Maria Castillo Indeed :D

Which retailer?

The nib should have the "LAMY" brand logo as well as the nib size imprinted on it.

@@GoldspotPens thanks. That's what I thought as well.

It happened to my vibrant pink pen, which I've just received as a gift. I swapped the pink pen's grip with an authentic Lamy al-star black body and they aligned perfectly (with the black body also fit perfectly on the pink's grip). Not sure whether I can assume what I received was a knock-off, as the pen was bought from Amazon Germany.

i bought mine (grey) from an authorized dealer and it's misaligned too

Here is the link: www.lamy.com/content/find_a_retailer/index_eng.html I believe it is the same one you are mentioning. Type in the name of the retailer doing business and you will be able to find them if they are on the map.

I would look at all the details of the pen and compare them with the video that we have on How to Spot a Counterfeit Lamy Safari. Use multiple points of criteria to judge if it is the genuine article.

@@GoldspotPens Thank you for replying me Sir, the other criterias are just great including the blue ink in the cartridge is awesome as it doesn't even bleed or ghosting my moleskine paper. And there was residue of blue (i think it was blue) ink on the inside part of the nib as when i put it in the water the residue came out from the nib. Only that it doesn't have the warranty card and the cardboard ring is plain on the inside part which made me confuse. But the cardboard ring is certainly good quality and well made one. As it is my first Lamy, so i just got to know there is the fake one after i bought mine. One of your advice is actually hard to be done, to report the seller, as so many people love to buy fake china products. That's how fake production in china always on top. If you come to Guangzhou you will amazed on how elite those fake manufactures are.

The boxes can vary actually

I can assure you, the breather hole thing people are talking about here, is nothing but BS. Please read my long post on top, all the real fake differences are listed with details.

I would say the rate of evaporation is roughly the same. You will probably have more time between refills if using the converter.

ok, thank you, I wasn't expecting an answer from you, thank you, and keep these videos coming, I like the way you do them, you give enough info about the subject, not too much but not too little

Not true. I have several real ones directly bought from Germany by my good friend, they VARIES.

hm mine posts smoothly but the breather hole is not centred.. Could be fake? Having some issues with writing too

@@madmarty2892 The real Lamy Al Star actually is quite scratchy for my writing taste, the latest batch of Chinese copies writes better. So it really depends on your writing style, and your nib may need time to break in.

@@madmarty2892 Please read my latest long post on top. It will help you greatly.

Plus Lamy patent's for the safari isn't valid any-more. So they can sell any rip-off they want.

i don't buy lamy anymore, i prefer Jinhao.

No, they won’t. They ALWAYS get basic shit totally wrong.

@@johnd9357 you are wrong, they fixed all of them with the latest versions, also imho knock-offs now days write better than the genuine ones as the nibs are smoother. i have both the real Lamy, the early gen knock-off, the 2nd gen knock-off, and the latest gen knock-off. Why i have so many? Well, at first i wanna order a few from one of the trusted dealer but they didn't carry all the colors i needed, so i ordered 4 from 3 shops, ended up 2 reals from the legit shop, 1 fake from each of the 2 other shops. the 2 fake ones happened to be gen 1 and 2 fake, gen 1 is easy to spot as it had kinda scratchy logo like described in this video, gen 2 is nearly identical to the real one except a few minor details nobody noticed (i believe they did it on purpose for sellers not to mix up with the real ones. and imho, they could really make an 100% copy with ease, China is very advance in manufacturing tech now days). as i noticed the 2nd gen knock-offs have good price and reasonable quality, recently i ordered another 3 from the same shop and found them to be the latest iteration of copies, this time they write smoother than the real ones, and the barrel, the threads. the converter wing all line up perfectly, but still, they INTENTIONALLY made a few minor details different than the real one. so are the knoff-offs same as the real ones? not really, because they still take shortcuts on QC, each of the latest version i have still varies. :)

Hey Neil, have you created something that took you months of hard work and investment, only to have someone else copy your final product, make a small change, then sell it as their own creation?

@@GoldspotPens Lamy don't create fountain pen, just adapted it.

that's because china has cheap labour. @Mr Info. Lamy created the design. Wing sung copied the design. There's no homage, it's blanted theft of intelectual property.

German engineering.

I agree on many points, but limited edition is not sold any-more after a year or so. Sometimes this is the only way to have the colour you want, you can swap the body of the pen this way (e.a. Fake Al-Star Orange with genuine replacement head with nib). Sometime Lamy products have abusive prices too, like the Studio platinum (sad thing, you cannot get it without the gold nib), all Lamy studio are the same, the price is artificial here. The main problem is that some people buy them on eBay at a regular price from EU sellers while thinking that they are buying a genuine product. This is the real deal because you think you have a genuine pen, but it does not work as it is supposed to, and you think that Lamy makes poor quality pens. This is like for watches, if you buy a £30 Rolex, you get what you pay for. That kind of customers will never go for a real Rolex, because of the price that is too high for them. Most FP enthusiast will stay away from fake Lamy. Counterfeit products find customers because of the same reason you can sell a high-quality product. People want one, some can afford it, others cannot. Buying counterfeit products is a solution for the this second category.

You can read my long post on the top. It will certainly help.

But if it is completely inferior then what's the point, If you want a cheap pen get a jinhao x750, shark or a pilot metropolitan

@@diecirl6637 pilot mr more expensive than safari though

The newest batch (2020) of knock-offs gives me a very mix feeling, most of them actually writes smoother than the real deal (due to thicker and rounder nib, just a tiny bit), but since the fakers also cut corners on quality check to reduce cost, it's kind of like a gamble with 80% winning odds. The crap one I got (yup, among the 20% bad crops), I had to hand tweak the tines and did a shit load of polishing. In addition, the knock-off nibs tend to use cheaper grade of stainless steel, so it's a bit behind in flexibility compare to the genuine article. However, unless you are an advance user, you can't tell the difference.