Update on the fake vintage fountain pens coming out of Korea

By On · 7 Comments · In News

A couple of months back we mentioned David Nishimura’s post about uncovering an ebay seller from Korea who has been reproducing uncommon, high value Parker fountain pens, mostly Mandarin and bandless Duofolds, as well as fake demonstrator 51s, and selling them as the real thing.

In David’s second update he actually gets some hands-on time with some of the fakes and makes some startling discoveries. Some of the resin used by the fraudulent seller is homemade and David was able to spot stress cracks developing in a fairly new pen. David also mentions that of all the fakes produced, the 51′s in rare colors and demonstrators will be the most difficult to spot, especially without being able to compare it to a genuine example.

Most recently, David just noted that the seller has changed his named, again:

Quite a few name changes, and no wonder: rttrfb since September 12; yeujeff from June 9; jeffriad from June 28, 2011; koyo6te from March 27, 2011; yeu2002 from November 25, 2009; sasu159 from June 21, 2009; hasu4321 from October 16, 2008; and hasuk4321 from February 13, 2008.

David has a lot of good information about this topic so please stop by the links provided above for the full details.

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  • Maja

    Many thanks to David Nishimura for the update! It’s too bad this eBay seller couldn’t make legitimate replicas and sell them as such—obviously he has the talent to do so :(

  • Gwynne

    I guess the real way to make sure you haven’t got a fake – only buy from a reputable seller with a LOT of excellent feedback. And if it seems too good to be true – it probably is.

  • David Nishimura

    Credit for keeping an eye on this guy should also go to all the other pen folk who post updates on his doings. The more light we can keep shining on the fraudsters, the fewer victims there will be. As for excellent feedback, unfortunately one can’t rely too much on eBay there. Up until one of the Korean faker’s victims posted a negative and outed him explicitly as a forger, his feedback was 100% positive — and I believe he still has a pristine rating on his other account (sunpawel; formerly used for buying, now for selling since his other account is now compromised). Google is more helpful in assessing sellers, though in many cases a face-to-face conversation is the very best: the pen world is small, so many experienced pen folk won’t post negative stuff publicly and risk giving offense.

  • Vin Pen

    What makes you think its the only eBay account this guy sell from?

    • http://fpgeeks.com/ Dan Smith

      That would probably be a question you should ask David at his blog.

  • Vin Pen

    Thanks for the link. What I did mean was “the only active account”. He can sell using multiple accounts at the same time and if he’s wise enough not to use such strange letter combinations as eBay ID it will get much harder to trace him.