HRC Taichung, Taiwan

Opened:  December 22, 1995 Closed:  December 1996

TALL

Black Letter Old Asian Logo Keyhole Bottom

Black Letter Old Asian Logo Taiwan Bottom

FAKE *

USA Logo Times New Roman Font

Asian Yellow Logo Taiwan Bottom

Yellow Logo

* The Taichung shot glass has been largely believed to be the most difficult one to own due to the cafe being open for such a short period of time.  In respect to this shot glass, there are less than a handful of happy owners of the real shot.

On that note, unfortunately there are people that are profiting from the rarity of this shot glass and have manufactured replicas/fakes.  The Taichung has appeared on eBay in 3 different versions, 2 of which were never sold through the cafe and 1 that is a near perfect replica.

The Taichung fake shots started to appear on eBay around June 2007 and are believed to have been manufactured by different sellers.  There have been more than 30+ of these shots on eBay in less than a year, and until 2007, maybe one had been sold on eBay in over 10 years.  The ones on eBay are 100% fake.   The USA logo with the Times New Roman font was never released by the cafe during its short existence.  The Asian Yellow Logo is a very good replicate (the only distinguishable difference is the spacing and/or size of the font).  The other Yellow logo was never released by the cafe either and is similar to the USA logo, where the logo itself was never released overseas when Taichung was open.  It's unfortunate that counterfeits were made of this rare shot.  It's also discouraging that there are buyers that still hold out hope that their purchase is real or who may also be unaware that they have purchased a fake.  The biggest harm (besides the $300 - $800 paid by buyers) is that these fakes will pollute the hobby for years to come.  To be clear, Taichung did not issue different variants on fonts and it did not have prototypes.  If a Taichung is sold on eBay or elsewhere - unless the seller is a known collector who previously owned a Taichung (there are few), before this mess - consider it a fake.  Buyer beware!