As I posted above;
Aoda a Chinese Toy company use to do knock off FHZ and 888s a few years ago with counterfeit Konkave bearings.
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Guilty by precedent. Case closed. It was China.
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A lot of the Fakenirs and other YYR knockoffs came from Taobao, so it does make sense that these are china made, but I agree that we need more information before pointing fingers.
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You really went from one extreme to the other! Not sure if you went from convinced to sarcastic, though? My guess is sarcastic…
The point is, it certainly was’t “baseless” to speculate these were made in China. There is a historical precedent, specifically with yoyos, but also with intellectual property in general.
Sarcasm?
Again, sarcasm?
Of course as yet it can’t be a certainty, but let’s just say that China is the most usual of the usual suspects. No one stated it as certainty anyway…
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Who’d a thunk it. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s economically feasible to take the trouble to design, acquire materials make and fake a $120.00 yoyo in the US and then sell it as used.
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Just because Jensen and Charles retail it at 127 doesn’t mean it costs 127 to make.
Machine shops can probably make a high quality 7068 bimetal for less than 15 dollars. 6061 monometal would be easily under 8 dollars.
Thats a 119 dollar margin if a machine shop did it wholesale. Maybe 100 dollar margin for upcharge/shipping if there was a sleeze bag that actually ordered them
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i would think it wouldn’t be too difficult tracking down the source and creator. it’s not like yyr bootlegs where they were prolific and scattered across a variety of models. this is a fairly niche brand at a lower price point. it seems early enough in the ‘outbreak’ where that info can be identified.
playing devil’s advocate for just a second (and not saying i believe this), but what if this initially wasn’t created as a grail knock-off, just an organic yoyo? there are enough features that are ‘different’ enough. yoyo designs get tweaked and released as new models… and, suppose it just got passed just enough down the line to get passed off as a ‘grail’. just food for thought as this pops up…
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This seems perfectly possible imo. All I want to know is what machine shop made it and who told them to make it. Maybe @SR1 should ask the seller where he got it and try to track it’s history.
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do we even know if this is “early in the outbreak”? they could have been slowly releasing these into BST’s for months or even over a year. Especially since no one knew to check if it was real.
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it would appear that the dome in the cup is smaller but protrudes more noticeably, but there’s a lot distorted at these angles
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That’s what I thought. Hard to tell without a side-by-side comparison. Could you do that @SR1?
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You may be on something here, they are just different enough. There are a hand full of these out there
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You definitely know more about the economics than I do. I guess for a sleaze bag it would be worth the effort. Since I’m unfamiliar with sleazebagery, sure seems like a lot of trouble. And how big is the yoyo market?
while the benefit may not be realized as much for a manufacturer - it makes no sense to bootleg niche throws, risk tarnishing their rep, and have to find some way to market and sell
those for profit.
however, if you have someone that knows the pieces and community well enough, knows where they can take advantage - and can put up a few grand - it’s easy to sit on a stack of 50 - 100 throws, send out a couple here and there at $100 profit to the unwitting…
gotta look out for each other
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I see what you’re saying. A person would have to know the community. I always see wants for Grails on the BST.
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It is possible that they were originally made to be “Grail-like” in order to meet less discerning demand for a Grail-like yoyo, but then somewhere along the second-hand purchase chain, “Grail-like” just became “Grail” and its original purpose was forgotten/lost and is now a sinister case of forgery.
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These obviously look similar but don’t look like the same yo-yo to me.
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