Found myself a poorly made UKPK clone on eBay, lucky me!

[RadioactiveSpyder]

I’m a huge fan of Calypsos, Calys, UKPKs and their smaller derivatives like the Urban and Spy-DK, and I’ve been patiently trying to acquire all the variants of these families. I especially love the Micarta Calypsos and Caly Jr.’s, and wish Spyderco would revisit using this material again someday.

Until recently, there were only two UKPKs remained for me to acquire: the black G10 and CF versions (and I just missed a CF one on the BF exchange recently, dang!). Last March, I pounced on a what I thought was a legit black G10 UKPK on eBay, paying $90 for it from a buyer in Europe. Immediately after receiving it, I noticed it was not legit, but being busy and distracted with other Spydies, I put it away in my closet.

I didn’t think about it much more until recently when an email conversation Liquid Cobra and I have been having about his 2 black G10 UKPKs, one of which has a collectors’ club number so we know that one is truly legitimate, clinched my suspicions that the one I had was bogus. I’ve taken some pics to show you the differences between 3 legitimate UKPKs (foliage green, orange, and another black one I managed to find) and the bad clone. The pics that LC sent me of his look identical to the top three UKPKs in my pics.

Here are some things I noticed, some more glaring than others. I'm sure even closer inspection would reveal some more differences...

1. The knife is overall slightly different in shape, being overall a bit longer than the Spyderco ones.
2. The G10 of the clone is a different, more slippery texture and just feels cheaper. In the last shot, you can see that the thickness of the G10 scales and the amount that’s chamfered are different on the clone.
3. The Torx body and pivot screws are a different size (T8 not T6).
4. The clip: where do I begin with that clip? How about it’s awful, wide, already tarnished, and is secured (off-center) with that garish huge screw. The G10 scales on the clone also do not have slots milled out for the wire clip on both sides.
5. The notch in the blade that engages the spring lockbar (seen in the last shot) is a wider, deeper channel on the clone versus the Spyderco ones. Action isn’t actually that bad, inferior to the originals for sure, but it is a mostly functional knife.
6. The blade has a slightly different shape than the Spyderco UKPKs, the font and the Spyder logos are a bit different, and they didn’t even bother to try to match the “Golden, Colorado, USA, Earth” on the reverse side. This leads me to believe either people from this country or individuals possibly not even from this planet were or still are counterfeiting these. Of course, whether the steel is really S30V is purely conjecture...
7. The back end of the lockbar ends higher up (closer to the blade) on the clone, and is a bit differently shaped than the Spyderco lockbar. Sorry, I forgot to grab a pic of this.










It’s definitely lame that I’m out some decent change for this piece of junk. I’m sure all the eBay haters will say they told me so, but for buying the large amount of Spydies I have from reliable sellers on eBay, getting one lemon in 3 years is a level of risk I can deal with just fine. Many sellers have been top notch and very pleasant to deal with.

To Sal and company, I am more than happy to send this into Spyderco so they can have a look at it, and then hopefully destroy it! Cheers, Radioactive :)

[Archimedes]

That sucks. I have bought hundreds of knives on EBay with only one fake. It happens. The guy was some messed up Meth head and became threatening outside of Ebay. It was a nightmare. LOL. Anyway I kept the knife as a reminder to be very careful. I have since lost the knife, I use it in the garden...but hope to find it. It was a fake TAD Strider DUK.

[remnar]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune Radioctive.

One thing that I noticed was that Sal's designer's mark is not correct and is located in a slightly different position. This is something that I've seen on other fakes as well.

[Surfingringo]

Why does that orange one have so many differences from the others? No makers mark, different jimping, etc.

[Anubisman]

Pm me Radioactive. Maybe I can ease your pain.

Anubisman.

[RadioactiveSpyder]

Why does that orange one have so many differences from the others? No makers mark, different jimping, etc.

Hi Lance, I also noticed the different jimping on the orange one. The Spyderco logo and Sal's mark are there, they're just really light because it's a used knife and the blade has been buffed back to shiny (taking those things down a few notches in visibility).

Can anyone else with an orange and some other UKPK variant compare their jimping styles for my now manic kernel of doubt that maybe the orange one is a dud? Every other detail matches the other UKPKs I have. Cheers all, Radioactive :)

[RadioactiveSpyder]

Pm me Radioactive. Maybe I can ease your pain.

Anubisman.

Thank you sir, I did just that. :)

[Liquid Cobra]

Well hey, at least one of them is real :)
I can take some pics of my orange one tomorrow after work.

[MarcusH]

Can anyone else with an orange and some other UKPK variant compare their jimping styles for my now manic kernel of doubt that maybe the orange one is a dud? Every other detail matches the other UKPKs I have. Cheers all, Radioactive :)

The jimping style of the UKPKs was changed during the production phase of the G-10 variants, the newer jimping is finer and an additional jimping was added to the choil; this was done sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.
AFAIR all UKPKs with black G-10 came with the older jimping, the orange G-10 and the foliage-green G-10 in Leafshape were produced with both jimping variants; the foliage-green G-10 in Droppoint and the Carbonfiber and Titanium variants were only available with the newer jimping.

Comparison pic of a 2007 Leafshape and a 2009 Droppoint UKPK, they are both genuine:

[aesmith]

What's your local Ebay policy on fakes? UK policy suggests that they agree to a refund if the item's sent to Spyderco rather than destroyed or sent back to the seller.

If a buyer suspects that an item is counterfeit and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, the buyer isn’t required to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure the proper disposal of the item. In such cases, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original postage, and the seller reimburses us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.

[longlaster]

Why does that orange one have so many differences from the others? No makers mark, different jimping, etc.

Yeah I was wondering that too. But isnt that due to the change of model and year they changed the jimping?


EDIT: Saw the post with the pics - Kinda answers the question.^^

[RadioactiveSpyder]

Thank you Marcus for the verification. I checked my other UKPKs and they either have one or the other style of jimping. Interestingly, when I checked the Spydiewiki's pics of the orange UKPK (Deacon's UKPK?), it is different from mine and is the version with the fewer number of teeth. Interesting! :) Best, Radioactive :)

[RadioactiveSpyder]

Yeah I was wondering that too. But isnt that due to the change of model and year they changed the jimping?


EDIT: Saw the post with the pics - Kinda answers the question.^^

Welcome to the forum! Enjoy your stay! I'm honored your first post was in one of my threads Cheers, Radioactive :)

[Donut]

There is a chance that the maker mark is just washed out by the lighting. It appears that a reflection of the light happens to be on the Orange UKPK in every picture.

I'll have to look to see if I picked up a spare CF one.