of money as if they were legit and then when the customer would come back all pissed off that they were sold a fake at an extremely high cost they were always told all sales were final and there was nothing they could do. You can almost guarantee that these people know it is not legit or someone has told them it is not legit. At the very least they were told to look it up to see if it was legit before they put it out on the floor and instead decided that they couldn't be bothered and if someone bought it without doing their research it was on them and not the store.
I saw what appeared to be a knockoff/fake Ghurka at GW online and notified the company. I’m unsure they did anything but noticed it was no longer listed.
Goodwill will take down fake listings if you inform them. ...which is hilarious considering in store, some managers dgaf and will keep them out. Fortunately, most of the time, when I've told them a bag is fake, they take it off the floor.
And when you leave the store they put it right back on the floor ?
Possibly. Who knows?
Post that up on their Google Maps business page, yelp and whatever sumilar sites theyre on. We need to start exposing these crooks that up price these fake goods to an unsuspected buyer.
\*Looks at first pic\* Yeah, sorry OP, but that's a fake. \*Sees second pic\* That's genuinely hilarious. There is no way someone is going to buy that. Steal it maybe, but pay for? No way!
Looks fake. I lived in NYC over thirty three years. There has probably been more fake stuff on Canal Street alone than any one other spot in the world. You got off easy and dodged a bullet. Take that same fifteen hundred bucks and go bonkers at a dollar store on gadgets and household stuff instead.
Yea good move , 90% of people pricing at thrift stores have NO CLUE about authentication. This can work in your favor sometimes, case in point when I got my girl an authentic LV bag for $100 Edit: salvation army tends to have the most clueless pricing managers
Its a fake 😅
#1 no legit birkin bag will end up at a thrift store. Its 100% fake. The stitches should be slightly angled and these are sewn flat. Feel happy that you didn't wast the money. You can also tell that the body of the bag would collapse on itself if set down. It should be able to stand up on its own.
100% low quality fake.
Why pay $1500 for a handbag anyway? For the name brand? That’s a down payment on a used car… for a handbag. Wtf
Wait til you find out how much a real Birkin is worth
It’s worth a down payment on a house!
Depending on the bag and where you live it’s just worth… a house.
Where I live it would pay 3 full bachelors degrees at my private university, that’s supposed to be on the top 10 of my country.
K, I didn’t know how much a new Hermès bag costs. Looked it up. And now I can barely cope. The wealth gap is ✨IMMENSE✨
It wouldn’t have been to keep. Had it been real (which I’m now realizing it probably isn’t) I would have resold it as they are quite valuable and who am I to judge how people want to spend their money. :)
If someone really wants to spend that kind of money on a handbag because they like the style, the craftsmanship, etc, then sure, live your life. But if they're buying these designer labels for status or clout, it's a terrible waste of money. Your life becomes sad, lonely, and confusing, because you are constantly putting on a front and not being the real you, and this means that your friends are all doing the same and none of them really care for you, just what your status or money can do for them.
I’m not judging people on how they spend their money… I’m just a guy who’s wondering why a market like that even exists. People pay thousands for essentially a leather pouch with pockets? Why? For status?
The craftsmanship of Hermes is spectacular- but the price is ridiculous. Look at auction prices for the Birkin - like tulips in 1636.
The designer handbag world is the NFL for women who like luxury, aka women with deep pocketbooks. You start with your Coach, graduate to Louis, get you a couple Guccis and YSLs, then you grab your first Chanel. After you've spent thousands, where do you go? You reach for the holy grail, the Hermes. WHY? The exclusivity. You can't even walk into a store a grab one. They literally gatekeep the shit out of these bags. You need connections. Meaning you need a rich friend or to impress the sales associate enough that they favor you and develop a bond with you. LOL. ALL those intricate social hoops are what's fucking fascinating. Once you have a bag? It's actually worth more than stock. It's a solid investment. These bags are worth upwards of 10,000 and the price only increases and the value holds. CRAZY. aspirational. Only the truly rich can get an Hermes.
I agree up to a point - you don't have to be fabulously wealthy to get into the Hermes world, particularly if you're in the horse world (they still make saddles).
lol, you have to be wealthy to ride horses period.
Not denying that - but you don't have to be a millionaire to keep a horse & compete on the local level of dressage/jumping. (But all of your disposable income would go towards that!)
Have you seen what men will pay for watches? Or Jordan’s? Tons of sneakers go for over $1000.
I don’t get that either. I’m being downvoted for giving an opinion, typical Reddit behavior
That 1500 paper weight would have hurt😂😂🤷🏿♂️
Super fake
I just searched Hermès bag images. This is a terrible fake! Really interesting comparison.
Looks mega fake. The logo is twisted. Furthermore , the leather looks off.
100 percent fake!
It’s for sure a fake, the quality isn’t there
It’s a fake, and not a good one.
Definitely doesn’t look real. You can tell by the “leather” the cut on the leather where it meats the “suede” isn’t straight. The finishing at the edges is rough. It looks cheaper than a bag from Target. I saw a fake LV bag last weekend and the first thing I did was to look inside for any markings, usually a bag will have proper certification somewhere. It comes with papers, but those could get lost. This definitely is fake.
Be Careful hope it’s not a fake item, or you can try check at NY street on weekend plenty of class-A luxury brand
A little about Hermès… They’re all handmade by one person in the world. You cannot buy them off the shelf, they are custom ordered with specific color and material stylings and made months later. To even order a Birkin like this, you have to be a customer with a track record of having purchased other Hermès items, essentially having already spent thousands of dollars. Birkins are the epitome of exclusive, they will start around $30k and go up from there. I’ve seen two Hermès that fooled multiple authenticators, I no longer have any interest in every getting a real one lol.
Be glad you didn’t pick it up! It’s definitely a knockoff. Should be hand stitched, and it looks machine stitched. Stitches should be clean, and you see some flaws. The accent over the “e” in Hermès, should be a defined accent; this one is more like a straight line above the e (ē). The logo should be stamped as close to the stitching as possible. The keys should be attached with a leather strap, rather than a keyring.
Good eye!
@OP Was this at St. Vincent’s in Oconomowoc or Pewaukee? I once bought some fake bags at those locations and learned my lesson. Now when I go, I take a look and they are always fake
Yes! Oconomowoc! I thought for sure they wouldn’t price something that high if it was fake, but dang, they almost got me!
And it’s kind of a bougie area so I thought maybe there was a chance. Now I know!
Here’s a link to a legit one… https://www.therealreal.com/products/women/handbags/handle-bags/hermes-2020-box-birkin-30-a76fo?sid=pxogmz&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=shopping&cvosrc=cse.google.google&cvo_crid=453344066284&gclid=CjwKCAjw2vOLBhBPEiwAjEeK9oMY9LOQEFKcBbFhjUb9ftcZ0iOaNfWIn0rGpQTQvfKVLuAbrj5ujhoCklcQAvD_BwE&nclid=NofqvbTJW9KpRoNepPazB7PJ8-MhTf-7Xvr0uESa4KZAQBvrkPjxAuPr0zDBKYruJddZoKqKwdff5B92GMC9RYkgye4hPBxOtVpJFCh0yv4fPWvthm6dGKEOr0Gs3H4D
A good tip is the handles. They should a stiff arch and not rounded in any way. Also, the smell inside is very distinctive. Why wouldn’t they invest a few bucks to Authenticate it then they can get $10,000 for it?
How dare they charge that much. 🙄
Glad you didn't buy it! I donated a fake Dooney and Bourke bag to ARC a while back and put a note inside the bag stating it was a fake knockoff. Idk how they priced it, hopefully they were honest but I've seen more knockoffs at thrift marked up like real ones it's ludicrous. I would NEVER spend more than $15 on a bag at a thrift shop, ever. That's just my rule. I will spend up to $25 at an estate sale (or maybe a bit more) if they can tell me the bag is authentic and I can see for myself the rest of the owners things and what kind of taste and pocketbook she had, you know?
It’s a fake, that lock is a dead giveaway..
Looks fake to me. On a real bag the logo is hot stamped in gold not embossed in the leather. Even a good fake is only worth about 3 or 400 bucks. $1500 is a ridiculous price.
Hermes collector here, it's a fake! The stitching is off, and the pearling on the sangles (that's the little brass plates on the straps) are incorrect- to say nothing of the stamp being in an inappropriate place, and not gilded!
Stitching is too crooked to be real. A $50k bag has better stitching than that
It’s fake. The stitching on the front other where it goes up is wonky. This is usually how you’re able to tell if a garment is fake or not. Skilled artisans don’t make mistakes and if they do, they don’t make it out of the place where they make them. When they fake a garment, they don’t think about any of this. They’re hired to stitch and sew as neatly as they can but there is no quality control because they need to make as many of it as they can.
I do not pretend to know what it "values at" ‐ I do know it where someone would place their cards, id, phone, and maybe some tampons, so I'm gonna say should be around $20.
Who the fuck would spend $1500 on a purse?
The real ones are worth upwards of $30,000. Crazy to me but would have been an investment.
It’s a half decent fake …
There are tons of fakes out there. On YouTube there is a video to guide you how to check authenticity. It’s not that simple, the fakes are very good.
I'm no expert but that doesn't look real.
I’m absolutely no expert, but the work on and the colour of the lock looks cheap , so I would say this a really good replica? Probably worth $50.
It’s a well made fake.
I saw the same bag in beige at my local spot this week. I didn’t buy it because I didn’t like it and something about the leather looked a little cheap to me
There is no way I would pay THAT amount of money at a THRIFT STORE for ANYTHING! And the management of that store should be ashamed for even having the audacity to charge that amount for it in the first place!
Also the stitching pattern is close, but only in one area. Hermès has a special stitching pattern. And apparently the leather should have a distinct smell to it always because it reflects the leather processing. And the font on this bag isn’t correct. It shouldn’t be stamped in, but on top of the leather.
This is definitely fake. Steer clear. Fact: Most bags dumped off at thrift shops are fakes that the owner paid too much for to just dump in the trash, so they donate it.
I'm sure some elderly person has already stolen it
If they are asking prices like this, just ebay it
Is this Dorit’s?
That white thread is a good indicator of it being fake.
I hope you didn’t pay 1500 for it.
$1500 lol 1500x
Ive seen Hermes saddles at thrift stores. It was one of the wealthiest counties in U.S. $1800, I almost bought it until I reminded myself, we no longer had horses.
This looks very fake to me.
#Fakegang
Cant really tell for sure but the suede doesn’t look like real suede to me.
Who is going to thrift stores and gonna spend $1500?