Authenticate This COACH - **see first post for format**

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#47,869
IMPORTANT READ-ME

Please post authenticity questions related to COACH in this thread. No PMs please.
For further information, please refer to the first post on page 1 of this thread.

Please follow the following requests:
  • Before you submit a request for authentication, please search this thread to make sure that the item has not previously been authenticated by searching the seller ID and/or item number. This is not a thread to ask general questions about COACH, please refer to our main Coach forum for such information.
  • Note that authenticators have the right to refuse any requests. This is a free service, but it is imperative that you help our authenticators by using the following format:
  • FOR ITEMS LISTED ONLINE:
    Item:
    Listing number:
    Seller and site where listed
    Link:
    Comments:

  • FOR ITEMS NOT LISTED ONLINE:
    Item:
    Where purchased or how obtained
    Comments:
BASIC PICTURES REQUIRED (but more may be requested): If necessary pictures are in the listing, it's not necessary to upload and duplicate them.
  • Front of item
  • Back of item
  • Full clear and legible creed text and serial number
  • Made in tags (when available)
  • Measurements
  • For bags with turnlock closures, show pictures of back of female side of turnlock
  • For bags with magnetic snaps, show pictures of the male part of the snap so that the numbers and letters on it can be read
  • If applicable, search interior of bag and/or pockets for small white tag with production information and include a picture of that.
Thank you and be safe!
 
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#90,031
staib702 said:
Can you please Authenticate I purchased from shopgoodwill.com on 8-24-24. View attachment 6053588View attachment 6053589View attachment 6053590View attachment 6053591View attachment 6053592View attachment 6053593View attachment 6053594View attachment 6053595View attachment 6053596View attachment 6053597View attachment 6053598
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#90,032
staib702 said:
Can you please Authenticate I purchased from shopgoodwill.com on 8-24-24. View attachment 6053588View attachment 6053589View attachment 6053590View attachment 6053591View attachment 6053592View attachment 6053593View attachment 6053594View attachment 6053595View attachment 6053596View attachment 6053597View attachment 6053598
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It's fine.

For future requests, include link to the listing (even if it's ended or sold).

See the yellow highlighted post at the top of each page of this thread for the information we need.
 
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#90,033
whresrachel said:
Hi all - First time posting and looking for some auth advice on a few bags. I've been working on finding a vintage coach bag as a surprise for a friend's birthday, and while I haven't found the right one for her yet (probably will be a mahogany Belmont) I have definitely fallen very far down the vintage coach rabbit hole and think I'm going to wind up with a few myself at this point!

I've been trying to learn more about basic authentication from the publicly available resources, including the old eBay guides and some of the info that's been previously posted on the boards. This has been extremely helpful and made it easy to spot the many offensively bad fakes in my search, but learning the basics also makes it very clear how complex authentication of these bags really is and the depth of knowledge that goes into doing it well. Hoping you can take a look at a few bags I found during my search so far that I wanted to double check on?

I am doing most of my searching on the Japanese resale market so I know this is probably a more unusual ask for reviewing the posted seller sites vs. eBay/Poshmark etc. but sellers do tend to have really thorough photos which is nice (happy to answer any questions about logistics of buying and importing purses from the Japanese secondhand market if anyone is unfamiliar and interested? I've found some really great bags!)

1. B9C-9061. I love both the colour and the nickel hardware but haven't seen much of either of those in my search yet. I did check the Coach catalog that Hyacinth posted on the boards a while back and this combo was listed in the 1999 holiday catalog as an option for Rambler's Legacy so at the very least it does exist in that combo in the time frame?
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/1143531241

2. Listed as a Station bag but I don't think that's correct, the closest image match I was able to find was labeled as a Sheridan Elliot bag? Format of the creed has the random registration numbers (1172-399) so date of mfg would be prior to the mid-90s format change if right. (I got a bit overexcited and bought this one already before checking here 😬)
https://jp.mercari.com/en/item/m70920772360

3. G5C-9960, beautiful little brown Daypack. No very obvious red flags in the photos (to me, who can only identify the reddest of flags so far...) and I'm hoping it is auth but would love someone more knowledgeable to take a look.
https://jp.mercari.com/en/item/m52381934444

4. L1P-9829. Searched the authentication thread and could only find one other 9829 in the history which was listed as a Monterrey flap (and that one was an E1P so same plant and year...not sure if these maybe weren't around for long, or people just don't ask to have them authenticated much?)
https://jp.mercari.com/en/item/m84632166754

Thank you! Really appreciate all the knowledge everyone has contributed here over time to help me learn to screen out any clearly bad eggs in my search, and very grateful for the chance to jump in and get an expert opinion from the community when I'm out of my depth.
Click to expand...
Welcome!

Although the 4 bags you've asked about are authentic, I strongly recommend having ANY and ALL potential purchases (even "NWT" current items) verified before purchasing from any Japanese sellers.

Although I understand anti-counterfeit laws in Japan are extremely strict and there was a time when sellers in Japan rarely listed a fake, in the last 10 years, I've reported hundreds of fakes from dozens (if not hundreds) of sellers! To make matters worse, multiple sellers list the same item with the same pictures, often with those listings being for fakes.

Then when the multiple listings of fakes are removed, different sellers will relist the same item.

A search of the Coach subforum will pull up many posts as well as full threads dedicated to warning buyers of fakes coming out of Japan but trying to find, report and eliminate them is like playing whack-a-mole; knock down one and two more pop up. Get rid of those 2 new ones and 5 more get listed! It's impossible to keep up.

Here are a BUNCH of recent examples of posts I made:







And regarding the bag in this post, over the course of several days, I reported at least 6 different Japanese sellers with this same fake, same pictures and each listing it AFTER it was removed from another seller's listings:
 
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#90,034
Thank you so much BeenBurned! Really appreciate this...and looks like I'm officially starting a vintage Coach collection now that these all look good 😆 Will likely be back soon as I either find more fun stuff or zero in on a good bag for my friend.

Totally agree with you and I've noticed a good amount of obvious fakes while combing through the Japanese resale listings so far including a good amount of the Made in Korea ones. Very much a buyer beware situation especially on Mercari. Anecdotally from what I've seen, the large and established secondhand vendors - and most but not all smaller but legal resellers who have gone through the process of obtaining the Secondhand Articles Business Operator Permit and are willing to publicly post this reg info on their profiles - tend to be a lot more careful and a lot more solid. They may make mistakes here and there but they're at least attempting to authenticate and you won't see too many super obvious fakes on their listings. However, you don't need to get a license to sell some "personal items" and with the rise of resale on Mercari, Yahoo auctions etc. there seem to be a lot of smaller-ish sellers with much lower standards treating this as a grey area where they don't need a license and either aren't trying to authenticate, don't know how, or just don't care about posting fakes.

I have a theory about what you're seeing on eBay. There seem to be a big group of Japan based seller accounts on eBay, some with hundreds or even thousands of sales already, that have a wide range of listings up where if you reverse image search the unique photos the the original photos belong to a diverse range of reseller organizations/individuals up on Japanese resale platforms - including a mix of some reputable and solid organizations like the big chains and some small and sketchy ones. I think they're working on a dropshipping-like model. My guess is that they search for anything that looks like a really cheap deal on a bag that's posted directly on the Japanese resale sites (2nd street, Yahoo Japan, Mercari Japan etc.) and then post all the photos up on eBay themselves in a new listing that's 2-3x the price of the original/real listing. The eBay sellers aren't the original seller from the real Japanese listing in those cases, they don't own the bag and haven't seen it, and they haven't even purchased it from the original seller yet...but if someone buys it on eBay at the much higher price on their listing, they buy it quickly on the original platform, it gets delivered within a day or two to them as shipping is quite fast within the country, and they ship it out to the eBay buyer and make $$$ on the difference between the original listing and the price the eBay buyer paid.

They seem to spam out a very high volume of these copied-over bag listings from these types of accounts - which makes sense as they don't have to invest in paying for the inventory beforehand or spend the time to take any of the photos themselves! Just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had figured out how to automate some of this. And a lot of them seem to be reposting many of the listings of fakes, possibly because they aren't putting any kind of due diligence in with that kind of volume and are counting on the original sellers meeting the high auth standards that most Japanese resellers comply with 🙃

Basically this sequence of events:

  1. Small sketchy Japanese reseller with no proper license for resale, or an actual personal seller, posts a fake vintage Coach bag on a platform like Mercari Japan (who I'm using as the example as they seem especially disinterested in taking down fake listings), or another Japanese platform. They price at the equivalent of $100 USD.
  2. A Japan-based eBay seller combs through the Japanese resale sites while collecting a high volume of listings for cheap, desirable bags that can potentially resale for significantly higher internationally. They find the Mercari listing and it meets their criteria.
  3. The eBay seller creates a new eBay listing with the stolen Mercari photos and description (translated to English) under their own eBay account; they price the bag at $300 USD.
  4. That first eBay listing gets reported and taken down.
  5. Another one or several of the eBay sellers operating under this sales model also find and steal/re-post the Mercari Japan listing on eBay for a much higher price. These may get reported too, but other new sellers pop up to repost since the Mercari Japan listing is still up (if that listing sells, the new repostings will stop).
  6. Eventually someone buys one of the eBay listings for $300.
  7. eBay seller quickly purchases the Mercari Japan listing when they see the eBay purchase comes through.
  8. The item is shipped from the real Mercari Japan seller and arrives to the eBay seller, and they then ship the item out to the eBay buyer. They make $200 profit from doing basically nothing other than copying the listing over.
 
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#90,035
alleninone said:
Hello authenticators, I saw this bag on a local marketplace, I think the creed number is E05Q - 9870, please help me to authenticate if this bag authentic or not, thank you in advance!
Item: Coach Station bag 9870
Seller and site where listed : @Deebaashop on shopee Marketplace
Click to expand...
It's authentic, not a station bag. It's a court bag.
 
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#90,036
I have scoured the internet trying to find this backpack! I found it at Goodwill and from the little I know about Coach, it seems legit. I can't find the same bag online. It is super soft "butter leather" in black.
12.75" tall
11" wide (side to side)
 

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#90,041
whresrachel said:
Thank you so much BeenBurned! Really appreciate this...and looks like I'm officially starting a vintage Coach collection now that these all look good 😆 Will likely be back soon as I either find more fun stuff or zero in on a good bag for my friend.

Totally agree with you and I've noticed a good amount of obvious fakes while combing through the Japanese resale listings so far including a good amount of the Made in Korea ones. Very much a buyer beware situation especially on Mercari. Anecdotally from what I've seen, the large and established secondhand vendors - and most but not all smaller but legal resellers who have gone through the process of obtaining the Secondhand Articles Business Operator Permit and are willing to publicly post this reg info on their profiles - tend to be a lot more careful and a lot more solid. They may make mistakes here and there but they're at least attempting to authenticate and you won't see too many super obvious fakes on their listings. However, you don't need to get a license to sell some "personal items" and with the rise of resale on Mercari, Yahoo auctions etc. there seem to be a lot of smaller-ish sellers with much lower standards treating this as a grey area where they don't need a license and either aren't trying to authenticate, don't know how, or just don't care about posting fakes.

I have a theory about what you're seeing on eBay. There seem to be a big group of Japan based seller accounts on eBay, some with hundreds or even thousands of sales already, that have a wide range of listings up where if you reverse image search the unique photos the the original photos belong to a diverse range of reseller organizations/individuals up on Japanese resale platforms - including a mix of some reputable and solid organizations like the big chains and some small and sketchy ones. I think they're working on a dropshipping-like model. My guess is that they search for anything that looks like a really cheap deal on a bag that's posted directly on the Japanese resale sites (2nd street, Yahoo Japan, Mercari Japan etc.) and then post all the photos up on eBay themselves in a new listing that's 2-3x the price of the original/real listing. The eBay sellers aren't the original seller from the real Japanese listing in those cases, they don't own the bag and haven't seen it, and they haven't even purchased it from the original seller yet...but if someone buys it on eBay at the much higher price on their listing, they buy it quickly on the original platform, it gets delivered within a day or two to them as shipping is quite fast within the country, and they ship it out to the eBay buyer and make $$$ on the difference between the original listing and the price the eBay buyer paid.

They seem to spam out a very high volume of these copied-over bag listings from these types of accounts - which makes sense as they don't have to invest in paying for the inventory beforehand or spend the time to take any of the photos themselves! Just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had figured out how to automate some of this. And a lot of them seem to be reposting many of the listings of fakes, possibly because they aren't putting any kind of due diligence in with that kind of volume and are counting on the original sellers meeting the high auth standards that most Japanese resellers comply with 🙃

Basically this sequence of events:

  1. Small sketchy Japanese reseller with no proper license for resale, or an actual personal seller, posts a fake vintage Coach bag on a platform like Mercari Japan (who I'm using as the example as they seem especially disinterested in taking down fake listings), or another Japanese platform. They price at the equivalent of $100 USD.
  2. A Japan-based eBay seller combs through the Japanese resale sites while collecting a high volume of listings for cheap, desirable bags that can potentially resale for significantly higher internationally. They find the Mercari listing and it meets their criteria.
  3. The eBay seller creates a new eBay listing with the stolen Mercari photos and description (translated to English) under their own eBay account; they price the bag at $300 USD.
  4. That first eBay listing gets reported and taken down.
  5. Another one or several of the eBay sellers operating under this sales model also find and steal/re-post the Mercari Japan listing on eBay for a much higher price. These may get reported too, but other new sellers pop up to repost since the Mercari Japan listing is still up (if that listing sells, the new repostings will stop).
  6. Eventually someone buys one of the eBay listings for $300.
  7. eBay seller quickly purchases the Mercari Japan listing when they see the eBay purchase comes through.
  8. The item is shipped from the real Mercari Japan seller and arrives to the eBay seller, and they then ship the item out to the eBay buyer. They make $200 profit from doing basically nothing other than copying the listing over.
Click to expand...
Everything you've posted does seem to align with what I've seen from Japanese sellers. I think the numbers are considerably higher though!

However I disagree with (or add to) a couple of your observations/assumptions:

1. One of the modus operandi you mention is very much against ebay policy (that which I've highlighted in boldfaced red).
That type of dropshipping/retail arbitrage is disallowed per ebay policy. Ebay policy requires that sellers own the merchandise they sell BEFORE listing it.

Selling an item then sourcing it is clearly disallowed because it causes BBE (bad buyer experience). Too often, items are no longer available so the seller isn't able to buy from the "original" seller, the "original" seller isn't able to dropship to the buyer and the buyer ultimately is disappointed when their order is canceled.

(Note that there is a type of dropshipping that is ebay-legal. Those are cases in which the seller owns the items and has the dropshipping handled by (for example) Amazon using Amazon's FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) service. Those seller already own the items, know their quantity in inventory and Amazon handles the shipping only. But since the seller already knows s/he owns the items, there's no concern about it being OOS (out of stock) once sold.

2. Another comment I have on your theory that it's not the "established" large sellers who list fakes, I have to disagree. For example,
elady01 and NEXT INNOVATION are just 2 high volume and well-reputed sellers who've listed, had removed and even sold fake Coaches.
 
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#90,042
BeenBurned said:
Everything you've posted does seem to align with what I've seen from Japanese sellers. I think the numbers are considerably higher though!

However I disagree with (or add to) a couple of your observations/assumptions:

1. One of the modus operandi you mention is very much against ebay policy (that which I've highlighted in boldfaced red).
That type of dropshipping/retail arbitrage is disallowed per ebay policy. Ebay policy requires that sellers own the merchandise they sell BEFORE listing it.

Selling an item then sourcing it is clearly disallowed because it causes BBE (bad buyer experience). Too often, items are no longer available so the seller isn't able to buy from the "original" seller, the "original" seller isn't able to dropship to the buyer and the buyer ultimately is disappointed when their order is canceled.

(Note that there is a type of dropshipping that is ebay-legal. Those are cases in which the seller owns the items and has the dropshipping handled by (for example) Amazon using Amazon's FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) service. Those seller already own the items, know their quantity in inventory and Amazon handles the shipping only. But since the seller already knows s/he owns the items, there's no concern about it being OOS (out of stock) once sold.

2. Another comment I have on your theory that it's not the "established" large sellers who list fakes, I have to disagree. For example,
elady01 and NEXT INNOVATION are just 2 high volume and well-reputed sellers who've listed, had removed and even sold fake Coaches.
Click to expand...

Thanks BeenBurned! Theories are made for testing and refinement, and this one probably still needs some polishing so it's useful to kick it around a bit and get some different knowledge and perspective in the mix 😀 Possible there are a few different issues here and we can split them out further as well.

For #1, my eBay knowledge is limited to that of a casual sometimes-buyer so I didn't realize this kind of dropshipping model would be against the TOS - but here's why I think it might be happening anyway in some of these cases. I browsed a bit to see if I could find a concrete example, and putting aside Coach for a minute (as the sellers seem to focus on a number of bag brands) and the question of authenticity (as the 'stolen' item photos/listings can often also be for auth items) I pretty quickly found some listings that I think are suspicious. Here's one representative example, and I can document a few more if that helps.

Example: Three different sellers from Japan listing a vintage Prada bag on eBay 11 identical distinctive photos attached. The title for all of them includes the words "Prada Shoulder Bag Beige Leather Used Flap Simple Vintage Side Logo Classic Popu".
  1. Kuguri, for $429.77 CAD (sorry for local currency!) https://www.ebay.ca/itm/387263348615
  2. Eclabjapan,who has two identical listings for the same bag (which I'm going to speculate about in a second) for $500.41 CAD https://www.ebay.ca/itm/196585385325 and $454.43 CAD (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/196493498187)
  3. KarenLotus, who has two identical listings for the same bag for $372.65 CAD (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/176408120189) and $419.22 CAD (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/176408119826)
If I reverse image search that and look at the exact matches for the Japanese resale platform listings, there are two listings with identical sets of photos:
These two Japanese listings are verifiably cross-posts from the same item/same seller on Yahoo/Rakuma - they have their official antique dealer license number posted in both profiles and it matches; looks to be an account tied to a retail resale store "flea market high class operated by Ohinata Shoji Ltd." It seems VERY unlikely that all 5 of the eBay postings across 3 accounts are from the original, legitimate seller and I suspect none of them are.

My best guess is that there are some people who are probably using some kind of either fully or partially automated solution to search the Japanese resale sites by keywords/brands/preferred platforms etc, and then copy and repost photos and listing info that matches into new listings on their own eBay accounts with a price increase. The automatic English translation from my browser for the listing title pegs the original listing as "Prada Shoulder Bag Beige Good Condition Leather Used PRADA Shoulder Flap Simple Vintage Side Logo Standard Popular Ladies Shoulder Bag Women's Bag Leather Bag Genuine Leather Plain One Point Embossed Logo" which, with a better/different translation engine and some automation, could potentially clean up and truncate automatically to the eBay listing titles used in this case. And the fact that the same item was cross-posted to different platforms at slightly different prices could account for the duplicate listings seen for KarenLotus and Eclabjapan: they automatically ripped the two listings for the same item off both sites.

As for #2, I think those larger sellers you mentioned probably are just posting their own stock and not drop shipping - but to your point they are still selling fakes which is frustrating. Not familiar with BrandInnovation at all but eLady is a massive corporate reseller in Japan who has their own eCommerce site with their stock. If you want a good laugh...or cry...I checked their website as I've never actually shopped there; they have a page on their authentication processes specifying that they employ professional authenticatiors, are a member of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, and are "a pioneering provider of patent-pending anti-counterfeiting solutions for luxury brand goods"...and they provide other businesses with anti-counterfiting and authentication training. So at the very least, hopefully they'll be responsive to any eBay listing reports as it seems like it would be extremely embarassing for them to be called out for selling counterfits?

Thoughts? If we're on the right track, is there anything to this that might help with getting at least the counterfit listings/sellers in hot water with eBay?
 
#90,043
Hi again all - would anyone mind having a look at this?

Item: Coach Hampton Rainbow Scribble C Monogram Tote Handbag Purse
Listing number: 166904990203
Seller and site where listed: The Vintage and Treasures Store (thevintageandtreasuresstore) on ebay
Link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/166904990203
Comments: Feeling a bit nostalgic lately and I got a decent discount offer from the seller. Reading the rehab thread has me hopeful I could give it a little bit of its sparkle back, provided it all checks out of course.

Thanks!
 
#90,045
camanda said:
Hi again all - would anyone mind having a look at this?

Item: Coach Hampton Rainbow Scribble C Monogram Tote Handbag Purse
Listing number: 166904990203
Seller and site where listed: The Vintage and Treasures Store (thevintageandtreasuresstore) on ebay
Link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/166904990203
Comments: Feeling a bit nostalgic lately and I got a decent discount offer from the seller. Reading the rehab thread has me hopeful I could give it a little bit of its sparkle back, provided it all checks out of course.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

camanda said:
Also this one. I gotta go to work and get off eBay.

Item: Coach Purse Striped Pastel Pink Easy Care Fabric w/ Tan Leather Trim #L043-1889
Listing number: 112868686526
Seller and site where listed: Consignment for a Cause (riconsignment) on ebay
Link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/112868686526
Comments:

As ever, thank you!
Click to expand...
Both are genuine.
 
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