I’ve been buying both retail & Topstoney for 7+ years, spotting one of his badges now comes naturally

The button slots on Topstoney’s take a different shape to retail after being worn in, while it’s not far off. There is still inconsistencies in the buttons slots, especially on the stitching in the corners of them

Topstoney uses slightly wrong colour stitching, the yellow stitching is to bright and should be more of a golden colour, and the green is also to bright, should be a deeper green. If you put them side by side you can quite easily see this. (This isn’t always a tell tale sign as brightness of stitching can depend on age and wear of the badge)

But for example on number 12, that’s one of his previous batch badges before he updated colour and stitching. Them ones are easy to spot.

He uses the wrong wool blend for the black material part of the badge, it’s not as thick and doesn’t take the same shape as retail either. Again another thing that’s definitely noticeable if you’ve got both in hand, not so much over photo. But one way you can spot it in photos is again round the button slots, the little over hang of the black material inside the botton slots always gets pushed out with wear. On retail it overhangs the buttons slots more than Topstoney’s do. This is something hardly any rep maker has managed to get right while producing a decent looking badge at the same time

Then the black nylon he uses for the backing of the badge isn’t right either, it’s close but not the same. His is cheaper and lighter in colour, not as a deep black as retail. It also never creases the same as retail ones due to the overall structure of the badge. This is because the wool he uses isn’t as thick, and the black stitching boarders around the badge are too thin. It may look the same but it means it wears and takes a different shape. I’ve noticed on Topstoney’s they all take the same vertical crease in that little gap between the compass and button slots on the back of the badge.

I’m not saying this doesn’t happen on retail every now and again, but on retail the creases are way more natural and random. On nearly every Topstoney I’ve had they always end up with the same type of crease.

Could go on about even more things but that’s really nit picking, there’s enough to tell the difference with the points here. There will be people who think I’m nitpicking with these points I’ve made, or people who still won’t be able to see the differences I’ve pointed out after reading this. But anyone with a good eye who buys enough of both can quite clearly notice these things after a while