So you've come to eBay to score some super deals on great designer jeans, but before you can get down to business, your eyes need to be wide open to the massive counterfeiting industry.  Fake Seven is everywhere! The vast vast majority of Seven For All Mankind on eBay (and even on website stores) is fake.  Start here so you don't become the next victim, and see my ME PAGE for more info and the deluxe version of this guide (more and bigger photos than eBay allows on an eBay-guide, more info!)!  When you get to the bottom of the page please vote "yes" if you learned something :)

PLEASE REMEMBER:  THESE GUIDES ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EXPERT'S EYE.  You are not going to be a master authenticator just from reading through some material.  Please ASK myself and the experts at Authenticforum before making decisions/judgements



THE BASICS:

Before jumping to the finer points of eyeing the jeans, the following warning signs will help you even if you don't have the eye for picking out the authentics yet.  I do recommend that if you have the ability in your area, go to a store that carries Sevens and inspect the washes, distressing, and the tags closely so that you get an idea of what you are trying to match!

1) CUT NUMBER - The cut on Sevens is a batch number, like today's batch might be numbered 709101, tomorrow's 709102, etc.  There are only a hnadful of jeans (maybe a few hundred) made with each cut number.  When counterfeiters get ahold of a pair to fake, they will take a real cut number and produce mass quantities of their jeans with it.  After all, they are trying to make cheap junk... keeping costs cheap means not wasting resources changing the cut numbers constantly!  As a result, now the market starts to see floods of jeans with the same cut number.  There are known as "common fake cut numbers."  When these are identified, they are posted to a website maintained by a super cool chick named Bianca, this link is located on my  ME PAGE .  Bookmark the link.  This is your bible.  It is in German and you will need to translate it with a webtranslator (also on my Me Page) if you want to read the text, but even without translating or speaking German you can scan the list of numbers there for the one on the pair you're looking at.  If it's on there, there's a 99.9% chance that it's fake.  There ARE real pairs with those numbers, but they are like needles in a haystack.  There ARE fake pairs that do NOT have one of the numbers on the list, so just because it is not on there goes not guarantee it's real, but this is still a great starting point.

- The other way to research the cut number is to do an eBay search for the number, check off to search by title and description, and see how many pop up.  If more than 3 pairs come up with that cut number, it is a warning sign

- If a seller is selling multiples of the exact same pair and all have the same cut number - warning sign

2) ITEM LOCATION

- Avoid items from sellers located in Turkey, China, Phillipines, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, or any other obscure country.  These are all counterfeiting hubs where there are no repercussions to this type of activity (and no real way to go after them if you get ripped off).

3) SELLER RED FLAGS

- Seller is selling a ton of Sevens and/or other high-end designer jeans, especially hard to find ones like for instance 30 pairs of crystallized styles.

-  Seller is selling many pairs of brand new with tags pairs at dirt-cheap buy-it-nows.  Remember, if it seems too good to be true, IT IS.  NWT jeans cannot be profited on at $40 a pop.

SEVEN AUTHENTICITY (aka what the heck am I lookin at?)

There are many features of Sevens that can be used to determine authenticity.  The most telling characteristic is generally the tag, which is why savvy Seven shoppers will ask for a photo of it when evaluating a pair.  The fakers just never seem to get anywhere close to right on this, and there are a number of common mistakes.

THE TAG FORMAT

On a real pair of Sevens, the tags come in the following order.  There are a few variants to these:
Top:  Small burgundy red tag with the size on it.  Old pairs may NOT have this tag, and will have the size printed on the main white tag.

Middle: Yellow main tag with 7 For all Mankind logo (OR "pants logo", /\ , the logo used in European market pairs), style number, fabric content, "Made in U.S.A. OF IMPORTED FABRIC" (or now new for 2007, "Made in Mexico of Imported Fabric" or "Assembled in Mexico of Imported Fabric" and possibly "Washed in LA" in combination with one of those 2), CUT #, "SEE CARE ON REVERSE".  Older pairs will also say "By Jerome Dahan" (Seven's original creator & designer).

OR - a white paper tag with this info, which may or may not have the R/N number printed on this side of the tag, and say "Made in U.S.A." instead of the above wording (Within the exact same style there may be some cuts produced with yellow tags, and some with white tags).  Pairs made for the Canadian market will also have TWO large tags, one in english, and one in French.

OR - New for summer/fall 2007, a BROWN tag with white writing

Bottom: small yellow tag with 7FAM logo on front, and metallic looking security strip and etched serial numbers on the back.  The security strip will reveal small black 7 For All Mankind logos printed throughout when viewed under magnification, or small red symbols on some pairs.   On new pairs from Summer '07 and on, there IS NO THIRD TAG.  The security strip on the new main brown tags is located woven in on the inside of the tag (you need to flip it inside out)

New Sevens also come with a white barcode sticker.  This sticker is located INSIDE the jeans on the left front inner waistband above the tags.  It should not be on the outside waistband.  It should not be on the thigh.  This can of course be moved by a store or buyer, but if you see a seller with multiple pairs with misplaced stickers, stay away.  The sticker should also have rounded corners, not squared ones.



1) The cut and style numbers are stitched onto the tag like the rest of the printing

The cut and style numbers on a normal yellow tag are always PRINTED on the tag in an inked typeface.  They are NEVER stitched like the rest of the tag.



2) The font is incorrect

This holds true for pretty much every fake I've ever seen.  Some look really close, but none are all there.  Errors can include being too bold, to widespread, uneven spacing, etc.  Pay close attention to the number 2's, these are the most easy to see discrepancies in.  Sevens 2's are curved at the bottom as they approach the base horizontal line.  They are not sharply pointed in the corner, nor do the diagonal and horizontal portions meet at a very small angle.
Barcode sticker fonts are generally also incorrect on fakes.  The easiest to identify is that the zeros should have slashes through them ( / ) .  Any zero without a slash indicates a fake.







There are a few fakes of the white tag.  These are so far easily identifiable, based on a very poor font and overly glossy/flat, wrong material tag.




OTHER TIPS

Though the tag will be your best resource, especially until your eye is trained to what each wash should look like, for which Bianca's site (see my My Page) will be your best resource, the following are often characteristics of fakes:

POCKET LINING:  The pocket lining is solid white on older pairs, and has subtle vertical striping on newer ones.  Either way, the pocket lining should NOT be thin like tissue paper.

RIVETS/BUTTONS - should be stamped with a 7 on the back (or in the case of European market pairs, the "Pants logo" (see above) ).  The rivets should never be raised/nippled or depressed on the inside surface, nor should the 7 ever appear black or darkened.

A NOTE ABOUT EUROPEAN MARKET PAIRS - Some Sevens made for US sale, and ALL pairs made for the European market do NOT carry the word Seven or 7 anywhere on them due to legal issues.  On these pairs you will find an inverted V known as the "pants logo" (looks like this - /\ ) on the back pocket red tag, inside yellow tag, back of rivets, and all rivets and the front of the button will read "for all mankind."  These are not fakes.  These variants are actually not faked (yet).



So, clear as mud?!  A little time and a lot of eBay poking around will have you seeing like the pros in no time and scoring the great deals!  Please visit my site AuthenticForum if you need personalized help from the experts, and as always... happy and fake-free eBaying :)