ALERT: Kizer and Reaté clones. Yeah, that's a thing.

Comeuppance

Comeuppance

Fixed Blade EDC Emisssary
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
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Just a heads-up - another couple of gems popped up on my saved [auction site] search for "(titanium, tc4) (d2, s35vn)":








Yeah, that's right. Counterfeits of Chinese original designs. The Horizon D (C?) clone is much more likely to pass an initial glance than the Kizer clone, which has a dull flat TiNi coating completely unlike any Kizer design. The Horizon clone apparently has double-row ceramic ball bearings just like the original, but has D2 steel and you can see that the machining / finish / details are different. For instance, I don't believe Reaté ever released a completely dull-gray Ti finished model with plain silver hardware.
 
I've also seen a District 9 clone. With their growing popularity, it was only a matter of time.
 
Just goes to show how popular high-end Chinese-manufactured knives have gotten. And it didn't take them long to get there. Only question is whether they can stay there with the prices they're starting to charge and no Stateside service/support. As much as I like Kizer and Reate knives, I'm concerned that they may price themselves out of the market at the rate they're going. Time will tell, of course . . .
 
Kizer already has a US service center, IIRC. Reate doesn't yet, but they do send spare parts with the knife as a sort of bandaid at present.
 
You wouldn't happen to have an address for their service center, would you? It doesn't show up on their website. And I've read at least one post where someone said Kizer doesn't respond promptly to service requests.

Please don't get me wrong here. I have NO NEGATIVE AGENDA where Kizer and Reaté are concerned. Quite the opposite, actually. I want them to be successful. (I just picked up my third Kizer . . . a Laconico Gemini . . . and it's a stunner!) But you have to know that when I buy Kizer knives, I don't expect to receive world-class service and support. And you'd be wrong if you don't think I factor that into my decision-making when I look at their prices. (Hell will freeze before I pay $200+ for a knife that isn't backed up by Stateside service and support.) If I don't get a flawless product right out of the gate, immediately back to the dealer it goes. The most I'm out is the return shipping charge and that's a risk I'm willing to take. So far, fortunately, I haven't had to send one back. But for what I paid for it, you'd best believe I asked the dealer to inspect my Gemini before he sent it to me. An ounce of prevention and all that . . .

If Kizer and Reaté are going to try to achieve price parity with the likes of a ZT . . . and that sure looks like the direction they're headed in . . . they're going to need to do more than produce excellent products.

Oh . . . sorry for pulling your post off topic. I needed to get that off my chest! :) And yes, there is a certain irony involved when Chinese counterfeiters start knocking off Chinese knives. It goes to show that counterfeiting is no respecter of nations and that any manufacturer anywhere on Earth can be victimized. And who knows? Now that Kizer and Reaté have joined the ranks of the victimized, maybe some of us can start treating legitimate Chinese manufacturers with a little more respect. I realize that may be asking a lot, but still . . .
 
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To be fair, the Kevin John Venom and Venom 2 have already been cloned more than once, and the CKF library is almost entirely cloned as well.

In fact, I've learned of upcoming CKF models by seeing the clones first... It's ridiculous.
 
I just saw a Direware clone and a Redencion clone as well... oh man, that blows!
 
I wonder if David has any recourse here considering unlike everyone else being ripped off, he's actually located within the same country. But then again, China is a big place.
 
I wonder how aggressive the Chinese will be in addressing the counterfeiting problem inside their own industrial base. You probably wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that justicial sentence.
 
That's a heck of a good question. Would the Chinese government step in to protect Chinese knife manufacturers from counterfeiters operating in their country? Better yet, does the concept of counterfeiting even apply in a Communist regime where intellectual property presumably belongs to the masses?

I've often thought that what Capitalists define as thievery Communists embrace as sharing. I don't know. You tell me.
 
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Comeuppance said:
To be fair, the Kevin John Venom and Venom 2 have already been cloned more than once, and the CKF library is almost entirely cloned as well.

In fact, I've learned of upcoming CKF models by seeing the clones first... It's ridiculous.
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I'd bet dollars to donuts that the CKF 'clones' are built in the exact same factory as their regular stuff. 8am-8pm the machines make knives for CKF and 8pm-8am the machines make the same knives to sell themselves. The factories that make NFL jerseys are infamous for doing that.

I believe Kizer and Reate own their factories so not sure how those are getting done. I doubt they are undercutting themselves.
 
Scurvy092 said:
I'd bet dollars to donuts that the CKF 'clones' are built in the exact same factory as their regular stuff. 8am-8pm the machines make knives for CKF and 8pm-8am the machines make the same knives to sell themselves. The factories that make NFL jerseys are infamous for doing that.

I believe Kizer and Reate own their factories so not sure how those are getting done. I doubt they are undercutting themselves.
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I definitely believe this is true, to some extent. There are some "clones" of CKF knives that definitely appear to be reverse engineered and thus are missing some details, and then there are others that spot-on and very likely made by the same factory. This is apparent in some of the Decepticon "clones".

There are also knives that I'm pretty much 100% certain that the factory in China is producing and selling them without a middleman, like the Konygin designed Asymmetric knife that just popped back up on the Chinese wholesale site. It's completely identical to the CKF version, where as the Decepticons seemed to have rougher finishing than the CKF version. It looks like the factory did the finish work on the Asymmetric themselves and CKF just sold them.
 
I just came across this Decepticon 2 "clone" and all I have to say is wow! I've never been so tempted to buy something off that site!!!

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Just to let you guys know, I just purchased a sharp by design typhoon and while doing research found clones of it too.
 
Scurvy092 said:
I believe Kizer and Reate own their factories so not sure how those are getting done. I doubt they are undercutting themselves.
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Doesn't seem logical. But then again, better they should undercut themselves than let somebody else undercut them. I mean if you knew you were going to be counterfeited and you knew you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, what would you do? The answer to that question could lead to some rather intriguing possibilities, couldn't it? ;)
 
Who cares? I dont support china at all, much less get butthurt that chinese counterfeitters victimize their own companies. I guess if you like chinesium stamped with your favorite steel type you deserve having to wade thru fakes to find them.
 
RevDevil said:
Just when you'd thought you'd seen it all.
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I know. But we're not dealing with a society and a moral fabric that's anything like ours. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's different. And it's been around a whole lot longer than ours has. If we want to understand it, I think the first thing we need to do is set our rules aside so we can learn what their rules are. Then maybe we'll see why things that don't make any sense to us make perfect sense to them . . . and vice versa.

This much is certain. They're too big to ignore and they're not going to go away. Better we try to understand them than deride them.
 
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bld522 said:
I know. But we're not dealing with a society and a moral fabric that's anything like ours. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's different. And it's been around a whole lot longer than ours has. If we want to understand it, I think the first thing we need to do is set our rules aside so we can learn what their rules are. Then maybe we'll see why things that don't make any sense to us make perfect sense to them . . . and vice versa.

This much is certain. They're too big to ignore and they're not going to go away. Better we try to understand them than deride them.
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Has it really been around longer than us?

The current culture of ripoff is actually quite new and was even the complete opposite a long time ago.

Whoever was suspected of steeling Chinese secrets like silk and ceramic got his head removed or worse.
 
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