Is there anything Knife fans can do about fake knives?

Before spending anything over $25 educate yourself about what real and fake models of the knife look like. There is plenty of information on the web that describes the differences between the two. Don't be a sucker, do your homework before laying out your bucks. If the price just seems too good, it is probably too expensive, being a fake.

KNIFE FANS, like the ones who subscribe to Blade Forums, already know all this stuff and probably rarely may a mistake and accidentally buy a fake/clone.

It is the poor sap that buys a couple of knives in his lifetime that gets taken.

 
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The problem with "fakes" is most people do not know they are fakes and if they are interested enough, only discover that something is a close copy or a outright fake after purchase. To many, $20 or $30 beats $100 to $150 any day, fake or not. Plus they probably don't use the knife much.
 
eveled said:
If someone wants to buy a cheap knock off. I don’t feel sorry for them.

It’s the people that get tricked. Thinking they got a good one and sometimes even paying top dollar for one. I feel sorry for. If it’s too good to be true......

The bigger long term problem is the devaluation of our collections. We can’t sell ours if everyone is so afraid of fakes they only buy from reputable dealers as has been recommended here.
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Good point. That is a concern of mine as well.
 
There’s not much to be done aside from what has been mentioned, and those actions don’t really feel effective. Educated knife buyers not buying them doesn’t prevent unaware consumers from buying the fakes, there aren’t many ways to reach out and educate the unaware outside of hoping well-SEO’d youtube videos will catch their eye, and reporting them on eBay is a bit of an unknown since you get no feedback.

So, I guess increasing the wealth of information out there is your best bet. Implore buyers to use trustworthy knife stores and not mostly-unregulated aggregate markets like eBay and Amazon unless they are -very- confident in their ability to spot fakes.

Education and consumer awareness are the best tools for this endeavor, which is stymied a bit by the general (and understandable) laziness of the general population when it comes to research. Like, I sure as hell didn’t check around online to see if my shoes might be clones when I bought them on Amazon, and I’ll bet there’s a much broader market for that sort of clonery.
 
You can become the next Vininull and have fun beating up the knife and posting it on YT.
 
22-rimfire said:
The problem with "fakes" is most people do not know they are fakes and if they are interested enough, only discover that something is a close copy or a outright fake after purchase. To many, $20 or $30 beats $100 to $150 any day, fake or not. Plus they probably don't use the knife much.
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I am not sure where that opinion or fact is from as stated in your first sentence. If someone is truly interested in a spyderco PM2, they would most likely know it costs $100+, and there is no way $20 or $30 will get them a real deal. To me, that someone is buying a PM2 for $30 is purposely and knowingly getting a fake.
 
sharp_edge said:
I am not sure where that opinion or fact is from as stated in your first sentence. If someone is truly interested in a spyderco PM2, they would most likely know it costs $100+, and there is no way $20 or $30 will get them a real deal. To me, that someone is buying a PM2 for $30 is purposely and knowingly getting a fake.
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This is true if you analyze it properly. But many people simply don't think about it and see the cheaper price on fleabay. They don't consider why something is priced $100+ or whatever; It's fleabay..... and the price must truly reflect the real cost with a small profit versus immediately thinking counterfeit.
 
sharp_edge said:
I am not sure where that opinion or fact is from as stated in your first sentence. If someone is truly interested in a spyderco PM2, they would most likely know it costs $100+, and there is no way $20 or $30 will get them a real deal. To me, that someone is buying a PM2 for $30 is purposely and knowingly getting a fake.
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I don't know what percentage of buyers are informed, and what percentage are walking by a table at a gun/knife show. If that guy knows zero about knives, and is looking at a table with a bunch of junky ninja stuff, and next to that is a "spiderco" he might think it was a nice design and buy that one. When it won't hold an edge, and falls apart, he'll tell all his pals that Spyderco sucks. That's one way fakes can hurt knife companies.
 
I HATE FAKES!! I would destroy every fake I could get my hands on. I have been collecting knives for years and it use to be that the main knives that people made fakes of was old Case XX knives and a few other old pocket knife brands. Now it is EVERYTHING!!
I HATE FAKES!!! Kevin
 
Part of the problem with fakes is that most folks don’t care. Some will simply buy a knife because they think it looks cool while others aren’t willing to spend more than a few bucks on a higher end knife so they feel a cheap clone is the next best thing.
 
Velitrius said:
Don't buy them.

Educate those around you.

Unfortunately, "Fake Spyderco $20" is better than "Real Spyderco $100" to most of our vaunted consumer base nowadays.

Same as "WalMart Tent $30" is better than "Good Tent $150" Etc, etc, etc.

"Buying" is better than "Buying Quality" I'm sorry to report. Educated consumers have been replaced by "Consumers".

And to get into the politico-socio-economico of the whole thing would require posting in a different forum. Sorry.
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I agree with you for the most part, but I think that its quite shortsighted to say that something is automatically inferior because it's price is lower. Victorinox Fibrox is cheap, but It is still a quality knife. Same with bestech, kizer, ganzo...

I agree that fakes are unethical, wrong, and often just stupid, but it's a bit silly, imo, to suggest that a lower price tag automatically means an inferior product.
 
The big thing that impacted me with counterfeit items were gun boxes, in particular "original" boxes for Colt handguns. Many are sold as if they are original, a discovered box from a friend, during an attic closet or garage clean out, and so forth. Won't touch them now. Some are hard to tell if they are recent copies from pictures.

I see little need to buy counterfeit knife models and I only buy from reputable dealers. "Fake knives" is kind of hard to define as it is still a knife and not fake.
 
The Kabar moderator said the only knives they get in for warrantee issues are fake.

The trouble is the more we point out the flaws and differences the better the fakes get.
 
Lotmom said:
I agree with you for the most part, but I think that its quite shortsighted to say that something is automatically inferior because it's price is lower. Victorinox Fibrox is cheap, but It is still a quality knife. Same with bestech, kizer, ganzo...

I agree that fakes are unethical, wrong, and often just stupid, but it's a bit silly, imo, to suggest that a lower price tag automatically means an inferior product.
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That's a solid point, and I wasn't suggesting that a less expensive item is an inferior product.

My point was that the cheaper knockoff item is the inferior product to the original product.

The little Maxam knockoffs of the Delica and Dragonfly sold at gas stations are an inferior choice to the Spyderco…

A fake PM2 is cheaper than a real PM2, and yes... it is an inferior product.

The Chinese copy of the KA-BAR USMC is cheaper, and it is indeed inferior.

Sure, there's quality stuff out there for dirt cheap. Ontario RATs, Moras, Opinels, Kershaws etc.

But there's also knockoffs, fakes, facsimiles of good knives that are cheaper, and folks buy them up by the boatload. That's my point.
 
Not all knife buyers are invested enough to educate themselves. They need a knife, they buy a knife: eBay, Amazon, swap meet, whatever’s convenient. If they get a fake and it fails to perform as expected, not only will they not buy that brand again, they will tell others to avoid that company well. It isn’t just one lost sale for the company, it’s potentially many.
 
Gather up a list of these sellers and pictures of examples of their fakes and put them in a YouTube video with a clickbait title so it gets a crap ton of views.
A half naked woman as the URL just might do the trick :D

In all seriousness though I actually think this would work, dishonest maybe but it would help bring awareness to those who would not otherwise know and who are likely to get duped by these counterfeit knives.
 
Velitrius said:
That's a solid point, and I wasn't suggesting that a less expensive item is an inferior product.

My point was that the cheaper knockoff item is the inferior product to the original product.

The little Maxam knockoffs of the Delica and Dragonfly sold at gas stations are an inferior choice to the Spyderco…

A fake PM2 is cheaper than a real PM2, and yes... it is an inferior product.

The Chinese copy of the KA-BAR USMC is cheaper, and it is indeed inferior.

Sure, there's quality stuff out there for dirt cheap. Ontario RATs, Moras, Opinels, Kershaws etc.

But there's also knockoffs, fakes, facsimiles of good knives that are cheaper, and folks buy them up by the boatload. That's my point.
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I'm not 100% in agreement. Over in my thread, someone had this conversation with me. Tldr: His wife has a cheap knockoff Luis Vitton purse that's better than the real thing...

At this point I'm just playing devil's advocate. I agree with you for the most part.
 
Pardon my ignorance, but do other companies like Spyderco, Benchmade, etc, post pics of fakes on their website like Cold Steel does? Think that would help a lot in the education dept. But of course people would have to look.
 
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