Real or fake: Manbug ZDP

C

Cfrench085

Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
3
Hello all. I have recently purchased my first spyderco knife and want to verify if it is real.
I am concerned as I got it from ebay. Through this forum and spyderco.com forums I have discovered the vast counterfeit market. What concerns me with this knife is the ability to hold an edge. ZDP-189 is notoriously hard to sharpen by my understanding but this obe seems to sharpen fairly easily which first raised my concern. Upon further investigation I noticed the difference in the blade stamp second line gong size compared to spyderco's stock photo.

The knife is a manbug ZDP-189.
Stock (real) photo:


My knife (sorry about pic quality but trying to show letting)
[URL=http://s1292.photobucket.com/user/cfrench085/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsbxsv3ogc.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b577/cfrench085/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsbxsv3ogc.jpg


Time to contact the seller? I want to be sure before proceeding.
 
My $ says real. That and I see no recourse with the seller regardless as you resharpened it. Just my .02
 
dericdesmond said:
My $ says real. That and I see no recourse with the seller regardless as you resharpened it. Just my .02
Click to expand...

Agree, on both aspects. Once you modify an item, it is no longer resalable and you void your ability to return something. Just like a pair of shoes, you can't run a marathon in them, then take them back because they don't fit right.
 
When you say "sharpen" what do you mean? Touching up on a Sharpmaker in my eyes is not sharpening. I have had no problems maintaining my factory edge on Zdp-189. What I have gathered from most information is that it is hard to remove a substantial amount of material from Zdp-189. The sharpmaker is meant to realign the edge not really for material removal.
 
Hi Cfrench,

Welcome to our forum. While it's hard to tell with just a pic, I've not heard of Manbug counterfeits yet. ZDP is not difficult to sharpen, but generally faster with synthetic abrasives.

sal
 
RevDevil said:
Agree, on both aspects. Once you modify an item, it is no longer resalable and you void your ability to return something. Just like a pair of shoes, you can't run a marathon in them, then take them back because they don't fit right.
Click to expand...

A agree to that aspect. However, if an item is "not as described" due to being a knock off sold as the genuine article it would supersede any "damage" done by sharpening.
I decided to sharpen it as it was not consistently sharp over the length of the blade in the first place.
My stock spyderco pic didn't come through. Second attempt:


Notice the different starting position of "ZDP-189" on the stock spyderco.com photo compared to the knife I have. One knife starts under the "P" of spyderco and the other under the "y". Also the difference in height of the second line font. This could be a variation but I would think a brand would be pretty consistent with something they would have to tool.

I sharpened the knife with a lansky system. There is difficulty in getting the full flat ground blade into the vice but it can be done by screw adjustment and canting the vice arms to match the grind angle. The acuteness lost is equal to half the blade grind angle but the knife would still shave hair... For a little bit. Paper yielded varying results from pull cutting to tearing.
I used diamond stones (likely explaining the ease of sharpening) but backed off to standard lansky stones when discovering the progress I was making. I would compare what I sharpened in relation to AUS-8 by immediately being able to see progress with the fine lansky stone. I have not even been able to visually see progess that fast with a standard ss case knife.
 
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Yours looks like mine, including the "O" being spaced a tad off from the other letters. I carry mine quite a bit.

sal
 
If that aint customer service I dont know what is. A cpl days before blade show taboot. I love spyderco.
 
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