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I don't collect demo tapes, but how can someone, for example, tell if a certain demo tape is original or not?

deathster wrote:ex-pe-di-tor

You think he is selling fakes?

deathster wrote:Nice.

Offtopic:
I think especially last 2 years has been disaster on ebay. Sellers like afm4500 and ex-pe-di-tor... grrr. Are buyers really so stupid?

Ex-pe-di-tor always leaves me puzzled. For example, a lot of his early 90's demo's include stuff you can't forge like interviews and pictures, but I seriously doubt that Hellhammer demo he sold was original.

I don't collect demo tapes, but how can someone, for example, tell if a certain demo tape is original or not?

Only two words: comparison and context.
First hand copies from people you know were active in the scene back then are the way to go. Know who you are buying from. Or compare your demo with people who you know own an original.
I bought Black shepherd, Poison and Assassin demo's from some German guy. I managed to secure authenticity on the Black shepherd by comparing with Deathster's copy, and on the Poison by comparing with originals on other metal boards. The Assassin however I suspected of being a bootleg, but if the guy sold me two originals I'm guessing the third will be original too. However, that's just a xerox cover and standard tape so not much joy in owning an original.

Shit thing is, the more people buy fakes on ebay while they think they are original, the more 'originals' enter the trade market aswell. Especially when it comes to 80's demo's you're going to get fucked on the internet atleast 3 times out of 4.

Exactly "humus". I agree with you.
More and more original demos enter the scene and man y people blindly believe it.
I had by doubts about ex-pe-di-tor, and it seems some other guys too (who have bought from him). Another thing is that if you pay 200USD for tape then you forcely believe you have real thing (its hard to admit you are being fooled). This guy may hold some great stuff in his possession, but most of the stuff he is selling are not originals (thats how I see it). He sold Satanic Evil and Masters Hammer demo which are done similar way (logo put on BASF tape, same style). Now he is selling Posion demo, I got originals, have compared the original tape with others death-heads, and it does not look like that auction (Poison had some special style on their original demos). About xeroxed insert its hard to say from photo. If you pay 5USD for such fake, ok. But 50, 100, 200, 300USD is too much.

One more thing that makes me suspicious about fake seller if he has all those eagerly wanted demos (and even multiple copies) like Sarcofago, Masters Hammer, Beherit (and all their projects), Poison, Mayhem, Hellhammer, Morbid Angel, Grotesque etc etc.

Bored out of my mind right now. Decided to take one last pic before I charged up my almost dead battery




Oh, yeah, here's a pic from earlier that I found


None of those are exceptionally rare, but I love them dearly

deathster wrote:One more thing that makes me suspicious about fake seller if he has all those eagerly wanted demos (and even multiple copies) like Sarcofago, Masters Hammer, Beherit (and all their projects), Poison, Mayhem, Hellhammer, Morbid Angel, Grotesque etc etc.

problem is with ex-ped-it-or and afm4500 (and I guess you mean the German suicide74 guy) that they mix in their auctions some real demos. At least the German guy puts 10..20% of original demos (which are pro-tapes so easy to see) in his auctions. That hurts as well as you have no clue as soon as it isn't a pro-tape.

More Denmark

Yeah Peter...exactly they mix originals and fakes. This Suicide74 is also not trustworthy in my eyes.

Have you thought, that the fake demos might be fakes made at the time of release?
I've got lots of "homemade" demos when I bought whole collections of old stuff, from people I trust 100%.

So if a seller like Ex-pe-whatever hunts down old headbangers and buy their collections of old demos, it's not strange id there's some of it not 100% original.

Also, some bands made more "homemade" copies of their pro-printed demos when they ran out of the pro-printed.

I'm not saying that these sellers don't make the fakes themselves, but it is very tricky when it comes to old demos....

snaps666 wrote:I'm not saying that these sellers don't make the fakes themselves, but it is very tricky when it comes to old demos....

Quite true..
I have a Sabbat tape I got direct from the band with a proper cover but on a standard TDK tape?? Always wondered about that?

Yes, it's possible that the bands made some of these so-called 'fake' demos themselves. But then again, they should not be called originals if they're not part of the original stack of tapes.

Korgüll wrote:I have a Sabbat tape I got direct from the band with a proper cover but on a standard TDK tape??

Lots of demos were dubbed by the bands themselves onto name brand tapes. I didn't think it was that uncommon. Not every underground band had Sindrome's budget. A properly printed cover with a store-bought tape seems an unusual mix, though.

Not to forget about all those distributed tapes, when bands send out a bunch of covers + one master tape

The obvious ones are the ones from afm4500, selling demos with covers on laser-printed paper, in bad quality. You can immediately see the difference, even on a small metal-archives picture and the cover you get. There is also a guy I know which works at a professional printing company and he can tell you immediately when seeing the paper if it is an early 90es demo or a fake from 00es (?).

One thing happened at well: Emperor gave the master of the Wrath... demo to Gerrit/Malicious and he could copy it to everyone who ordered a copy after the original batch was sold out. Same goes for the Enslaved demo if I am not wrong.

And if there are three...four clicks in the first 7 seconds of a tape, each time with more noise in the background before the actual music starts, then this can't be an original demo in my opinion.