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Review Of Fake Hero 616


celesul

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I have taken your advice and have decided to release the pens into the wild through the Pay It Forward thread elsewhere in the forum.

Great idea! Thanks.

Edited by EenyBear
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How weird this all is. The Hero 616 looks to untrained eye a fake itself, a generic sort of a Parker. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, other than a lack of imagination. And it is such a cheap pen, a couple of bucks, if I'm right. Why would anyone fake a fake, especially such a low-cost one? The profit margin must be measured in pennies. I can see ripping off a MB or a DuPont, but a Hero 616? Don't get it.

 

My Kaweco Classic Sport is, I know, a replica of a pen that the old Kaweco company produced before it went out of business. But this isn't a fake; it's a careful replica, and I bet it writes as well or better than the original.

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How weird this all is. The Hero 616 looks to untrained eye a fake itself, a generic sort of a Parker. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, other than a lack of imagination. And it is such a cheap pen, a couple of bucks, if I'm right. Why would anyone fake a fake, especially such a low-cost one? The profit margin must be measured in pennies. I can see ripping off a MB or a DuPont, but a Hero 616? Don't get it.

 

My Kaweco Classic Sport is, I know, a replica of a pen that the old Kaweco company produced before it went out of business. But this isn't a fake; it's a careful replica, and I bet it writes as well or better than the original.

This discussion has been held several times. In terms of US values and US sales, it doesn't make much sense at all. However, I expect that the main market of the Hero 616 is in China, where it undoubtedly sells for even less. But I also imagine that it sells in vast quantities, especially if fountain pens are still used in schools. If some of those vast quantities can be siphoned off by counterfeits, then perhaps it does make sense that the counterfeits are made.

 

One added point - the Hero, although to the untrained eye being easy to confuse at first, is not a counterfeit or fake, it is a look-alike that clearly states it is a Hero. A counterfeit (like the counterfeit Parker Sonnets out of China) would not only look like but also be be labelled as a Parker with copies of all the Parker markings, including markings on the filler mechanism, nib etc.

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Thank you for the explanation, Osmaroid. I now see the difference between a fake and a replica and a counterfeit and a look-alike. And I know more than I ever wanted to about matters of scale in the Chinese retail world.

 

But it still seems to me sort of silly for us in the West to buy something at a rock-bottom price like a Hero pen and then to treat it as anything other than a curiosity. Unless it happens to be such a fabulous pen that we should toss aside our more expensive pens and just use Hero. Unlikely.

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Couldn't agree more. The Hero 616 is definitely not a fabulous pen, not even the genuine article, but it is a competently made pen that does not perform badly, especially for the price (again, this applies to the genuine article only - the counterfeits are pretty awful by and large) I would say the Hero 616 is a great pen to give to children to start them on the way to using fountain pens, for example.

 

Before we kill off Hero as a serious player, the Hero 100 is in my experience a great pen in the Parker 51 mold. It does not pretend to even look close to a 51 - no arrow clip, for example - but is much better made than the 616 and has a nice and smooth 14 kt nib.(again, in my experience). It currently sells for $40 or so on up. I suppose we should not be surprised to find at least one high quality hooded-nib Hero, as I have heard that that the firm Hero either grew out of the Parker factories in China that were nationalized at the time of the revolution or alternatively took over the Parker factories at that time.!

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  • 2 weeks later...

China.... Faking the fakes.

http://i.imgur.com/xQaDQjc.png


I am now replacing every word with "Iroshizuku". You're looking very Iroshizuku today! Iroshizuku to you too!

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The Hero 616 is not a fake anything. It's a homage. Fakes fly under the label of whatever they are faking, like a MB or Rolex,

My latest ebook.   And not just for Halloween!
 

My other pen is a Montblanc.

 

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  • 4 months later...

It is just amazing that people go through the trouble of faking a pen that is essentially a fake to begin with...That said, both of my 616s perform flawlessly and I did buy them from the seller mentioned above.

In some countries, Hero pen has a good reputation. When the labour and material costs in those countries are as cheap (as China), they save importation cost. Hence, there is a benefit of making a counterfeit.

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The Hero 616s are not counterfeits.

Here I am talking about "hero 616" counterfeit, not the genuine hero.

 

Hero 616 cannot be said counterfeit of parker 51 as it is never been marketed as such. However, "hero 616 copies" are marketed as hero 616, hence counterfeit.

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Sorry...thanks for clearing that up.

 

Is there any sure-fire way to tell whether you are buying a real 616 or a counterfeit?

My latest ebook.   And not just for Halloween!
 

My other pen is a Montblanc.

 

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If you look at the original post on the first page, there is a Yespen ebay guide. Apparently, OP also has both. May be read the first post and compare with what we have?

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Wow a rip off of a rip off. The hero 616 is under ten bucks too!

"Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe."

 

Surah Qalam (The Pen).

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Some time ago i decided to get a Hero 616. My pen budget is currently a bit exhausted so i thought i'll get something cheap to serve my addiction and gain some time.

 

I searched around eBay and ordered a 616 from China (Hong Kong actually if i remember right). Cost was about 7 € including shipping. Few days later i noticed those 10 packs of 616s on eBay and was able to get one for like 6 € including shipping from Germany. The 10-pack arrived within a few days and i tried the pens. In short: I got hat i paid for.

 

Then i found this thread and it turned out that i got a 10-pack of what here is called a "fake". Two days ago the one from China arrived. As i hoped, according to the characteristics and pictures on this thread, it was the real thing. So i was eager to try it out and to compare to my "fake" 10-pack.

 

Here's my observation:

  • As shown in the pictures, the dimensions are different. The "real" one is a bit thicker and the section is shorter. The sac is much larger.
  • I can not confirm that the plastic body is of any different quality. I am pretty sure that the material is exactly the same. The feel is exactly the same. The finish is exactly the same (including the little hole at the bottom).
  • The cap dimensions are a bit different but the perceived quality is exactly identical. There is no difference to it.
  • Maybe the filling mechanism of the real one works a bit better. Probably because of its size. But on the other hand both work much better if you remove the aluminium tube. Then they are indistinguishable regarding function, just a different size.
  • The nib performance is very very similar. Bot were a bit scratchy out of the box. A quick ride on the micro mesh fixed it for both. Both are relatively wet and like a nail (as expected). The "fake" nibs seem to write a touch broader than the real one. With the higher lubrication they feel also a little bit smoother.
  • Both have the problem that if you shake the pen ink drops come out of the nib/feed. This already happens with very small force. If you remove the clip-on cap without special care there is a great chance that you get ink drops on your paper / desk / shirt. That actually annoys me quite a bit.

So to sum it up: In my view the "fake" and the real Hero 616 are very, very similar in almost all areas. There is no difference in perceived quality to me. So in the end there is no justification to pay for one real 616 what you pay for 10 "fake" ones. Maybe if ink capacity is extremely important for you.

 

In general it is quite a nice pen for the cost but because of the ink spilling when shaked not suitable for regular use to me. Ill probably keep a few of my 11 616s for experiments or for BSB etc and give the others away.

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  • 1 month later...

Can someone check if this is a real 616 or fake?

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Lot-3-Hero-616-Jumbo-Size-Fountain-Pens-F-Nib-Single-Package/402988_641443654.html

 

I'm looking for a real 616 Jumbo (Doctor) at AliExpress (it's a bit difficult to buy from eBay in Brazil), but it's hard (for me) to say when it's real 616 or fake...

 

Thanks in advance.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry that this might come too late, but the Aliexpress pens are the fakes documented earlier in this thread. I just bought a couple for laughs, and they're both quite decent, comparable to my real 616s, but they are definitely fakes. I'm sure QA is very poor for these pens and that I got lucky.

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To follow up, I find myself generally in agreement with load81's assessment. The fakes are a little wetter, a little smoother than the real ones but don't hold as much ink. I have found ink spatter on uncapping to be a non-issue if I use the one-handed technique recommended elsewhere on these pages. Really, if you want a dirt-cheap usable pen then the knockoffs aren't bad at all.

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"Really, if you want a dirt-cheap usable pen then the knockoffs aren't bad at all."

 

It is hard for me to to picture this need. Can you give me a situation so I have a better understanding of the motivation to have a usable pen at a dirt cheap price? I do not include the home markets of China, India, or Pakistan.

 

Dick

Edited by Dickkooty2
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