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Fake 6x24 binoculars (1 Viewer)

Binastro

Well-known member
Yesterday I saw two 6x24 interesting Porroprism binoculars for sale, and after having detailed discussions with a reputable dealer I bought them.
Supposedly in very fine condition.

The 6x24 Russian was very interesting although I have one.
And the German one was most interesting. A Mauser, although it didn't come with any ammunition. It seems that Mauser closed in the 1990s?, but maybe somebody bought the name.

It seems that these two binoculars are Chinese, and although I would be interested in testing them as they may have good coatings I paid too much.

I just rang the dealer and they had not left the shop.
The salesman was not a binocular salesman and had no idea they were probably fakes.
He agreed to refund my money.
Luckily I photographed the screen photos so was able to confirm my suspicions. Once the photos are taken down it may be hard to prove what was advertised, so photographing the sale photos is a good idea.

The 'Russian' 6x24 is dated 1976 from the serial number, but the binocular is almost certainly fake.

The Mauser 6x24 clearly says Germany. I doubt that even the axle end cap, which says Germany, is made in Germany.

Apparently discussions indicate that even Baigish binoculars may be made in China also.

The Chinese have really become a major source of unethical behaviour.

Yet the Skywatcher and other telescopes are usually of excellent quality and very low priced really.

So I write this as a warning.

If you can inspect a fake and it is a good useful binocular one might buy it at a reasonable price.
But don't pay high prices for bad fakes.
 
Glad you didn't end up out of pocket, Binastro. I wouldn't want to write off an entire country as engaging in fraudulent behaviour, but undoubtedly a good number of fake products come from China. Often, fake stuff is sold through Amazon.

Years ago, as a backup, I bought a supposedly genuine manufacturer's battery for an early Fuji digital compact camera through Amazon. It was barely possible to get it in the camera, and very difficult ito extract it. The lettering on the battery was indistinct and didn't match that the genuine one which came with the camera. While unable to prove it, I suspect it emanated from China, and warned people not to buy it. I much prefer to use a well-established UK photographic supplier for that kind of thing (Clifton are pretty good. Got a very nice Leica 8x2 monocular from them recently).

But then again, I ordered my Swaro 10x42 EL SVs via Amazon - they arrived in good time and were most certainly genuine.
 
Hi John,
All this adventure cost me was phone calls.
And what I got was increased knowledge.

The dealer is long established but the salesman told me he actually tested various things and knew very little about binoculars.
Even a more knowledgeable staff member called in to confirm the coatings probably was not aware the binoculars were fake.
The 'Russian' one was not even a replica, just a scam.

I mean there are replica cars that people accept, but the fakes of everything, often made in China, is now an epidemic.

As I said Skywatcher telescopes are often brilliant and at low prices, so not everything Chinese is suspect.
 
Hi,

I didn't find anything about Mauser binoculars on the web besides chinese fakes. Mauser built and still builds firearms of different sizes.

Joachim
 
Thanks for that.

If the binoculars had been cheap enough I would have kept them, but reports of their internal quality are that they are very poor, although with good coatings.
Also build quality and collimation issues.

But it is useful to know.
 
Binastro

Here are some of your Chinese 6x24 porros. They are branded 'Comet':

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&SearchText=comet+6x24+binoculars

As to Comet, a year or two ago two sellers offered Comet AX11 7x30 porros for £13 (plus as I recall a reasonable sum for p&p) on Ebay. Ben and I bought. I liked mine at the price, and bought two more to give away to young relations. One of the two came with a lens detached and floating loose inside the barrel. I asked for a replacement, and the seller said to keep the faulty one. I then offered the faulty one to Ben in case he would like to essay a repair.

Ben can speak expertly as to Comet quality and performance. I was impressed for an ultra-cheap binocular. The fault with my bad Comet was to outward appearances not a manufacturing fault, but an assembly fault. Optically the performance of the Comet was indeed inferior to my Celestron Nature 8x30 Porro (the binocular that was measured by Henry Link as actually a 6.8x27). But the Celestron does set a high baseline.

Stephen

I have recently (25th October) seen the same Comet AX11 7x30 porro offered for sale on Ebay from China for $61 under the following enticing descriptions by sellers:
'New 7x30 HD BAK4 Prism Porro Binocular Fully Multi-coated Lens Travel Telescopes'
'COMET 7x30mm FMC Binoculars HD BAK4 Prism Porro Telescope for Travel&Sport'
'New COMET 7x30 FMC HD BAK4 Prism Porro Binoculars Fully Multi-coated 7.8Degrees'
 
Thanks Stephen.

But at £99 secondhand described and advertised for sale as Russian, and I think marked USSR, and sold to me as the original I suppose, but by a non binocular staff member. I don't think so.
The photos were not clear enough for me to easily spot the fakery, so I relied on the salesman.

Had it been genuine and made in 1976 and in the condition described the price was good.

Comet are describing selling Baigish, capacity 5,000 per month, but where is the honesty in marking binoculars USSR when they are fake.

I really don't know how to reply to this type of selling.

For £20, yes I'd keep it and even the Mauser.
If they were any good even £30.

In my opinion there is probably fraud going on here, but I don't have enough legal knowledge to know.
Maybe in international law there may be no hope of stopping these practices.
 
If there was a legal judgement that these binoculars are fake, then by accepting them at £20 I would be putting myself in a difficult position.
Then does the judgement, if there was one, apply to the U.K. or other countries or world wide.

I don't know if any judgements re. such selling have been made.

The problem is that there are so many fakes worldwide that we may have bought some of them either knowingly or unknown to us.

With things like pharmaceuticals these fakes can be really dangerous.
 
Binastro

Some Ebay sellers notoriously advertise Chinese 'Russian', or 'Baigish' labelled binoculars or monoculars as 'Russian'. Like 'Zeiss Jenoptem 8x30s' with six figure serial numbers, they are a fact of life.

Further like Joachim I have seen 'Mausers' offered for sale on AliExpress, beside an uncountable number of 'Bushnells', etc etc. Some may well make it also onto Ebay

Yet a Chinese 12x45 KomZ lookalike monocular that I bought on AliExpress was excellent. There would have been no need of fakery to sell it at the same price, or perhaps more, as a new Chinese-made monocular 'Try before you buy' in the UK.

Maybe one day, driven by commercial considerations, rather than legal pressure, the Chinese manufacturers will enter the low-price market, under a state-initiated 'quality assurance' scheme, under their own name.

Comet already sell Russian-pattern 6x24 porros, without quality assurance, under their own name, to retailers. Retailers often continue to sell them in turn, as 'Comet' binoculars, at £50-60:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/?_nkw=comet 6x24&clk_rvr_id=1122407134043

That's a good start. Although I am not in the market for a 6x24 porro, I would like some day to read an expert's test of them.

Stephen
 
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Hi Binastro,

The one marked mauser is almost certainly the same binocular as the Comet that Stephen linked to above, likely made at kunming and branded differently. The "Russian" fake is more interesting, as you know the 6x24 KOMZ are pretty well made, of all metal, and distinctive coatings and I would think the difference in build quality in a chinese made one would be apparent straight off ? . Did it have the KOMZ logo faked as well? The Comet binoculars I have seen are cheaply priced, moderate optically but not at all bad for the money, I have looked through worse, however, like many low priced Chinese offerings, it is virtually all plastic including the lens retainer rings, is the 6x24 the same ?
 
Hi Ben,
After I bought the two binoculars thinking they were genuine from the salesman's answers to my questions, I looked further.
The sales photos were too poor to show much, but better photos showed fake KOMZ? logo and USSR stamped, plus a fictitious serial number starting 76. all on the left rear plate and 6x24 on the right rear plate.

Reviews say that the coatings are good, maybe single coated prisms, multicoated elsewhere, but the objective could probably be pushed straight into the tube.

I suspect that the fake field is less than the 12 degrees of the real thing, but because of the high price I cancelled the order, so have not seen it.
Had the price been reasonable I probably would have kept it, but the binocular man was not in so I could not negotiate a fair price.

When I found that the Russian advertised one was fake and that Mauser may never? have made binoculars I rang the next morning. They had not been despatched and the salesman said he knew little about binoculars and the staff member who did was not in that day.
He agreed to refund my money, but I said send the small Yukon folded optics spotter anyway. This arrived the next day via Royal Mail. I haven't opened the parcel yet.

Apparently in France and Italy it is an offence to buy as well as sell counterfeit goods, but elsewhere it is the sellers who are breaking the law. But I suppose China has no such law? They seem to be lawless when it comes to these matters.

I have just done a quick review of the Skywatcher 90T spotting scope on the Spotting scope section in poor rainy weather.
I think optically it will live up to the high standards others have found. But maybe not a birdwatchers scope.
 
Hi Binastro,

Thanks for that, I have been looking at those chinese 6x24s on and off, but although the photo makes them look much like the old Komz 6x24, I think will leave alone, I strongly suspect there will be more plastic than metal about them. I have been thinking of getting a couple of chinese made skywatcher 15mm eye pieces for my 1.25" 70mm APO binocular, they seem reasonably priced around £30 in the UK, do you think they are decent quality? I noticed that if you buy them from china they are cheaper still.
 
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Hi Ben,
The Skywatcher eyepieces range from poor with poor coatings to excellent.
Which ones are you looking at?

There are some eyepieces that go with their Helios? large binoculars also.
It may be that these are a better match.

There are good eyepieces from Baader and others.

What about the ones designed for the 70mm?

The objectives are probably fast, so good eyepieces are needed especially if wide field.
 
My binocular is a TS optics 70mm, and TS do sell EPs, the 18x ones I have are good. They are more expensive than the skywatcher though, and still made in china ,thats the only reason I was looking at them. This is the EP.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Skywatche...330569?hash=item1c66e46d89:g:ltoAAOSwubRXNayY

Actually, I have just found a TS optics 15mm plossl for £29, might be better. Probably still made in the same place though.
 
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Hi Ben,

I have an older Skywatcher ultrawide maybe short focal length.
Not very good, but fairly wide field. There are much better eyepieces but more costly.

With an APO instrument the eyepieces should be at least as good as the objectives.

A TS Plossl likely to be narrower field than the ultrawide above, unless a super Plossl.
I don't know if this TS 15mm is a good match for a fine binocular.

I suppose the 70mm is about f/5 to f/5.5, say 370mm fl, so 15mm about 25x.

What are the recommended 25x eyepieces for the 70mm binocular?
 
Hi Ben,
I looked up the TS 70mm semi Apo binos. 400mm f.l.
They recommend their WA Erfles 17mm, 12mm, but short eye relief I think. Not suitable if you wear glasses.

Because the objectives are triplet and f/5.7 relatively simple eyepieces can be used.

The main point is if you wear glasses or not.
If you do you need long eye relief eyepieces.
 
The 15mm Ultrawide eyepiece eye relief is quoted as 13mm. Is this enough for you?
The design seems to have changed somewhat from my Ultrawide eyepiece, so the present eyepiece may be good.

I don't know if FMC or not.

The eyepieces must be narrow enough so that two can be used, so maybe UWA eyepieces won't work.

I don't know if the prisms can take UWA eyepieces.
 
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Hi Binastro,

Thank you for looking up the TS semi APO info, much appreciated, short eye relief is not a big problem, I usually use my binocular without my glasses on, so the 15mm ultra wide would be ok in that respect, I think it cant exceed 70 degree, TS do a 100 degree angle wide field EP and I was told that my binocular could not take that, 70 is max., the TS is a super plossl, but maybe not good for a binocular, although slim enough to use two, I found the Baader Morpheus is a great EP but it is too bulky to use in 2 of them my binocular. I will have a look at the 17mm WA erfle you mention.
Thanks.
 
Hi Ben,
Be careful with the Ultrawides, as there may be two or more versions? So if you buy from China, what are you getting?
Many eyepieces now are fully multicoated, some even waterproof. There is a very large selection.

I received the full refund for the fake Russian 6x24, and also the 'Mauser'.

Just summarised the Skywatcher 90T observations in the Spotting scope section.

A crow at 190x, seemingly up close, in bright sunshine is one scary looking bird.
 
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