Three Disassembled Paramilitary 2's (possible counterfeit?)

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Oct 24, 2016
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Looking for a little help from the experts. I bought these before I became aware of the abundance of fake Spyderco knives out there. After some research, I'm more unsure than ever if these (or one of these) are counterfeit. I have a C81GPBN2, C81GM4P2 & a C81GPDBL2. The thing that first concerned me was that two of the box barcodes are suspect (in that the numbers don't touch the bars).

Taking them apart I noticed that the holes in the blades are different. Also, the brown and natural G10 versions have a date code on the blade that matches the date code on the barcode label, the date code on the purple model is one month off (should be FP, not GP). The S110V knife was purchased new, so the barcode should match the knife.

Hopefully more details are visible with the knives in their naked glory...











 
Yea that m4 is fake, I'll buy it off your hands free 20 bucks :) jj looks legit to me. But them again I'm no expert on fakes.
 
Calm down, the sprints are not being faked... the different hole patterns are to tell different blade steels apart even without markings when a model has multiple steel options.

If you're still not convinced, I've got seconds after Beckerhead83... :rolleyes:
 
I don't understand the whole box thing. The box means nothing.
 
Those are all fake. I will give you $100 for them all. But seriously your good to go, enjoy them they all look very real to me as well
 
I don't understand the whole box thing. The box means nothing.
To disregard the box would be a mistake.

Until recently, the barcode label on the box was a tell-tale of a fake.

In the images above, the top label's barcode numbers (1604 0054) are in bold and touch the bars above. The other two lack these distinctions which usually means 'fake'.

Also, older fakes had labels with the same same font size. And the red color of a 'fake' box was sometimes a different shade when compared to a 'real' box.
 
Look legit to me, and I've dealt w/ fakes before.

Interesting... what is the purpose of the secondary through hole in the tang (the non-detent hole??)
 
Thanks for the input guys! Alright, I'm feeling better about my mini Para2 collection being legit. Still, no more eBay knife buys for me. It's tough though when you want that sold out sprint!
 
Fake Spyderco knives usually come in a regular box, not a sliding box. The imprints are not clean/crisp looking on fakes. The jimping for the thumb is not cut as deep or as clean either. The grinds look very cheap as well. Those do look legit from the pictures.
 
They all look real. I'm guessing the extra hole in each blade is there for 2 reasons. The first was mentioned above. The second is that they probably need a way to secure the blade while grinding it.
 
They all look real. I'm guessing the extra hole in each blade is there for 2 reasons. The first was mentioned above. The second is that they probably need a way to secure the blade while grinding it.

If any of you have ever watched Anthony Marfione hand-grind some of his custom microtechs, The naked blades are stacked up 50 deep, already mounted to a device through holes in the blade, so he can grab the assembly and pick it up, bring it to the grinder, run it across the grinder and set the edge, repeat on the other side, inspect it, and pass it on so he can grab the next one. I'm guessing these PM's aren't ground by anyone's hand, but they have to be in a similar device so a machine can pick up the blades and pass them across the grinding surface. That's what those holes are for.

On a sidenote I thought it was funny that the amount of time these custom microtechs are in Tony's hands, and considered hand-ground thereafter, is about three seconds. And it adds about $800 to the cost of the blade. Granted he hand tempers and hand quenches these blades as well. But it's not like he's sitting in front of a grinder for 30 minutes.
 
Date code on the blade is when the blade was made. Date code on the box is when the completed knife was packaged. Blade date can be anywhere from the same month to several months earlier than the box date, but never later although even that is not a sure sign of a fake. Knives that have been in a dealer's display case can, and sometimes do, get sold with the wrong box.
 
Great pic's. They show the areas that typically display the signs of a clone (all look legit to me). Made it easy for folks to give you good reference feedback.

I did not realize the Brown Moteng had a second production (that 11-15 date code threw me off at first ... ;-)

Always good to learn something new,Thanks.

Regards,
 
The reason the lines on the barcodes don't touch is because recently spyderco has been making the new ones with the lines in the barcodes that don't touch because I've noticed so many new legit spyderco knives with the barcodes on the boxes like that,like the m4 cf para 2 and the cruwear para 2.
 
The only thing that throws me off is that I just looked at your pics of the boxes and the m4 jade box has the barcode with the lines that don't touch the numbers and my box on my m4 jade barcode does touch the numbers and I thought these were probably made around the same time,so I don't know that just confused me there.
 
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