China Imitations or Fakes or Real

[cowhorse01]

Lately Ive seen alot of knives on ebay from China that list the knife with no brand name but when you click on the item and see the pic's they are identified with a brand name on the box next to the knife or have the mfg name on the blade tang. I looked at a buck Sandman that certainley looked real to me and bought it cheap. I then saved a pic of it and emailed it to Buck Knives asking for them to look at it and tell me if it was real or fake. They emailed me back saying it was the real thing and that those were made over there. I know that most of them will be fake but every now and then one might be the real thing. I wish I had a way of knowing. Sometimes I compare pics and can tell but sometimes you cant, Ive seen cold steel, benchmade, fox, smith and wessons, etc. Guess its just a gamble.

 

[Jason.Lee740]

I know what you mean. I just bought a leatherman crunch (I lost mine recently) on ebay and Im not sure if its real. It looks real, and comes with everything that a real one should come with but still there is a nagging voice that says otherwise.

I too wish there was a way to know for sure.

 

[CWL]

If it is a production knife, very likely you are looking at what is called a "gray market" product.

Gray market products are often real products that get made in the same factory as the retail brand, but which the unscrupulous factory managers make more than contracted-for and then sells them "out the back door" for a secret profit.

Happens often with knives as these are cheaper to make than real counterfeits because tooling & start-up costs have already been paid for by the legitimate brand-owners.

OTOH, if you are looking at an American-made knife like a Busse being sold from China, then that be as fake as a $3 bill...

 

[eygen]

I bought a cheap Smith and Wessons special ops knife (20 bucks from S&W website, I bought it for 3 dollar). Looks completely like the real thing, S&W said it was real, but still. 3 dollar? Not sure.

 

[freddy1]

i bought couple of Extrema Ratio, they look real at first glance but are fake when checking more closely.
The folder is not bad but surely steel is not N690 (probably 440A or B), but the "pseudo schrapnel" quality is really impressive, i was bluffed
It was hard to be 100% sure it was not a "second hand schrapnel"...
But when i check the past sells, i found other "used schrapnel", so it's easy to guess...:jerkit:

 

[kungfucowboy]

beware that they mark all sort of things with all sorts of labels over here. but if it is a Chinese made knife and it looks mostly correct it's likely an over run or factory reject. keep in mind that will mean it's made on the same tooling but not necessarily with the same materials could be 5cr13mov instead of 8cr13mov for the blade steel and things like that, maybe they use a cheaper kind of screws or thumb studs later on when they run out of the original ones (seen that on the boker subcoms they sell over here).

 

[GIRLYmann]

a cheaply made knife is just that.
largely manufactured from less worthy metal materials that are "soft" in nature.
things to look out for are the chrome-like alloy stop pins, bolt fastners, pivot barrels, thumb studs/disc.
you can be assured that in all likelyhood such alloys will not make a good stand-in replacement for genuine steel parts.

 

[Mossyhorn]

There were a lot of fake Strider's out there awhile back. The photos of the knives looked good except the black camo looked like it was painted on the blades instead of being part of the heat treat. The sheath didn't look quite right either. I'm sure they fooled a lot of people who thought they were getting a Strider for a hundred bucks.

 

[LX_Emergency]

If it is a production knife, very likely you are looking at what is called a "gray market" product.

Gray market products are often real products that get made in the same factory as the retail brand, but which the unscrupulous factory managers make more than contracted-for and then sells them "out the back door" for a secret profit.

Happens often with knives as these are cheaper to make than real counterfeits because tooling & start-up costs have already been paid for by the legitimate brand-owners.

OTOH, if you are looking at an American-made knife like a Busse being sold from China, then that be as fake as a $3 bill...

I think I have a Böker like that. It LOOKS just like a Magnum knife, it's got Böker on it. The same model (with slight variations) is also made by Rough Rider.

But the Böker boys claim that it's a fake.