quick intro, as im new to the forum. my name is daniel danger, im an artist and musician living in massachusetts, i do alot of work for notable bands and movie studios and all that fun stuff. as well, ive been an avid EHX fanatic for most of my adult life with a room filling collection bordering on complete. i call it the arsenal.
so back in january an "Elk Fuzz Sustainar" popped up on ebay (title was "JAPANESE LEGEND 1970-MID ELK SUPER FUZZ SUSTAINAR 1st BIG MUFF Triangle Copy") out of tokyo from the seller "okamichi22318". i keep my eye on things, my collection will verify that, i look religiously, and this was the first id seen on ebay in years, and it was mint. i was excited, until i was outbid in the last seconds to the tune of like $1200. the seller contacted me and said he had a second one he could sell. i didnt question this too much because theres a couple holy grails i have doubles of, and okamichi has a history of selling pretty rare pedals. he spoke in very broken english so communication was difficult. a couple weeks later he popped the second on ebay and i won it for around $800. it arrived, sounded fantastic, and i was stoked.
then a month later he was selling another one, and then another soon after that. and then i saw Jext Telez selling one. and then another american seller. all mint. now what are the chances of NONE being available on the collectors market for YEARS and then suddenly theres a bunch of mint ones all claiming to be "mid 70s" over a 4 month span. fishy? yeah. i outright asked the seller "is this a bootleg?" "when was this made?" "was this made in the 70s" and got broken english responses that told me nothing (not necessarily to imply he was being evasive, i just couldnt understand what he was even trying to get at).
these are my replies from him. theyre plenty safe for work, but i nested them below for neatness sake.
"The problem of ELK moves according to the connected conditions.
Please refer to MAXON MD9. -- Since this pointed out the circuit of BIG MUFF, the contents are the same as IBANEZOD-9 (VERY RARE), but there is no sound pressure.
However, sound is alike.
This is an appearing report, a catalog of an original order of a music store, and the twist by one of MAXON(s), and there is restriction.
It is slightly interesting.
Although 699 dollars was sold at once, I am going to make it cheaper.
It is interesting. "
"Hi!
How are you?
ELK does not come out from that.
I think that it is worthy.
Although being written as BIG MUFF of ELK came out, it stopped.
The white elk of the copy of ELK does not sell at all.
Then, again! "
"【Ｐ．Ｓ】
Furthermore, I looked for various investigations.
Some sets are sold at investigation of a music store.
However, it was written that they all differed.
Resistance is resistance of the film in which metal was placed.
Or it is carbon resistance.
As for appearance, a 2SC733.2SC829.2SC495.2SA564.etc transistor will determine sound. "
"I bought a pedal one year (at least) ago.
Since it was too beautiful, I can take it out this time.
Furthermore, I think that it is suspected by me.
The price of a start is 200 dollars.
However, the bought price is 550 dollars.
These differed in the portion further.
It was copied to elk and w&c.
Since the persons who returned music to the private life at least were ancient times, w&c did not sell in Japan.
A brown portion is called ceramics.
It is received by evaluated 50v capacity 0.1uF.
Green calls it Maira.
Furthermore, a capacity is one of the things of 100v capacity 0.47uF and Maira.
It seems to have changed there.
Since it is 1970 (') years, it does not understand.
Since it was partial, the drawing was not in ELK.
However, it was chosen about it.... Which equipped the ear in it? "
at this point it was past the paypal claim date, and now im pretty convinced i paid $800 for a bootleg. and that someone (perhaps in japan) made a run of them and has selling them as originals. i messaged jext telez on ebay with my suspicions a while back, no response. another one popped up for sale the other day and i messaged the seller, who said he bought it from jext telez. i emailed kit rae with my suspicions last night and havent heard back yet but i know he will be interested.
so yeah, i dunno. beware i guess? maybe ill have more info soon once i can talk to kit. or if i find anyone with a proper original who i can compare the internals to. worst case scenario, it still sounds amazing. but a couple people paid real good money for something probably made last year.
nice to see you round here!
