D'Addario Guide To Identifying Counterfeit Strings

[JeffD]

I buy all my strings one and two packs at a time at small inependant music stores. Sure I pay a little more. But it gives me something to buy in the small stores, start a raport with the proprietor, even if I am primarily there to see the mandolins.

[Bernie Daniel]

I buy all my strings one and two packs at a time at small inependant music stores. Sure I pay a little more. But it gives me something to buy in the small stores, start a raport with the proprietor, even if I am primarily there to see the mandolins.

I agree with this philosophy completely -- just don't have a local vendor that stocks what I need. Even the Guitar Center here in Cincinnati (and I think its a pretty decent store too) has only one or two versions of D'Adddario mando strings. You want octave, mandola, or mandocello strings? Never when I have checked there anyway. Usually the rock & roll playing, 16 year old, with the tattoo and lip ring (which is fine with me by the way) behind the counter will say what is a mandocello?

[mmasters]

I think more surprising is according to this article they have been around for the past 10 years.

http://www.newsday.com/chinese-fakes...1.2522112?qr=1

[journeybear]

AAAHHH!!! Make it stop!

"[James D'Addario] said that Chinese authorities fined one factory only $3,500 after discovering 100,000 sets of counterfeit guitar strings there.]

Sheesh! They can write that off as operating costs.

[barney 59]

AAAHHH!!! Make it stop!

"[James D'Addario] said that Chinese authorities fined one factory only $3,500 after discovering 100,000 sets of counterfeit guitar strings there.]

Sheesh! They can write that off as operating costs.

It seems that piracy or unscrupulous manufacturing practices are tolerated in China until they become a matter of national embarrassment. Industrial waste in dog food, which my dog was a victim of, drywall that destroys houses,poison toothpaste etc. When that happens there is still no fine but someone gets capped for stepping out too far! China now going the forefront of manufacturing world class goods but not long ago everything they did was a cheap knock off of something. How to shut down practices that were previously encouraged and ingrained into your business model and at the same time continue to bring enormous amounts of foreign cash into the country would be really difficult to do and maybe not in the countries best interest to do so. The Chinese government probably has much bigger fish to fry than bootlegged guitar strings. 30 odd years ago everyone in China wore the same quilted jacket and rode a (knockoff) Raleigh bicycle. From the film clips of that era you got the impression that there were maybe 3 cars in the whole country. To go from there to where they are today in so short a time is almost unbelievable. Our desire for cheap and then again cheaper goods are what fuels the manufacturing and distribution of cheap knockoffs and counterfeit products. It's like countries that produce drugs that claim that they don't have a drug problem, it's us that has the drug problem--we like cheap stuff and lots of it and someone will always be there to supply our habits. If people want quality then they have to be sure to purchase from vendors that specialize in quality( the poison in the dog food came from American manufacturers purchasing and then not testing additives that they imported from China to save a buck and then were sold at your favorite supermarket) and that means you have to pay a little, or in some cases a lot more. This for most of us means that if we have good stuff we also have less stuff. Insisting on quality and being willing to pay for it is probably the only thing that would keep counterfeiting under control. No government has ever been able to control or stop people from getting what they want.

[TonyP]

I think singling China out for "unscrupulous manufacturing practices" is a little one sided. When you think of the American mega corporations like tobacco, oil, chemical, defense, and on and on, that are killing people by the millions. And are defending their right to do so in the name of profit, China is small potato's.

But I really applaud everybody for raising awareness at the consumer level, as that's where the "real" power is. There are so many examples of quality still made here by craftsmen and shops big and small. I mean, look at Breedlove and Weber, just to name a few. And there are examples of luthiers like I think it was Morris(?), that were making entry grade mandolins at competing prices. It can be done, and it's going to have to be done to bring balance back to things.

We have seen a paradigm shift(those of us who have been around for a while) in what it means to play mandolin. It used to be you either had Gibson, or you had PacRim mando's. Then more and more luthiers started building because there was a market. Once again showing, consumers were king.

The sad fact is, in like strings, and the low end of stuff, there's not that much difference $$$ wise at the consumer level. It's all about consumer demand/awareness. And thankfully, this site provides that basic education for those new to our hobby that can help steer them to more quality, less junk. Just the fact that you can see entry level used mando's at entry level prices saves all kinds of resources and keeps people in the loop of conscious choice. And to me, that's what this thread is about.

[Steve Ostrander]

I predict fake picks will be next. Take a fifty-cent pick and sell it as a designer pick for $30. Lot's of profit margin there...

I'm joking, but my guess is someone has already tried this.

[SincereCorgi]

I think Foldedpath must be right about this being an internet phenomenon, or something you find in other countries; considering how most American music stores get their D'Addario stuff (distributors like Kaman, for example) you'd have to be actively shady to search out somebody to provide you with counterfeits.

[craigtoo]

Hello Everyone,
I'm getting to this thread a bit late... sorry for that. But I wanted to share with you some information (already posted elsewhere in this thread in pieces) that Brian Johnson, our product Specialist posted in some other forums.

D'Addario remains committed to making the highest quality product at a competitive price right here in the USA.

>>>FORWARDED TEXT FROM BRIAN JOHNSON, PRODUCT SPECIALIST - Fretted Strings, D'Addario and Co. >>>>>>


Hello everyone. Sorry for dropping into this discussion as a first time poster. I know sometimes this is frowned upon but we really wanted to help out our customers since so many questions were being asked about counterfeits. I am a product specialist at D’Addario and have been monitoring the web for some reactions to Senator Schumer’s visit here at D’Addario. I can see that there a lot of concerns and questions that have come to light after all of this, so I just wanted to help you out a bit if I could. First, I wanted to give you all just a bit of history on this topic. We have been involved in a long and arduous fight against counterfeiters who have chosen to cheat our customers for a few years now. We have spent a great deal of time, effort and money to deter them from their practices and have had a great deal of success in doing so. Senator Schumer has provided us the opportunity to have our concerns seriously addressed by our government. That is why this story is beginning to heat up now more than ever.

Jim D’Addario himself wrote a blog on this very topic few months ago which I think you guys may like to see. This personal message to all of our customers may give you even more insight on this whole subject. I urge you to read his blog as it answers many of the questions you may have on this topic. http://daddarioinc.blogspot.com/2010...unterfeit.html

Many of your concerns seem to be about where the counterfeits are and how you know if you are purchasing one or not. Let’s start with Jim’s blog. As he stated, many of these originate from Asia and make their way to other parts of the world through web transactions. I want to also reiterate what Senator Schumer said by stating that we ONLY manufacture our strings here in the USA. If anyone claims otherwise to you and wants to send you strings manufactured anywhere else in the world, these people are trying to sell you counterfeit items. You can notify us and we will go after them on your behalf. This next part is important. While the counterfeiting problem is real and is a threat domestically, we have yet to find a US retailer with counterfeit strings. The majority of the fake product we have found so far has been in the Chinese market and some of our other export markets. We are working with US Customs to register our trademarks and to not allow any foreign shipments of D’Addario strings to enter our country.

For our international customers, we have a distributor search that will provide the information on how to contact them directly. This way you can ask if a store is legitimately purchasing D’Addario items from our distributors or they can point you to a store that does purchase directly from them. You can find this search on our website, www.daddario.com in the support section under FIND A STORE. You can also follow the following link directly to that part of our site. http://daddario.com/DaddarioFindaSto...&currency_id=1

You may have noticed that Jim wrote about our serialization of our products. We have been printing unique serial numbers on each of the corrosion bags inside of the packaging of our new products. If you visit www.daddario.com/playreal you can input this number into our system and it will instantly tell you if this product is authentic or not. You will have options to be able to report this to us as well on those pages.

Lastly, I want to provide you a direct email to our anti-counterfeiting team. Please feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions about the dealer or product you are looking to purchase. The email address to send your inquiries to is playreal@daddario.com.

Now that more of you aware that this problem exists, we sincerely hope that you will use all of the tools we are making available to you to help us fight the counterfeiters. Again, please contact us if you have any question or concerns that we can help you with. We are doing our best to make sure you have all of the information you need and people available to contact to answer your questions. We completely understand how complicated all of this is and really want you all to know we are fighting this fight for not only our products, but for all of the people in our industry, and beyond, that are having these same issues at this time.




Brian J


>>>>END FORWARD>>>>

I do agree with some posters above with regard to the observation that most of the 'anti-counterfit' efforts have gone towards guitar strings. As you can imagine they are by far our biggest seller and subsequently the biggest target.

I'm the operations guy, so I don't really have all the details on 'Revenue Generation' (or sales ) as I'm primarily concerned with costs... but I'll try to answer any questions or put you in touch with someone who can.

All the best, and thanks for playing D'Addario.

Craig Harbauer

[jimmy powells]

Does anyone know if it is common for dealers who sell multi-packs to sell them loose. I 10 sets of D'Addario mandolin strings and 10 sets of D'Addario strings from a USA dealer and expected them in individual packets. They came all loose and with no D'Addario name anywhere so I wondered if that was the practice of D'Addario to supply them like that or not.
Any email reply would be great. jimmypowells@btinternet.com

Many thanks

[journeybear]

Thank you Craig for that very informative post. Nothing better than getting information from the source, or as close to it as possible.

As a consumer I am glad to know that this problem has not affected the US market - so far, anyway. I am sure the counterfeiters would love to tap into it, and are constantly figuring out ways to do so. I doubt that, even with its enormous population base, the Chinese market for mandolin strings is very large, and can only guess at the size of the market for guitar strings. That is not to diminsh the cumulative negative effects counterfeiting has on D'Addario's business, but at least it puts a perspective, and geographical limitation, on the problem.

I will continue to buy my strings from my dealer, who has always done right by me, and by D'Addario too, of course. And Jimmy - I have never heard of that before. I have always - ALWAYS - gotten strings in individual printed paper envelopes for each pair, inside a plastic packet, with a "seal" (actually, a pop-out tab for hanging on a rack. Something seems odd there.