Fake or for real?

[Billy Bob Bass]

You might not get an instrument at all...

Or a scale model.

 

[shnapper]

I say go for it….

It’s a $100 you’ll simply donate to the communist party and we’ll all appreciate your sacrifice for future reference

 

[Gilmourisgod]

It's an interesting progression, I think people forget just how shady Aliexpress was when it first started up, now its more or less marginally trusted if you dont mind waiting a couple months for second rate products. I imagine Harbor Freight started out that way too. Its also true that the same Chinese factories produce identical products at widely varying price points just by re-badging them. I just had the experience of buying a circuit tester at a local hardware store for $15 and then seeing an IDENTICAL one (except for brand name) at HF for $4.99! Was I mortified! Which makes me think that price has almost nothing to do with relative value when it comes to Chinese imports. There are factories that make the same FSO's for companies lie Glarry and a legion of anonymous middle men on Aliexpress, getting whatever they can for a particular bass, and they come and go like smoke. The guy from "Daves Guitars" who pulled a bait and switch on you yesterday will be "Jimmy's Guitar Emporium" tomorrow, and the Chinese state not only doesnt care, it actually encourages this kind of unregulated gonzo capitalism. Mao must be rolling over in his grave. Buyer Bef###### ware indeed.

 

[nickbor34]

The Chinese factories are very straightforward. Buy some modest quantity, somewhere around 10 units, and they'll put any markings on there you want, for free. And if those markings just happen to belong to somebody else, well, that's on the buyer who specified them, not on the manufacturer (or at least, that's how they figure it in the mysterious Orient). I first noticed this with Yanagisawa saxophones for $279 - on Amazon. Real Yanagisawas are $8000+ horns. The "Yanagisawa" markings were very slightly blurred in the photos, as if that somehow made it less of a legal liability. I later saw some high-end Yamahas and Selmers at similar prices but with the markings not blurred at all. Sometimes they'll use photos of the real thing - apparently in China that counts as "close enough". Once I did not have enough money and I took the risk of buying a similar guitar, having stumbled upon a similar offer. As a result, I could not use it in a worthy way, so I decided that I would save up for a quality real instrument. Then I turned to fitmymoney.com to find out how to borrow money from Cash app. It helped me get an original Yamaha and vowed never to buy a cheap fake again.

In any case, fake fake fake.

The honest Chinese instruments are usually copies of established models, either fairly faithful copies or, well, not so faithful. But the won't have somebody else's name on them. But the comedy never stops, as they'll almost invariably say "handmade" and "professional" in the ad copy, which is, of course, a bit of a stretch.

I had experience playing a Chinese instrument. I will not say that it was perfect, nor for a small amount is very good, if you do not care so much about sound quality.