Thursday, November 1, 2012

Korean faker goes straight?

The Korean faker now selling on eBay under the username sunpawel has now taken a new tack. He has now listed a Parker Duofold Junior "parts kit" in Mandarin Yellow, the key bits being his newly-made yellow cap and barrel, complete with Parker imprint. The big difference is that this time he is not presenting a completed pen as original, but rather is openly advertising his parts as reproductions. He is also stating that the imprint is not laser-engraved, and instead "Is made to the original process."

While this is an improvement on brazenly selling outright fakes, this is still far from good. The parts are not marked as reproductions, and are still designed to deceive. Unsuspecting collectors are still going to end up paying good money for fake pens -- if not directly to the faker, to those who buy from him.

It is unfortunate that Parker still seems to show no interest in protecting their trademarks, for sunpawel's operation could be shut down in a hurry if only Parker sent its lawyers after him for misappropriation of the "Parker" and the "Duofold" names. Montblanc and Pelikan certainly wouldn't hesitate to act, as we have seen on numerous occasions.

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