User blog:Rapture Historian/Fake copies of Breaking the Mold BioShock Art Book

Counterfeit copies of the Breaking the Mold artbook have been spotted on eBay - this is a public service announcement from Rapture.

Someone out there is making a nice profit by misrepresenting and illegally selling fake copies of Breaking the Mold.

It kills me that fans may have bought these copies without knowing it, and unfortunately there's no way to warn people on eBay.

If this info can be spread, and linked as a warning on the Breaking the Mold page, it would be appreciated, to help warn our fan community.

The Counterfeit eBay Auctions
The first seller is 555canada and the second seller is playcanada.

The first auction shows 6 sold for $49.99 with 1 more available, and who knows how many more have been sold already.

The second auction from a different seller has the SAME photos and shows 1 sold for $49.99 with 1 more available.

Both sellers live in Calgary, Alberta, so they're undoubtedly the same person. Remember, the auctions use the same photos!

Here's what their auctions look like on April 25, 2016:





And here's their photos of the book that they're selling in their auctions:





How to tell the difference between the fake and the real thing
History - this original edition of Breaking the Mold was never available for purchase.

It was only available as a free gift to customers who had a broken Big Daddy in their collector's editions, and it was mailed to those customers while they waited for a Big Daddy replacement.

Because they were just shipped in the mail, seeing this many pristine copies (without a bit of bumping around in the mail) from one person is very unlikely.

But there's a much better piece of definitive proof that these are fake copies.

The DOWNLOADABLE PDF of Breaking the Mold had a WHITE back cover - just like the ones being sold in these auctions!

BUT - the back cover of the authentic 2K printed copy shows an underwater corridor in Rapture!

So there it is. Proof that this seller is just printing copies from the PDF file, and selling them.

If you are ever buying a copy of this item and you want to be sure that you are getting a real, legitimate copy of this book, make sure to ask the seller to post a photo of the back cover in the auction itself. Don't just let the seller send you a photo privately - that way, eBay has public proof of what the item is, in case the seller tries to do a bait and switch.

And here's a deliberately bad photo of what the real back cover should look like: