The State Of Counterfeiting Of Chinese Brands

[arcadeflow]

Fellow pen lovers,

 

I would like to ask those of you that are buying Chinese pens recently if you have been noticing any problem with fake Chinese brands on the wild. It is common knowledge to us that Hero fakes are pretty common. There are some factories doing terrible copies of the most popular models. Some people don't believe it and claim that the same factory has different plants manufacturing the worse and the better versions. What we know is that some models like the Hero 616 were documented and there are different builds of the pen out there.

 

Are there any other models I should be aware of fakes out there? Right now I am enjoying hunting pens around the $1 range (especially because the exchange rate is not very good for international business in my country, currently) but since Chinese pens are usually a hit or miss, I don't want to waste time on obvious garbage copies of a cheap pen. I am looking into Hero 200 and 300 series mostly, have you guys spotted any fakes of these?

 

Thanks

[deepak23]

Only Hero 616 fakes found so far. Some Hero 332 of poor quality seen but not sure it's a fake or not.

[dcwaites]

All one can suggest is to stick with well known, reliable suppliers and pay that little bit more. If you are looking at $1 pens you will almost certainly be disappointed.

 

Far better to buy one $5 pen than 5 $1 pens.

[inkstainedruth]

Someone in my local pen club bought one of those ten packs of "Hero 616" pens awhile back and gave them away to people at a meeting. I used mine on occasions (it did okay with iron gall ink in it) but the nib is very scratchy. I have some cheap Chinese pens (some Guanlemings, and a Wing Sung 237) that are pretty decent for the $5 US they're worth. But the "Hero" feels and writes like a $2 pen.

There was some discussion at the time about whether or not they were fakes, which led to the question "Why bother faking a cheap pen?" (for which nobody had an answer...).

Fakes are different from knock-offs -- I have a metal bodied Jinhao 599 (the Lamy Safari knockoff) and it clearly says "Jinhao" on it. It's also not a bad pen for the price (which is I think $5-6 US -- someone gave me the pen) and made me think that if I could get used to the triangular grip on it, it might be worth buying a real Safari. Although every time I look at the pink ones they look kinda cheesy, so if I do end up going that route I may spend the extra bucks and get an Al-Star instead. Or, I might just go "Naaah" and get myself another Pilot Metropolitan....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[rwilsonedn]

I don't know if it was ever established for sure whether the differences in pens labeled as Hero 616 were because of counterfeiting, because Hero uses different suppliers at different times, or because Hero just doesn't bother with quality control on low-end pens. Certainly there are documented variations, but there could be many explanations. The bottom line seems to be that you get what you get with a 616. How it got that way we may never know.

ron

[dcwaites]

Someone in my local pen club bought one of those ten packs of "Hero 616" pens awhile back and gave them away to people at a meeting. I used mine on occasions (it did okay with iron gall ink in it) but the nib is very scratchy. I have some cheap Chinese pens (some Guanlemings, and a Wing Sung 237) that are pretty decent for the $5 US they're worth. But the "Hero" feels and writes like a $2 pen.

There was some discussion at the time about whether or not they were fakes, which led to the question "Why bother faking a cheap pen?" (for which nobody had an answer...).

Fakes are different from knock-offs -- I have a metal bodied Jinhao 599 (the Lamy Safari knockoff) and it clearly says "Jinhao" on it. It's also not a bad pen for the price (which is I think $5-6 US -- someone gave me the pen) and made me think that if I could get used to the triangular grip on it, it might be worth buying a real Safari. Although every time I look at the pink ones they look kinda cheesy, so if I do end up going that route I may spend the extra bucks and get an Al-Star instead. Or, I might just go "Naaah" and get myself another Pilot Metropolitan....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I bought a number of $1.50 Jinhao 599s, but not to use. I wanted the nibs so I could have some #5 Jinhao nibs (I already have a number of #6s) that I could carve down and smooth to XF for other pens, like my Jinhao Century Mk II. This pen now has an absolutely grouse XF nib in it.

 

As for the Al-Stars, I wasn't really interested until I say my son's girlfriends deep red Al-Star. It has a bit more heft than the plastic Safaris, which makes it quite comfortable, and the colour is unique. It's not just an anodised red. It has a depth to the colour that you really have to see in the hand to understand. I assume the other colours would be just as impressive.

[goatgolfer]

dcwaites wrote: "This pen now has an absolutely grouse XF nib in it."

 

Goat writes: I can't find "grouse" in Richard Binder's glossary. Is it a good thing or edible?

[dcwaites]

dcwaites wrote: "This pen now has an absolutely grouse XF nib in it."

 

Goat writes: I can't find "grouse" in Richard Binder's glossary. Is it a good thing or edible?

 

Both.

 

Grouse - Stryne for "Absobl**dylutely fanbl**dy tastic". See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grouse

As in "The grouse in wine was absolutely grouse." Is that clear now?

 

 

** replace the ** with oo

Edited October 10, 2015 by dcwaites

[goatgolfer]

The puzzle key **oo** needed to be the second sentence.

 

Now, it's as clear as Noodler's Heart of Darkness, said "Charlie". He's a tuna ya' know.

[arcadeflow]

Someone in my local pen club bought one of those ten packs of "Hero 616" pens awhile back and gave them away to people at a meeting. I used mine on occasions (it did okay with iron gall ink in it) but the nib is very scratchy. I have some cheap Chinese pens (some Guanlemings, and a Wing Sung 237) that are pretty decent for the $5 US they're worth. But the "Hero" feels and writes like a $2 pen.

There was some discussion at the time about whether or not they were fakes, which led to the question "Why bother faking a cheap pen?" (for which nobody had an answer...).

Fakes are different from knock-offs -- I have a metal bodied Jinhao 599 (the Lamy Safari knockoff) and it clearly says "Jinhao" on it. It's also not a bad pen for the price (which is I think $5-6 US -- someone gave me the pen) and made me think that if I could get used to the triangular grip on it, it might be worth buying a real Safari. Although every time I look at the pink ones they look kinda cheesy, so if I do end up going that route I may spend the extra bucks and get an Al-Star instead. Or, I might just go "Naaah" and get myself another Pilot Metropolitan....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I see, but I was really talking about the counterfeiting of the Hero pens, not fakes from Western pens, homages or knock-offs. The best info I found about the fake 616 claimed that these pens are pretty popular in China, and selling a $5 pen for $1 there is a huge difference considering how much food you can buy with $4 in China. So, there might be people interested in faking them. Some Asian countries like India import a lot of Hero pens and that's another market that would work the same way, a lot of food can be bought with the amount of money that buys a cheap burger in the USA.

 

But I also don't doubt that Hero might be counterfeiting themselves. The people that buy the 616 from the retailers that garantee they have the real deal usually have a lower amount of duds, while the known fake 10-packs might have up to 80% of unusable pens. But maybe the fakes are not that easy to spot on eBay nowadays, so I was wondering if people were having any luck with the cheapos. Since it is so little money for me, I'll take the risk. I had bad luck with a $7 Kaigelu before, so I would like to try the cheapos now, maybe they will surprise me.

[Parker51]

I would stick to older Wing Sung models as they are actually decent pens and unlikely to have been badly copied by counterfiters as they were made at a time when new, that industry in China was state run and did not have the incentives currently in play which reward counterfiters today, and since they are not new, or contemporary in design or popular, cheap copies are unlikely to be currently made. Today's low quality pens from China seem to follow the themes and styles of their current production more expensive cousins, not pens of the past that are no longer in production.

[richardandtracy]

Just like to point out that Jinhao make a metal bodied J599 Think it may be occasionally called a 699. These are not necessarily fakes.

 

Regards

 

Richard

[mcgeechan]

I ran into a few possible fake Jinhao X450's a while back they were selling around the $1 mark - were only available in black - and the ink just poured out of them - either they were poorly made fakes or poorly made Jinhao's. Either way i just complained and got a refund - yes I complain on a $1 pen.

 

 

I have never had a problem with a X750 or an X450 in any colour other than shiny black.

[arcadeflow]

I ran into a few possible fake Jinhao X450's a while back they were selling around the $1 mark - were only available in black - and the ink just poured out of them - either they were poorly made fakes or poorly made Jinhao's. Either way i just complained and got a refund - yes I complain on a $1 pen.

 

 

I have never had a problem with a X750 or an X450 in any colour other than shiny black.

 

There are still plenty of those black X450. Did you find any anomaly in them besides what you mentioned?

[ximhot]

Virtually anything can be counterfeited in China, and sometimes the fake cheap pens have "better" quality than the real ones. What a joke. It is espeeically true for some Hero pens.

 

Except for gold nibs. There is never real gold fake nibs. If it claims to be gold nib, the only way you can tell is to scratch a little and see if it is plated (not even gold plated).

 

Telling genuine product from fake is everyday life in China.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

All one can suggest is to stick with well known, reliable suppliers and pay that little bit more. If you are looking at $1 pens you will almost certainly be disappointed.

 

Far better to buy one $5 pen than 5 $1 pens.

 

I once bought three Hero 616 fountain pens from a U.S. vendor for $5 each. If they weren't counterfeits, which I think they were, then they were really awfully made by Hero!

 

All of them leaked and they even fell apart . One had the feed and the tube attached to it come sliding out of the section as I looked at the pen and turned it over. Gravity was enough to pull that feed and tube out of it. Now that's falling apart!

 

I almost simultaneously bought a 10 pack from some guy in China for the same $15 I'd spent with the American vendor. Seven of those 10 pens were all right, and none fell apart.

 

So paying more and getting the pens from a U.S. vendor is no guarantee that you'll get a real, or workable, Hero 616.

[magnus919]

I ran into a few possible fake Jinhao X450's a while back they were selling around the $1 mark - were only available in black - and the ink just poured out of them - either they were poorly made fakes or poorly made Jinhao's. Either way i just complained and got a refund - yes I complain on a $1 pen.

 

I'll consider myself warned, but I'm probably going to get one anyway. If nothing else, I'm curious about them. I have a number of the X450's, all $2.50 to $5 in price. The $1 black shiny ones are on my radar for sure.

[k3eax]

Magnus, mcgeehan seems to be the only one dissatisfied with the purchase of the $.99 X450. I've purchase several and they were all perfect. I suggest that you read the postings under the sub-topic X450@$.99.

[Chrissy]

 

I see, but I was really talking about the counterfeiting of the Hero pens, not fakes from Western pens, homages or knock-offs. The best info I found about the fake 616 claimed that these pens are pretty popular in China, and selling a $5 pen for $1 there is a huge difference considering how much food you can buy with $4 in China. So, there might be people interested in faking them. Some Asian countries like India import a lot of Hero pens and that's another market that would work the same way, a lot of food can be bought with the amount of money that buys a cheap burger in the USA.

 

But I also don't doubt that Hero might be counterfeiting themselves. The people that buy the 616 from the retailers that garantee they have the real deal usually have a lower amount of duds, while the known fake 10-packs might have up to 80% of unusable pens. But maybe the fakes are not that easy to spot on eBay nowadays, so I was wondering if people were having any luck with the cheapos. Since it is so little money for me, I'll take the risk. I had bad luck with a $7 Kaigelu before, so I would like to try the cheapos now, maybe they will surprise me.

 

Actually, that isn't what the title of your post suggests. It suggests you are talking about the counterfeiting of Chinese brands, which is different. Jinhao is also a Chinese brand and I must admit I wasn't aware that they were faked.

 

I was aware that Hero pens are faked. However, I agree with 'dcwaites', that it's far better to buy one $5 pen than 5 $1 pens.

[k3eax]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Students-Collectable-Vintage-Fountain-Pen-Medium-Nib-Black-Gold-Stainless-/351462897432?hash=item51d4d23718:g:voAAAOSwDNdVsaCI

 

Here we are now, this is for those who missed the opportunity to purchase a X450@$.99. It is certainly not a fake and there have been few complaints -- possibly only one.

Edited December 20, 2015 by k3eax