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Is my paramilitary 2 a fake?

P

petroleum engineer

Joined
Mar 15, 2014
Messages
3
I posted this on another forum as well but maybe you guys will be able to help as well. One question that I got was where did I purchase the knife from. I don't want to post the name yet because I want honest, non-biased opinions. I will say that is generally thought of as a reliable seller. If it is thought to be a fake, I will certainly say where I got it from in hopes of other people not making the same mistake I made.

Greetings all. I finally ordered my first Spyderco after carrying Kershaw and Case knives my entire life. The reviews of the pm2 were so good that I could no longer resist. However, after reading some of the forums, I am concerned that I may have a counterfeit knife. There are 3 reasons for this.

1) As you can see in the photos, the lettering is very much angled. After looking at the photos on the Spyderco site, it seems that is is supposed to be more parallel.

2) The plunge on the blade is not even close to being even on both sides.

3) Opening the blade is not smooth at all. I can flick it open with a significant amount of wrist action but it doesn't seem to be as buttery smooth as the ones I have seen in youtube reviews. Most of the blades I see in reviews just fall due to gravity when the compression lock is disengaged. Mine does not move at all when disengaged.

Thanks in advance for all of the help.

Photos: http://i.imgur.com/yRPDY43.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Oq17YjX.jpg
 
JungleJim65 said:
Looks pretty real to me. Are the liners milled and top jimping angled back a bit?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. The liners are milled, but I have read that the newest batch of fakes now have properly milled liners. As for the jimping, if it is angled, it is very slight, and to be honest, I can't tell one way or the other.
 
I'm going to call legit from those pics and the description.

Lettering is exactly like mine. Comparing to spyderco.com pics is not a good idea because they use prototypes for the pics, and they update little things over time sometimes (and it's been a number of years now since the PM2 came out).

I can't judge the plunge from those pics

Can't go off smoothness because it has the stepped pivot, and if you search around you'll see there are plenty of reports of them being either too loose or too tight, differing knife by knife and opinion by opinion. There is no major standard on this.
 
When you look into the knife from the top, do you see a little nick in the top edge of each liner? These are machining marks that I don't think the imposter manufacturers have copied yet.
 
Looks legit to me. The angles lettering is the same on my new para 2 sprint. I wouldn't worry about it.

Have you adjusted the pivot to make the blade swing freely? I've never bought one that didn't take a little adjusting here and there to get it the way I like it.

You're fine, enjoy.
 
I haven't held a fake but the pics I have seen of them the hardware was more star than torx. I've had 3 PM2s and they all came stiff. Play with the pivot, lube it and make sure the detent is clean and free of debris.
 
Surely its a fake!!! Just hit me up with a IM and ill give ya my add so I can get rid of it for ya.
 
Imho,it looks genuine. I'm wondering if it was purchased NIB or could it have possibly been disassembled and re-assembled by a previous owner ?
 
bwperdue said:
When you look into the knife from the top, do you see a little nick in the top edge of each liner? These are machining marks that I don't think the imposter manufacturers have copied yet.
Click to expand...

There are notches in the liners but they are on the bottom, not the top.

Thanks for all of the help, gentlemen. I will rest easy now.
 
Looks good, but there have been some videos about really good fakes. Cutlerylover did a video very recently over a fake Para 2.
 
from the tells I've learned about fake pm2s, I can't tell from this. The milling of the liners and the "dip" for the compression lock are the tells I know of and I can't see them. If you bought it from a reputable place you're probably good though.
 
With all of this talk about how the notches in the liner being the end all to determining if it is real or not, it's only a matter of time (unless it already happened) that some dude sees that, and say's, oh let me just take a file and nick of few parts of the liner to make it look more genuine.
 
jalcon said:
With all of this talk about how the notches in the liner being the end all to determining if it is real or not, it's only a matter of time (unless it already happened) that some dude sees that, and say's, oh let me just take a file and nick of few parts of the liner to make it look more genuine.
Click to expand...

That is precisely why you as a consumer have to make sure that if you are buying something, you choose to buy from a reliable source. Also why the OP was asked wherer he purchased it. I don't think that there is anything to worry about when going through a reputable source.
 
Purchasing from a B/F's authorized Spyderco dealer eliminates the possibility of getting burnt with a fake. ;)
 
skyhorse said:
Purchasing from a B/F's authorized Spyderco dealer eliminates the possibility of getting burnt with a fake. ;)
Click to expand...

The only way this is true is if the Spyderco dealers inspect and can 100% tell the difference of a fake and a genuine. I am not doubting these dealers get their knives DIRECTLY from spyderco and are 100% legit, however...the loophole is, someone could buy from a reputable dealer, and then decide they "don't like it" and return it for a refund. Only this time, the knife they sent back was a GREAT chinese copy that maybe only a few even on the Spyderco forums have the trained eye to tell the difference. Guess what, unless that dealer catches it... that chinese copy is now going back on the stock shelf and being sold to you or I as a genuine Spyderco knife.
 
jalcon said:
The only way this is true is if the Spyderco dealers inspect and can 100% tell the difference of a fake and a genuine. I am not doubting these dealers get their knives DIRECTLY from spyderco and are 100% legit, however...the loophole is, someone could buy from a reputable dealer, and then decide they "don't like it" and return it for a refund. Only this time, the knife they sent back was a GREAT chinese copy that maybe only a few even on the Spyderco forums have the trained eye to tell the difference. Guess what, unless that dealer catches it... that chinese copy is now going back on the stock shelf and being sold to you or I as a genuine Spyderco knife.
Click to expand...
Imho a reputable dealer would likely discover the return wasn't their stock and should this somehow happen they would be more than happy to make it right with the customer.
 
jalcon said:
The only way this is true is if the Spyderco dealers inspect and can 100% tell the difference of a fake and a genuine. I am not doubting these dealers get their knives DIRECTLY from spyderco and are 100% legit, however...the loophole is, someone could buy from a reputable dealer, and then decide they "don't like it" and return it for a refund. Only this time, the knife they sent back was a GREAT chinese copy that maybe only a few even on the Spyderco forums have the trained eye to tell the difference. Guess what, unless that dealer catches it... that chinese copy is now going back on the stock shelf and being sold to you or I as a genuine Spyderco knife.
Click to expand...

This is more likely to happen on Amazon, than with a dealer that primarily sells and deals in cutlery. Bad news travels very fast in this community, if this were a common practice businesses could be shut down within days. Most companies though have authorized channels which they have used to secure their products, and it is guaranteed to be authentic. I don't doubt some scumbag is capable of doing what you suggest, but it would likely not happen on a large scale through dedicated vendors. Unless of course someone teleports into the factory late at night and swaps the real shipment for a clone version.
 
skyhorse said:
Imho a reputable dealer would likely discover the return wasn't their stock and should this somehow happen they would be more than happy to make it right with the customer.
Click to expand...

If there are only a handful of people that spend countless hours on Spyderco forums that can tell the difference, do you really think some guy that gets the return in the mail, opens it up inspects it, and puts it back on the shelf is likely to know? Doubtful unfortunately.
 
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