The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

[Mincer]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Companies will always play catch-up. I believe individuals who pay that little for a set probably have a pretty good idea that what they are buying is dubious, if it ever actually shows up to their door. The harder thing to police is the 'retailers' who sell on Ebay or Reverb. They generally pop up again under another name.

 

[Hath74]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

I’m slightly confused. What has been said here is that rounded mounting tabs = fake. It seems to me that all of the mounting tabs are rounded? Is it that the fakes are more rounded?


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[nexion218]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

If you look at a lot of the counterfeit products all of these security measures are counterfeited along with the product. You can purchase the holograms as easily as you can buy the products.

I am well aware that what you said is true. However, if that argument was a good enough reason not to try and protect your buyers and company, then even the police could hang up their donuts and call it a day (not something I would mind... When it comes to the po-po, I'm with the N.W.A. guys... ). The outlaws/criminals will always try to circumvent the actual regulations and law enforcing measures so there's really no point trying to stop them, is there? One could combine a given set of authentication measures, not just use one. I believe that there is a point where it just becomes too much hassle to try and copy everything and from there on the investment you've made to find the right comination of protective measures starts to pay for itself. Getting bad reviews and having users saying bad things about your products comes with trading, ranging from erroneous reviews based on counterfeits to simply being dragged in the mud by the fans of other companies or even paid PR stunts from the competitors. Make the best products you can and try and control the aspects of the trade that depends on you. Make it not worth to do a knock off of your product: use protective measures like I mentioned before that it just becomes unreasonable to mimic or just lower the price gap to the point where only complete idiots will buy from unauthorized sellers. For example if I want a guitar that is 1200 USD new from the authorized dealer, there is no way on earth I'm buying that same guitar for 1000 USD from Ling Ling on ebay. Not even if its authentic.

 

[GrilledChickenSalad]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

...DiMarzio..., but their frontline staff are clueless.

Truth

 

[mojosman]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

It never dawned on me that the pickup market is large enough to draw the interest of these thieving counterfitters, but obviously they are putting considerable effort into making believable fakes.

Has any board member actually heard what these things sound like installed? Obviously, just making them is wrong, and selling them is theft from Duncan, but if they sound like crap too they are also damaging the company name to add insult to injury. I can't imagine they bother to put the effort in to make say a Pearly Gates actually sound like an actual SD one sounds like. They are probably only copies in a appearance sense, tone is probably not a huge part of the equation. As a consumer I wouldn't want to support this type of activity, even inadvertently. Caveat Emptor is key when buying most anything on the used market.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

You'll probably find that the parts aren't fake at all. A lot of dead or dying guitars and pickups find their way out there so, after easy research, you'll probably find that the Seymour Duncan parts are genuine but, they've been rewound with standard stuff that would pass to anyone who has never bought an SD before.

Most of the reason I go through the Custom Shop. You can't fake what I want from them.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Companies will always play catch-up. I believe individuals who pay that little for a set probably have a pretty good idea that what they are buying is dubious, if it ever actually shows up to their door. The harder thing to police is the 'retailers' who sell on Ebay or Reverb. They generally pop up again under another name.

Very true. My pickups are kosher, just so everybody knows.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Wouldn't just stamping them with a unique ID number and then letting users search the number online be a pretty good deterrent? Even if the guys making knock offs grab one of the numbers and stick it on their pickups, it would be pretty easy to google and find another knock off pickup with the same number proving that it's a fake.

 

[Mincer]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Wouldn't just stamping them with a unique ID number and then letting users search the number online be a pretty good deterrent? Even if the guys making knock offs grab one of the numbers and stick it on their pickups, it would be pretty easy to google and find another knock off pickup with the same number proving that it's a fake.

I don't know if people do that kind of work to get a guitar pickup. You could also just check a list of authorized dealers and just buy from them. This is done before the sale, not after, like checking an ID number.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

It never dawned on me that the pickup market is large enough to draw the interest of these thieving counterfitters, but obviously they are putting considerable effort into making believable fakes.

In this case it's quality of fraud over quantity; pickups retailing for 4000% above what they can cost per unit in China.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

...you'll probably find that the Seymour Duncan parts are genuine but, they've been rewound...

Not true at all. You can clearly see that they are manufacturing their own stamped baseplates, packaging, etc.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

I’m slightly confused. What has been said here is that rounded mounting tabs = fake. It seems to me that all of the mounting tabs are rounded? Is it that the fakes are more rounded?

Only "trembucker" models have rounded mounting tabs from the factory. Your standard-spaced "SH" models have always had square tabs. In some of the examples I posted with "Seymour Duncan" stamped baseplates, you can clearly see they are standard-spaced with rounded tabs, which SD does not produce. There are plenty of other "tells" that let you know those are fake, as well.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

For all the talk of the poor domestic companies, in some cases they bring this upon themselves by having parts produced in China prior to their being assembled in the U.S. Therefor some factory in China is already making these parts, and it's only an unenforceable contract that keeps the Chinese manufacturer from reselling the same parts to anyone else. Meanwhile the domestic company was never forthright about the extent to which their product originates overseas. Part of their motivation for not calling out the counterfeits might owe to fear that raising the issue might expose the degree to which the genuine article isn't as genuine as they'd led customers to think. New laws have been passed requiring that products described as "Made in USA" have a very percentage of their materials sourced from the US, so in some cases their established manufacturing practices of the last two decades might suddenly put them on the wrong side of the law.

I don't know if Seymour Duncan has any parts sourced from overseas, aside from raw materials such as screws and hookup wire, but I find it interesting that the counterfeit pickup is of an JB/'59 combo, pickups which are commonly found in OEM imports. If you're a counterfeiter, you counterfeit the Rolex or the Apple. The Apple / Rolex of Seymour Duncan is the Antiquities, and of the domestic market in general, the boutique builders such as Throbak. Maybe they just had a lot of JB/59 sets to use as a reference point, but acquiring good reference points have never seemed to be a problem for them in the past.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

In this case it's quality of fraud over quantity; pickups retailing for 4000% above what they can cost per unit in China.

It would be. You can buy a pair of humbuckers from China on eBay for £15 ($20) and they'll sound decent to the untutored ear - though, you'll never get two that sound the same and the build quality may well be suspect.

 

[DeathMetalRob]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Not true at all. You can clearly see that they are manufacturing their own stamped baseplates, packaging, etc.

In all honesty, unless I had it in my hand (guitar), I'm not honestly sure I could tell the difference by sight.

I don't tend to buy stock models anyway so.., I'm not into the counterfeiting.

It's this that has allowed China to become the richest country in the world.

It isn't necessarily fair or right but, it is good business.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

It would be. You can buy a pair of humbuckers from China on eBay for £15 ($20) and they'll sound decent to the untutored ear - though, you'll never get two that sound the same and the build quality may well be suspect.

Despite what they look like on the outside, electrically speaking, cheap Chinese pickups are actually pretty consistent, being machine made. Whether they similar to what they're trying to rip off is another matter, but within their own production runs, they're very close to one another.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

The Apple / Rolex of Seymour Duncan is the Antiquities, and of the domestic market in general, the boutique builders such as Throbak. Maybe they just had a lot of JB/59 sets to use as a reference point, but acquiring good reference points have never seemed to be a problem for them in the past.

First off, there are counterfeits of parts and products at all levels. The idea that only premium items get copied is antiquated.

Second, SD has exponentially bigger market share than a company like Throbak and the JB and '59 are the best selling pickups IN THE WORLD. Whether you're trying to move product quickly or ensure your counterfeits don't stick out in a sea of similar products, copying SD is definitely the better choice.

 

[AlexR]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Wouldn't just stamping them with a unique ID number and then letting users search the number online be a pretty good deterrent? Even if the guys making knock offs grab one of the numbers and stick it on their pickups, it would be pretty easy to google and find another knock off pickup with the same number proving that it's a fake.

Gibson do that with their serial numbers, but people buy fakes all the time as the ser# matches the type.
If you are a faker, you do the search and find something that matches say a 59. You can then sell a lot of pickups as 59's with that number as it passes the test. And if you have 2 pickups with the same number, if they look close enough who is to say you can't claim to be selling the original with that number

 

[Masta' C]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

Decals or stamps with serial numbers won't do much.

That said, RFID tags/chips are like $0.10 and going down in price all the time. Another option would be to micro-print the bobbins using lasers. Sounds like it would be complicated and expensive, but it's really not.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: The Counterfeiters are Getting Better!

But what guitar player wants to check an rfid tag to check a pickup
And who wants to buy a device just to check for counterfeiting
Sirius