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my chinese "knockoffs" are here!

greencobra

greencobra

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yep, came in yesterday. i got two knives, i'll show this one first. it's a 10" akc swing guard auto opening stiletto. the knife is huge. i've photographed both knives, the italian one and the new chinese along with my spyderco delica in the pic for scale. before we get to the photo, let me say both knives are identical. in every way. (in the photo, the bottom looks smaller. just an illusion from how i was standing over them) weight, length, blade thickness, scale thickness, bolsters, the same. i cannot tell the difference. well you couldn't, i can...from one very small detail. the italian made knife is marked on the blade "AKC World" and the chinese knife is marked "AKC Italy". huh? i was told by a pretty famous knife designer that if it says world instead of the country of origin, it's a fake. i actually sent an akc knife back, really the same knife, cause it said world.

so the one marked "world" that is sold in the u.s. by almost every knife seller, sells for between $90 and $119. depends on their mood. the chinese knife, well i bought this off wish for 11 bucks. the price fluctuates it seems on wish. the first time you look at it it's at the lowest price. this morning when i looked it was $8.50. everytime you go back to it, i've found the price increases by a couple of dollars.

i cannot find one iota of difference between the two besides the markings. both are exactly the same quality and the spec sheets from both the chinese vendor and the american vendor are also the same. i'm thinking these u.s. vendors are bringing the knives in from china. not much else i can say about them. or at least their distributors are. here are the knives.

eta...the bottom is the chinese knife

20230808_080758 - Copy.jpg
 
for those still interested, this is the second knife. it's called a "roma" type knife. it's a huge knife. i again put a delica in the pic to show size comparison and i've added a tape. it's 11" overall and blade style is different, you can't call it a stiletto. flat ground and it also is a swing guard style. quality again is very, very, good. and as with the other swing guards, it's heavy. blade is nicely centered and the action snappy. a feature not on the stiletto's, it has an adjustable pivot pin. a nice surprise. the romas sold from u.s. sites have that also, i just never noticed. this knife also has a AKC Italy marked blade. i'm also sure the blade steel is D2 tool steel or 440C no matter where you get the knife. a budget steel. sharpens easily and has decent retention. very adequate for what these blades are.

so just one thing, that black tail piece at the end of the handle. i ordered a solid fake ivory scale on this knife. you could get this style if you ordered it but i did want the full fake ivory treatment. they sent this. i'm not wild about it but the cost was so damn cheap, under 10 bucks at the time i ordered, i'll keep it rather than send it back. i did get a "oh, we are sorry" email but not worth sending it back. shipping is more than i paid for the knife. i'm thinking i may paint it, scuff and buff. we'll see. there was a review about this knife and the guy, from the u.s., who said they sent him the 2 color scaled roma as well. i did have warning it was happening but i dug deep into the site to make sure i ordered the one i wanted. oh well. i see what they did, the one piece of fake ivory on the knife is the same size they'd use making up the stiletto variant. they put it on the roma and filled in the rest of the scale with the black piece you see here. i do like the knife. it's a huge honking knife also with some heft to it. this roma is like a broadsword.

it came in a leather snap belt pouch. calling it leather is being nice. probably naugahyde. remember that stuff from the 60's? and it's a very thin piece of naugahyde at that. but that case is a throw away. the knife is a keeper. so the roma is below.

20230809_120524.jpg
 
Not sure if I should thank you or curse you. But I just made my first wish order, different than yours but obviously clones. Very curious how these are going to look when they show up, dang shipping cost almost as much as the items themselves.
 
edin508 said:
Not sure if I should thank you or curse you. But I just made my first wish order, different than yours but obviously clones. Very curious how these are going to look when they show up, dang shipping cost almost as much as the items themselves.
Click to expand...

Goodness I hope you ordered some oil filters for a 12 valve 1989 Cummins Dodge Pickup truck. I just want to see the video of the ATF unscrewing the oil filter off the truck to check it for 'secret nfa silencing stuff'. They're experts you know, in oil changes on old Dodge pickups.
 
MetalliCorey said:
Yall heard of temu? Cheaper than cheap, quality is as expected or better. but if you place an order they never stop sending you emails
Click to expand...
thats why everyone should have an email just to funnel the junk through. never give your primary addys to any vendor!
 
edin508 said:
Not sure if I should thank you or curse you. But I just made my first wish order, different than yours but obviously clones. Very curious how these are going to look when they show up, dang shipping cost almost as much as the items themselves.
Click to expand...
while your waiting, there are a bunch of vids on youtube on various clone knives. benchmade is the big one. but they go over all the differences. pretty interesting.

a guy did one on the knife in my first post above. i dunno, he seems to have everything turned around from my recent experience of my knife ordered from a u.s. shop and the one i just got from china. honestly, if it wasn't for the blade markings, and i put them side by side like i did, i would never be able to tell them apart. i'm not saying the stuff from china is by any means good or bad. i'm happy in my case and it seems all knives came from the same manufacturer..

i have a warning for you, i'll get into that later tonight or tomorrow. just a heads up....
 
VetteGirlMA said:
Goodness I hope you ordered some oil filters for a 12 valve 1989 Cummins Dodge Pickup truck. I just want to see the video of the ATF unscrewing the oil filter off the truck to check it for 'secret nfa silencing stuff'. They're experts you know, in oil changes on old Dodge pickups.
Click to expand...
for the adventurous, u.s. customs did open my things. the knives were sent in 2 different packages. both were opened. they were in customs 5 days. the bastards were probably playing with my stuff.
 
greencobra said:
while your waiting, there are a bunch of vids on youtube on various clone knives. benchmade is the big one. but they go over all the differences. pretty interesting.

a guy did one on the knife in my first post above. i dunno, he seems to have everything turned around from my recent experience of my knife ordered from a u.s. shop and the one i just got from china. honestly, if it wasn't for the blade markings, and i put them side by side like i did, i would never be able to tell them apart. i'm not saying the stuff from china is by any means good or bad. i'm happy in my case and it seems all knives came from the same manufacturer..

i have a warning for you, i'll get into that later tonight or tomorrow. just a heads up....
Click to expand...
I did get a Benchmade and Microtech clone, more out of curiosity to see how they are. I'll need to seek out those vids now.
And no filters or solvent traps were ordere!
 
@edin508, here's that warning...story is gonna be long

if you followed along with my posts, remember i posted they contacted me and said my stuff was lost. not long after, i got a text. this said there was an issue with an incomplete address and a package couldn't be delivered. there was also a link to click on. i'm suspicious as a rule and thought scam so i never opened that link. couple days later, curiosity got me and i clicked. i went to a u.s.p.s. web page. on the opening page, a usps tracking number was right there. up until now i only saw tracking from china post. then i clicked into a help page, got a drop down box to enter my information for delivery. name, addy, etc. the last box was a blurb saying the post office needed to confirm this is me. they wanted my cc/debit number in order to deposit 25 cents into my account and remove it later. just as a confirmation it's me. this is where me being stupid enters. i've encountered that before to confirm proof of existence, i gave them my debit number. they deposited the 25 cents, and removed back out 20 minutes later.

next day i'm not feeling this. i called the main usps number, entered the tracking number, and was told the usps hasn't received the package yet from the original sender. oh oh. with in the hour, my bank started calling. someone was trying to send cash wire transfers with my card number. my bank froze my account until they talked to me to confirm the transactions. then we cancelled the card and i got a replacement.

i'm usually not this stupid nor do i let my guard down that easily. that page i got when i went to that usps page fooled me good. it was very realistic. i spend a lot of time online with usps and it looked authentic. logos, fonts, page lay out, nothing to make me suspicious. but what should have red flagged this, i've never seen the post office do that verification method before.. stupid i was.


meanwhile, i went to china post tracking, they apparently found my packages and were in china customs while i was monkeying with the fake p.o. and the bank. china customs released the stuff and they left the country aug 2nd, arriving in the states the same day. i received no usps tracking number, knew nothing until they showed up at the door aug 7th.

that's my cautionary tale. i have no clue who scammed me. it doesn't look like the knife vendors but it had to be someone who knew my packages were lost for a while. someone in china customs? that info was showing in china tracking. but maybe it was someone who has access to postal and customs information about overseas shipments. maybe the guy who id'd himself to me as china customs and said my shipment was lost wasn't really china customs. the scammers used that ploy to buy time so i wouldn't be suspicious. i dunno. the chinese vendors and customs seem to me to have done a decent job moving things along their postal system. so that's my long tale of almost woe. and, the most scary, i never gave them a phone number, yet they sent a text. did they, the scammers, do that much research to deep dive for my phone number? that guy called to talk about the lost shipment, he id'd himself as china customs. they had the phone number then. yikes.
 
i think too much...customs calls to tell me my stuff is lost? when does customs from anywhere ever call someone to inform them of a lost item? never that i know of. no wonder i fell for this, it's a multi complex scam.
 
when i was cruising the chinese "knockoff" site several weeks ago, i came across a couple of bogus knives that were designed by a friend of mine and a major knife company had made and released a few years back. just for transparency, i have never met my friend in person. we have known each other for years because we have belonged to the same knife sites over the years. kinda like most of us are friends here at nes. we communicate via email...ok, just so that's clear. but we are tight enough that when he had a knife released, he would send me a few copies for my archives. anyway, i'm not gonna name drop, so ask all you want, i'm not tellin'.

i bought the 2 knives, both were under $10, and sent them off to my buddy to autograph the boxes and return them to me. [devil] oh yes, i did! but i wanted to hear from him what he thought. in a nut shell, he was flattered he made it into the clandestine world of chinese copies. i thought they were very good copies. and that was his thought also. besides the use of a cheaper chinese steel for the blade and a few subtle inferior issues, pretty much all he said was he certainly couldn't blame someone if this was they only way they could afford one of these knives when an original was out of reach. of course he doesn't condone chinese fake anything but really, nothing to be done here on this. oh, i was called a bastard for buying them and sending them along...and i won't be seeing the knives again any time soon. [laugh]

i don't advocate the buying of fakes either but sometimes curiosity gets the better of us.
 
i bought several otf knives this year. not from the chinese site, but from american vendors. i think they are microtech clones although not marked microtech or even pretending to be microtech. i paid considerably more for mine than the wish site. no way would i pay $300-400 for an otf knife. i still paid around 60 bucks each for mine. d2 is what the blade steel is while microtech uses some super nice exctic steels in their tof's. if you got to stab someone with the dagger, i don't think anyone is going to stop to debate steel.
 
greencobra said:
i bought several otf knives this year. not from the chinese site, but from american vendors. i think they are microtech clones although not marked microtech or even pretending to be microtech. i paid considerably more for mine than the wish site. no way would i pay $300-400 for an otf knife. i still paid around 60 bucks each for mine. d2 is what the blade steel is while microtech uses some super nice exctic steels in their tof's. if you got to stab someone with the dagger, i don't think anyone is going to stop to debate steel.
Click to expand...
I do have one OTF Microtech that I want to compare these with. But it's so expensive it stays a safe queen, I like cheaper knifes that won't make me cry if I loose them.
 
I want a knockoff MT halo for fun.

All my MT’s are authentic and safe queens. I just want a toy (in addition to a real Halo)
 
The Chinese play a long game. Decades ago China sent a number of craftsmen to Germany to learn how to build musical instruments. These craftsmen spent a decade or more becoming luthiers. And were very good.

They came back to China and opened up a manufacturing operation.

When my son was young we brought him to Boston to get him a 3/4 sized cello. We visited a well known shop and chatted extensively with the owner.

At that time he had started importing Chinese cellos. He said the quality was amazing.

The manufacturer would send him 10 instruments and he would test them and keep the best 2 or 3.

These were not inexpensive, but certainly less expensive that the German counterparts.

Chinese are also getting into the watch building business. And doing a good job.

They use technology to build precision instruments that cost a lot less than the handmade Swiss counterparts. They are creative and producing good quality at a low price.

Here's a guy I follow recommending watches on a budget. A number of them are Chinese and I'm surprised that a watch snob would say nice things about these Chinese pieces. Some of them are really interesting designs.


 
richc said:
The Chinese play a long game. Decades ago China sent a number of craftsmen to Germany to learn how to build musical instruments. These craftsmen spent a decade or more becoming luthiers. And were very good.

They came back to China and opened up a manufacturing operation.

When my son was young we brought him to Boston to get him a 3/4 sized cello. We visited a well known shop and chatted extensively with the owner.

At that time he had started importing Chinese cellos. He said the quality was amazing.

The manufacturer would send him 10 instruments and he would test them and keep the best 2 or 3.

These were not inexpensive, but certainly less expensive that the German counterparts.

Chinese are also getting into the watch building business. And doing a good job.

They use technology to build precision instruments that cost a lot less than the handmade Swiss counterparts. They are creative and producing good quality at a low price.

Here's a guy I follow recommending watches on a budget. A number of them are Chinese and I'm surprised that a watch snob would say nice things about these Chinese pieces. Some of them are really interesting designs.


Click to expand...

i often think if china's politics were different we'd be singing a different tune regarding chinese manufactured goods. they also fill that niche that people, especially americans, want what they can't afford. hence the "knockoff", or i believe the chinese call that fantasy goods.

americans also think of economics differently. they think it's horrible a country, in this case china, pays it's workers the prevailing wage in that country. americans want those workers to be paid a minimum wage, $15/hr., and that would skew their, china's, economy by making instant millionaires of every person on the workforce. the chinese seem happy. americans tell them they are not. this country, the u.s., feels the need to bully other countries to fall in step with it.

but yeah, a lot of chinese goods are top quality. it's just their brand, china, could use some polishing on the world stage.
 

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