I work for Spyderco. Yes, this is a fake copy but to correct you, we do print the sticker information on many of our boxes. We have several companies that make our boxes for us and there are often small differences. Do not judge a knife by its box.

The spider logo on the outside of the box of the counterfeit is missing the nose cutout, it is all gold unlike the real one has a little chevron cutout on the nose.

I just bought a dragonfly 2 off Amazon. Your comments gave me a lot more confidence that it was real. Good job!

"Thanx Much" at the end of that letter. lol

Well said. Excellent vid. As a life long customer of spyderco, I've learned to identify the fakes from the authentic. This is a great vid for new spyderco customers.

Hey Jeff, you should film one of your h1steel tests on that counterfeit.

To those saying Spyderco has no right to charge what they do for knives, please find out how much they have to pay to keep their building lit, pay the taxes, compensate their workers, update their software, ect. Remember, material cost is most often the least expensive part of production. If you've ever built a business, especially in the U.S., you'd understand. If you bought a $10 piece of O-1 tool steel, $20 handle scales, and $5 pins, put it all together and sold it for $37, would you be happy? Would there be food on the table that night? My point is, don't think of it as buying plastic and metal. Think of buying hard-working peoples' blood, sweat, and tears. Now is it overpriced?

I checked Ebay and found a whole bunch of counterfeits. Great advice, thanks!

Thorough vid, brother. Good stuff. Unfortunately, the eye can't typically detect junk steel, so as the details get better, the only difference starts to be things we can't measure until we start using and sharpening them. :(

Great job. This is one of the best counterfeit knife videos I have seen. I recently picked up a counterfeit Rat 2 which was an obvious Chinese knockoff. I was however very confused as to why they would make a knock off of a very inexpensive knife. They offered me a refund when I gave them a negative review but I told him to keep the money I'd rather tell people the truth. Keep up the good work!

dude... thanks to this video, you just saved me at least $30. i was about to grossly overpay for this fake dragonfly on ebay. i didnt catch any of the stuff you pointed out initially. i can see on the education sheet, that its cut off at the bottom as well. and the hardware on the knife doesnt match up either... Jeff. thanks bro. good looking out!!!!!

I LOL-ed at the "Three Dollars and 85 cents"

Great Vid man and thanks for the heads up. Valuable info.

*Thanks for the great info Jeff!*

There's even a Bad copy of the Spyderco Manix now being sold. They call it the manix 3. The ball bearing lock looks nothing like the real one and the fake has a torx screw right under the lanyard hole. Im still trying to find out if my delica is real or not. The SEKI-CITY logo has a blocky capital E and all the delicas I seen have a rounded capital E.?

Very informative and interesting video! Good stuff!

I bought this same knife about a year ago and every point you mentioned is on the mark. I had the same issues with mine. Although the knife was very cheap and made me comfortable with the design and instead of buying a $50 knife that I may not like I bought a $8 knife and love the feel and design of the dragonfly. Now thanks to the counterfeit I can 100% justify purchasing a legit Spyderco. That is just my honest opinion of fake knives being that I own a lot of them.

I bought a counterfeit XM-18 because of a Nutnfancy video that he later pulled off of his channel (likely because it was not appreciated by knife makers/sellers) but of course it was reproduced on another channel. While it wasn't a perfect knife I did like it carried it for a while. If you truly want a XM-18 style knife for little money I would recommend the Coast FX350, It's close to the style but it certainly lacks certain features, Very sharp though.

Great video! The first sign noticed of the fake was on the box- note how far away the R for the registered trademark symbol is from the 'Spyder Bug'

It sucks a lot of good knifes companys out there have to deal with COUNTERFEIT including Esee Dpx hest just to name a few. Good post J!

Great info Jeff thank for the video

The upside down v on the spider is not on the left so the right so the real one

Hey Jeff Awesome Video. Great for the New Knife owners who don't know how Amazing Spyderco is and how Sal & Eric have made such Great Knifes. It Sucks how these people want to Fake good honest people is hard work such a shame. I hope they get court by the counterfeit authorities. Keep up the great work Jeff. N.

A member on Blade Forums just started a thread that he received a counterfeit H1 Dragonfly from Amazon. It was actually sold and shipped by Amazon, not another company. If you look at the most recent reviews, they are all saying that they received counterfeits.

Great info. Appreciate the vid

Good stuff mate.

The best way to tell is the price.... it’s that simple...... if a deal is TOO good to be true.... than it really is too good to be true.... or just buy from a reliable source that you have heard off before.... or buy from a actual store in person

That yellow seem a bit off also. I got a Dragonfly H-1 and it should be more bright yellow. Maybe its the camera or youtube.

Another thing to look for is that on my genuine Dragonfly the engraving for the steel and Seki City are very close to perfectly centered, the one pictured is way off.

Isn't the hardware supposed to be pinned on all salt models? Especially the smaller spyderco's? I may be wrong but that's what I have noticed.

Good vid but you forgot one detail on the box. Te logo on the box of the fake dragonfly is missing the small triangel at the head of the spider. Thanks for the rest of the information and thanks for the time to share the rest of your information with us. Keep up the good work! Nendv

Also on the box if you notice the spiders nose if you will on the fake is a solid point the REAL one has a V cut-out in its nose....

Jeff, there's a thread on Bladeforums and Spyderco forum right now regarding Amazon supposedly shipping out counterfeit DFly's, the very same you have here, a poster received and it was "shipped and sold by Amazon LLC". It's on the first page of both forums. You might want to take down your Amazon links on the description for now.... Take care.

The few times I have received counterfeits shopping online, typically eBay, there was no way to tell before receiving. They use factory pictures and prices were really close. So most of the time it's impossible to tell before you get it in your hand, and your right they make some pretty damn close fakes. It's discouraging when you do get one. Esp when your really excited to get it.

Funny I saw a post on the blade forum about this.

Lol anyone else whip out their Spyderco Dragonfly's as they were watching this video?

will i get counterfeits on amazon?

Now all counterfeiters will watch this and change there hardware

Would you believe they're actually using real stickers now and also I ordered a zdp-189 dragonfly 2 but get the edge u cation printout for a ti military lmao

Where can I get the counterfeit?

thank you sooo much.

Tremendous video, 3 dollars 85 lol. My next knife is actually going to be a Spyderco Dragonfly Foliage Green, I personally don't really like the look of Spyderco knives.. but that onnnnne model out of all of them I have seen is just so pretty, it's perfect in every dimention and shape lol, it just hits the spot, the rest either have the plasticy looking handles or the circle cut out is like an odd shape and bulging out the top.. a lot of them look like 2 seperate distinct parts, the handle and the blade.. but the Dragonfly I mentioned looks like one smooth fitting piece.. this is obviously subjective. I'm glad I found a Spyderco I really like. So yea this video is helpful lol even though i'm getting it from a trusted big knife manufacturer.

I noticed the markings on the blade are in the wrong spots too. On the fake they're too close to the cutting edge vs the real ones being centered on the ricasso

I knew which one was fake from the start. OG Spyderco fan xD

Another one is the yellow FRN. It should be brighter, not a dull yellow like this.

Jeff, i think their was a spelling mistake on the counterfeit paperwork, it looked like it said Thanx much instead of Thanks much.

I bought a Dragonfly 2 Salt and it came with black screws and black lockback. Should I be worried? Everything else seems legit.

I can distinguish a counterfeit Spyderco vs a real one by SMELL. Thanks for your additional information and for sharing it with more "normal" humans. (yep, I'm a bit of a Spyderco connoisseur....shhhh, I'm afraid my new Benchmade 940 will hear me) ~take care as always, buddy!

This is very hard to see. But it you look at the logo on the front on the box. The real one had a small hole in the spider while the counterfeit one doesn't.

So what about the ones sold at Wal-Mart

I found online Paramilitary 2 for 40$, and it looks legit. Seller told me, that they are made in same factory as original Spyderco models, but they are made from cheaper 440C steel and not from SV30. Any chance that this is true?

the blade markings isnt the same as the real ones. on the back where it says SEKI-CITY JAPAN, the real ones are supose to have the round shape E. the fake doesnt have that round shape

I could tell the one on the left was fake from the trademark symbol under the golden spider on the cover of the box. Look how far away it is from the leg of the spider compared to the real deal box.

The counter fit one said "Thanx" instead of Thanks, and why would they have a letter in that form?

The one on the right also has an arrow at the top of the spider

The spider on the box has a little triangle on the nose. The fake does not. I've heard this is true for other counterfeits. I guess the seller can always post pictures of the real box and ship you a fake.

Hey thanks for the vid! Very educational indeed. I bought a dragonfly from the link you attracted with video. I believe it is real when in hand. However I'm having a real tiny bit of knife play when I wiggle blade vertically. Same thing is happening on my manbug. Do you know if this is normal. It really doesn't make the blade less functional. How ever it bothers me especially it's made by spyderco. Please advise.

Long term durability aside, do you think the wood/fruit/meat/whoever you cut will really care about your knives pedigree?

Great vid, would like to see more of these. Also idk if it was the lighting but the yellow looks a lot duller than the actual salt color.

There's another side to that whole thing. First, Spyderco has this cheaper brand called Byrd. These are made in China, but are designed and marketed by Spyderco. I recently bought a Meadowlark Light 2 from a reputable dealer, and it's 100% legit. The grind quality is sub-standard, a bit like on the fake paramilitary that cutlerylover was sent by a viewer a while back and was shown as a sign of being fake. Well, this one's real. Also the jimping is shallow and non-uniform. Some of the fakes I own have better jimping, not to mention the original Spydercos. So, this Byrd brand in essence looks like poor excuse for a Spyderco, and still costs a substantial amount of money. And thus we come to... Second - Prices. The knives are outrageously expensive. Even in the US. And I live in Europe, which means, that I have to pay shipping and customs duty on top of that still. I understand all the advancements in steels, the CPM steels, this or that... But HOW F...ING EXPENSIVE CAN A COUPLE OF OUNCES OF STEEL BE, for goodness sake?! There are items produced from high-quality steel which are big and bulky and cost normal money. A knife has a little bit of steel, and costs like it was made of gold! Knife manufacturers are ripping people off big time. If you can buy a decent gun (in the US...) for a price of 2-3 average knives - something's wrong. A gun uses quality materials, and is infinitely more complicated than a pocket knife... Now there are custom knives, hand made, hand ground, hand finished etc. This is manual, artist's work. And made in limited quantities, luxury items. OK, that costs money. But industrially made knives, in huge quantities, even from superb quality materials should NOT cost as much as they do. Period. There are manufacturers that give better value for money (like SOG), and there are very expensive ones (like Spyderco or Cold Steel). And there will be a market for fakes. I must confess that I'm quite happy with one or two fakes I own. They are quality made, the steel is decent - although it's not CPM S30V as advertised, it's still pretty durable, holds an edge well and doesn't rust on me. They give me all I want from a knife apart from the intangible cool factor of owning an original. It's sad, but true. Whenever there's a ripoff, sooner or later there will be someone offering (almost) the same for less. It's a shame that they are counterfeiting something directly, instead of offering a similar product of their own - but that's a direct result of the originals being a huge ripoff. It's the same mechanism as with designer clothes and accessories...

I happen to have a couple of counterfeit Spyderco knives. I bought one because I was fooled, and then bought a couple more out of curiosity. The first one was so obvious that it's really shame on me. It was supposed to be a Paramilitary, but it had no jimping at all, it had a linerlock, and the screws were all wrong. And on the box the spider was not even hotstamped in gold foil, it was printed in gold ink... I laughed at myself for being so naive. But I was now aware that there are counterfeits on the market. I deliberately bought a couple more on chinese sites, and I can tell you one thing: there is no way of creating a manual on what to look for that would be universally valid. Like cutlerylover says, you need to make a direct comparison with the original of the exactly same type to spot the differences. And some of them are shockingly close to the originals... None of my fakes came in a box with a pseudo-sticker like the one shown; all of them have proper stickers on them. None of the knives have any lock play like this one. All of them were sharp, and one (the closest visually to the original) was razor sharp, like an original

So should i order from BladeHQ or Amazon?

The spyder doesn't has a mouth on the fake box, and the foam is like see thru on fakes and the foam is sturdy and not transparent

You also missed that on the right the spider has a little triangle and the left doesn't

The copyright marking on the fake box is also farther from the logo

"Thanx much" lol

It's funny how the counterfeit one has the ® logo in the wrong spot... on something they're stealing a company logo in order to counterfeit a product.

Spyder's mouth is an arrow on the real box . Sure it has been said 20 times already.

Watch Nupetuneknifes video on how to spot a fake para military2. He is a knife maker. and points out more flaws with everything. He said the steel looks like pot mental. Which would break very easy. Good video Jeff . I didn't know they were faking all of there line.

Pretty soon the only difference will be the steel. Hard to tell that until you actually use and sharpen the thing. Terrible...

Also the "R" sing is positioned differently

I just got a Spyderco Tenacious the other day and it came in a clamshell package, should I be concerned?

Thanx much *seems legit*

Why would you not show a side by side with the real one?

also the gold spider has a black spot on the tip

They spider on the real also has a mouth of sorts

The lockbar notch is totally offcenter also spyderco would never have an uneven notch like thay

is the fake at least cheap?

price is not always a indicator what if a seller is selling the knife for the same price as an original

Just so people know I did buy a Spyderco Pingo and it did not come as sharp as other Spydercos. I don't know if it was just a fluke or if the factory in italy isn't making them as sharp as Japan or USA made Spydercos. It wasn't bad but I did have to strop it a bit to make it acceptable.

Is it a good 4 dollar knife though?

just checked. My dragonfly salt is in fact real. cool beans.

Your point about a genuine Spyderco knife not selling for $4 is valid - but what happens when someone charges the REAL price of a genuine Spyderco knife for a convincing counterfeit?

Could I have this ??????

the R next to the logo is up on the logo on the real box and the fake is far off

Where the trademark is

And what about the obvious arrow on the real gold spyderco

well the Chinese just watched your video and are going to fix all the flaws you just pointed out,could that be why they're getting better at fakes?

If the triangle looks strange, the lines are not defined -> fake. In this case there's not even a triangle: D

I found a fake kershaw leek for $5 and it was basically the same quality

The spider to me was the dead give away.

If you need a video tutorial to spot a fake, then the fake is good enough for you.

4:53 if you read the bottom it says thanx instead of thanks lol

4.51 "thanx much"

The counterfeiters disliked

Pffft wish I watched this first. Just been done on WISH. Oh well I guess it'll live in the toolbox for ever.

Cheeseburgerspecials channel reminds me of yours

The little r in the circle was way off on the fake

I brought a fake spyderco des horn from Amazon it was fake. because the blade was thin because I order one from blade hq and it was a difference.

Is selling these against the law?