Interesting One Piece Counterfeit Knife on eBay

[bvo85]

I confirmed with CRK via email that this knife was "likely" counterfeit, and reported it to the seller (a pawn store), who appears to have removed the listing.

I've never heard of a counterfeit one piece knife before, but CRK told me their techs confirmed they do exist. It seems so crazy to me that this exists, because it seems very labor intensive to counterfeit this.

The tells of the counterfeit to me are:

1) incorrect gnurling on the handle/cap
2) incorrect tailcap design
3) Made in USA font size and location
4) The sheath is marked Chris Reeve instead of Gfeller
5) The shape of the guard appears just a little off

I was hoping it was an early model before modern design changes kicked in, however, I own a South African one-piece knife, and the gnurling and font is similar to the modern US ones. Which would be very odd if CRK changed the design to this counterfeit after it was fine tuned in South Africa, and then changed it back for future US models.

This is a far from perfect counterfeit, but very impressive to me all the same!

 

[bhyde]

Blade finish, printed logo, chatter on the threads of the cap, chamfer on the lanyard hole.. to add to the list already mentioned.
The knurling is supposed to come to nearly a complete peak. The older OPK's had a similar knurling to this..but it's still pretty sloppy.
Pretty bad fake in my opinion.

 

[bvo85]

Pretty bad fake in my opinion.

Bad fake with respect to trying to match an actual OPK.

I am impressed by the overall workmanship of it, in spite of it not matching CRKs design features. Building a fake OPK does not seem like an easy feat!

 

[bhyde]

Bad fake with respect to trying to match an actual OPK.

I am impressed by the overall workmanship of it, in spite of it not matching CRKs design features. Building a fake OPK does not seem like an easy feat!

The originals were turned on a lathe and then had some operations on a mill. Not unusual for machinists to make parts requiring a lathe operation and a mill operation..but I get what you are saying..totally.

 

[TC]

Not counterfeits, but I recently browsed YouTube and came across some knife that looked like the bastard child of a CR OPK and the Gerber Mk. II. Schrade I think. So, some out there are picking up on the concept of the OPKs and doing cheap knock-offs...