3 ms·

Do you also plan to detect counterfeit pieces ?

• jacquesm 10y ago
  That's a really hard problem. In many cases there are subtle hints (color, the writing on the studs). Spectrography might give a hint here due to the different formulation of the plastics but some of the knock-offs are now so good it can be very hard to tell them from the real thing. I'm not really sure if 'counterfeit' is the right term, the companies selling these are not making pieces labeled 'lego', and in fact the Lego brand started out by copying an English product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft Damaged pieces and discolored pieces are also of interest and a very hard category to detect.
  • Aissen 10y ago
    I didn't know about Kiddicraft, thanks TIL. It might not be true at the piece level, but some sets on some websites(ali, etc.) are exact replicas of lego sets, bar the brand. Down to the manual. Hence the use of "counterfeit".
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      Ouch, that's bad. I wasn't aware of those, and yes, I agree, that's a good use of the word counterfeit.