Fake Yojimbo 2 ? Pics attached, please weigh in !

[KingWhoDat]

I received a Yojimbo 2 as a gift today. Been lusting after this one for a long while. Being a gift I've no real way of finding out where it came from or what it cost. This person isn't the biggest spender in the world so a counterfeit was a thought I had immediately. The box looks legit, the knife looks great. Feels well made and is spyderco out of the box sharp. I thought I'd bring it to the experts. Are there any dead giveaways for these knives or other clones ? I'll be bummed out but I'd rather know for sure. Attached are plenty of up close pictures. Thanks for your help !

https://imgur.com/a/q2qGq

[farnorthdan]

Not 100% positive but it looks legit to me, I'm sure there are some fakes out there but the Yo2 doesn't seem to come up often, at least as much as the PM2 and others.

Also welcome to the forum.

[KingWhoDat]

Not 100% positive but it looks legit to me, I'm sure there are some fakes out there but the Yo2 doesn't seem to come up often, at least as much as the PM2 and others.

Also welcome to the forum.

Thanks pal. Not sure why it took me so long to get around to registering. I've got a serious jones for Spyderco (as I'm sure most of you do) and I'm a total forum nerd. Wouldn't happen to be a marketplace here would there ?

[farnorthdan]

Sorry, no B/S/T here, there is an exchange over at bladeforums where lots of spydies change hands. Sounds like you been spyder bitten :D like the rest of us, hold onto your wallet.

[KingWhoDat]

Yeah for about 6 months or so. So far I've had 2 cara cara rescues, 2 tenacious, a rescue 93mm, a camo pm2 and this Yojimbo follow me home. I gave one cara cara away to a close friend using a gas station crap knife and bought my pop a centofante III for his birthday. I am most definitely spyder bitten.

[KingWhoDat]

Anyone else ? Looks real ? Any slam dunk way to tell ?

[Evil D]

The only part that looks odd to me is the Spyderco font on the presentation side. The lettering is fatter than what's on any of the 4 that I own, and one of them is from the first batch that were released so I have a pretty good range of dates to compare to. The G10 just looks worn so that isn't necessarily a give away, but the font looks funny to me...specifically the "Spyderco" part...the rest looks pretty normal. Probably the only way to know for sure is to send it to Golden and have them check it out.

EDIT:

Now that I look again, the pic looking down on the lock/pivot looks fake as a 3 dollar bill. There's WAY too much gap between the blade and liners. On any of mine you can shine a light down onto the pivot like that and the gaps are so thin (because the washers are so thin) that you can't clearly see the washers like that.

Also the bottom tang area behind the edge looks odd to me, none of mine are cut that way. Here's a pic for comparison...kinda hard to explain but yours is too "straight" going from the heel of the edge to the back of the tang. All of mine have a weird kind of curve to them like this:



Not only that but it looks like you can see where the tang cuts inward on yours, which you can't see on mine. Also overall it looks to me like the blade is too narrow from spine to edge, and the plunge line looks wrong too.

Also either the thumb hole is the wrong size, in the wrong place, or the grind/plunge line are way too far back, all of mine are ground exactly at the back edge of the thumb hole, but the plunge line on yours is further back from the edge of the hole.


I'm calling fake.

[Evil D]

Ok one more, and this one seals the deal for me. It's fake for sure. Look at how they compare when closed...note the area at the bottom of the handle/front slope of the blade, how much blade sticks out from the handle on yours vs. Spyderco's website pic:




Also unless you've sanded down the points on the handle, they're way too rounded off and I don't think 6 months of carrying would wear G10 down that much.

[KingWhoDat]

Not surprised. Oh well, at least I'm not out any money. I can't support buying or using knockoffs so I guess I'll just toss it. ****. I've really been wanting one of these too. Thanks for your help guys.

[Evil D]

Not surprised. Oh well, at least I'm not out any money. I can't support buying or using knockoffs so I guess I'll just toss it. ****. I've really been wanting one of these too. Thanks for your help guys.

By all means man don't take my opinion for it, send it to Golden to be sure. It'll only cost you a few bucks in shipping.

[remnar]

I'm with Evil D on this one. The knife looks off: Corners and edges on both the scales and blade look worn or rounded where they shouldn't be, unless the knife was modded, and the way the blade fits into the scales when folded doesn't match the authentic Yo2. I'm not an expert either so I suggest following David's advice to send it to Spyderco for evaluation.

[Michael Janich]

What also looks way off to me is the thickness and visibility of the pivot washers in comparison to the blade. They are clearly visible, while on a real Yo 2 they aren't.

Stay safe,

Mike

[Cogito]

Not surprised. Oh well, at least I'm not out any money. I can't support buying or using knockoffs so I guess I'll just toss it. ****. I've really been wanting one of these too. Thanks for your help guys.

By all means man don't take my opinion for it, send it to Golden to be sure. It'll only cost you a few bucks in shipping.

Your analysis was very helpful for me today. Thank you.

[funghiman]

Actually earlier I did see some fake Yojimbo 2s starting to wander around at the bay, so FYI it IS a thing now.
By the way nice demonstration Evil, very convincing.

[funghiman]

Ok one more, and this one seals the deal for me. It's fake for sure. Look at how they compare when closed...note the area at the bottom of the handle/front slope of the blade, how much blade sticks out from the handle on yours vs. Spyderco's website pic:




Also unless you've sanded down the points on the handle, they're way too rounded off and I don't think 6 months of carrying would wear G10 down that much.

Here's a picture from the listing I saw earlier. An exact match for our friend's case at this point.

And it is clear that they tried to erase the Spyderco logo on that picture (essentially most their pictures) using some processing software, luckily this one was not done thoroughly so part of the brand name still partly shows.

[Evil D]

Not surprised. Oh well, at least I'm not out any money. I can't support buying or using knockoffs so I guess I'll just toss it. ****. I've really been wanting one of these too. Thanks for your help guys.

By all means man don't take my opinion for it, send it to Golden to be sure. It'll only cost you a few bucks in shipping.

Your analysis was very helpful for me today. Thank you.

You're quite welcome :)

[MarkinMD]

It's a fake, I just received one today, ebay (cindy3673) On your blade and mine,after Golden there should be a comma (,)not a period (.)many other issues.