I'm lucky enough to own a real one(N656) and also have seen both real and fake W997. Below is an image to compare the real and the fake. The best way is to look at the font type and size on the letter engraving from the handle.

If you own a "W997" and is not sure if yours is a real or fake, feel free to post your picture here and I can help you identify it.

Cheers.

But all of fakes have this common problem of not able to provide the exact engraving font type.

Yes, you are absolutely right. There are only 2-3 legit sellers who are reachable from the public that have the real deal.

Also, a difference in font seems like something trivial that may be possible from DHS outsourcing and licensing various factories which I assume a big company like DHS would do.

Wishful thinking, but unfortunately that is not the case. People in China who are into the TT scene know very well that W997 with the second font type are not from DHS, however, that doesn't mean these fakes are bad, and there still people who are willing to buy them and find it good.

I got the information from both reading on other people's experience in some chinese forums and my own experience (I have both a real n656 and a fake w997). I also kinda know one of the seller and she expose some info she knows to me as well.

THe workmanship of the fake blades is not optimal, you can see the alc is not cut sharp with a bit hairy edge in some case, and the top limba layer is prone to splint as well.

Grow up, who cares about the status in a virtual community, and semi god? come on...

I'm just sharing what I've researched, experienced and I was lucky to know this bit of information that I'd like to share with our fellow forum members. It's up to you to make the final decision when it comes to purchasing such blade. 

1) I'm an EJ

2) I like to experience both the good and bad, so that I have first hand experience to say it's BAD, or it's not too BAD even though it's fake.

3) I'm a cpen player, and they don't make cpen for the real W997, in fact, they only make FL. So out of curiosity, I got the fake W997 in cpen. 

You are right, anyone can say this and you have the right to not believe in what I have mentioned. 

In fact, if someone spend the time to research on this matter in the TT scene in China, they'll be able to derive the same information that I've shared.

I've done my duty as a mytt supporter and fellow member, that's all.

Cheers.

sorry, the picture i used as the source might not be in optimal focus, the key is to identify the different in font type and size.

Below is another picture of a real W997, it has better focus on the engraving. Again, you can focus on the 'W', '9' and '0', they are obviously thinner and not as wide as the fake ones.

enlighten us, minja, how did you check your dhs national W997 from the link you listed above?

good try, troll 

Thanks , good that someone mentioned it and presented the same idea 

I have Ma Long Vs bought from Tabletennis11. They have exactly same font like the one you think fake 997. Is it possible that later DHS make  997 for  general wider market  instead off institute? Or may be later batch DHS factory handles 997 manufacture along with MLV?  And use the same engrave fonts/machine? Check at Ma Long V engrave, you will see what I meant.

BTW. Where is the institute located, same building with factory or separate location far away? 

+1 with you.

The engrave of top claimed authentic blade is blurry. Focus was not optimal but the other details were not blurry. 

I would suspect this one.

In fact, since the bootleg manufacturer got the commercial engraving press, they have been making fake Hurricane Long V with the same boxset and statistic card (all with same value) also. There is a current incident in China which a lot of people have grouped together to validate with DHS, and this time DHS has officially said some Long V boxset in the market are fake.

And the research center or institute is still an unknown mystery of its location and stuff.

qualizon wrote: chronos wrote: Why is the font on the "authentic" blades so blurry and uneven in these pictures?  If you look at pics of the national players blades themselves the font of the serial number is very crisp and clear.

Yup, my original picture was not a good example, but at least you guys get the point of the font type 

Sorry, I have to LOL with this idea. You mean they can copy/manufacture high quality blades look/feel the same as original,handle/veneer/logo everything. And they could not copy/make the engraving. 

if you're trying to roll the serial number, it may be a bit of a task

Yea, i'm scratching my head on this one too   Real or fake aside, there has to be something different between the blade with small font and blade with big font. One thing I can tell for sure is, the blade with the small font came from the same maker of the blade that national team uses.

These fakes might look very good to most of us, but I'm sure they don't have the thing I mentioned above， and most importantly, one should not spend that much to buy such fakes. I spent roughly USD120 to get my W997 replica new, so go figure 

but in this moment I have some problems with the explanations of qualizon.

I think, it is not necessary, to discuss, if this HL3 is an original DHS-blade

Now look on the script. It is similar to the pictures of peter79, not like the pictures of qualizon.

And it is as narrow or wide as the script on my W997.

Why should DHS use a "normal" script on 99% of their blades and a more narrow script on 1% ?

But maybe you are right and there are several factories, which produce the same blade for DHS,

like Stiga does with the Emerald (produced in Sweden AND China).

Would you say, that the swedish Emerald is a fake? or the chinese Emerald?

Of course both Emerald are 100% original, because all of these blades are ordered by Stiga.

Before I bought my W997, I contacted an other german guy who owned and played several DHS blades before. I showed him the pictures and he was 100% sure, that it is not a fake.

1) Hurricane Long 5 as cheapest version = cheaper (not selected) material

2) W997 with wider font = same material as national version

3) The "real" national version = different kind of glueing and best material-selection

Is this the right explanation?

2) you can only say the W997 with wider font replicate the construction and look of the national W997, but you CAN'T say the material quality/glue/precise measurement/craftmanship are the same. It's a replica by some factory.  

May I know how did you derive this conclusion?

From what I've researched and the consensus of discussion in chinese TT forum, the replica W997/W968 can be made from one of the following sources:

a) internal employee from DHS use the Long V production line illegally to create these blades, without the proper commercial QC and measurement 

b) some factory got a hold of some of the design from dhs and create their own production line, again, no DHS QC 

both of these sources are definitely not at the level that national blades are made, at most they are only at commercial level

The only surefire way the HL-5 you get is genuine is buy it from DHS official dealers.

Your imagination of sneaking at night is quite hilarious, but I guess you're not familiar with anything in China, people will do anything to bootleg some popular product cheap and fast to make a few bucks. You think there are replica product, but there are even replica of a factory that makes the product. So yea, welcome to China.

1. "right because it's so easy to just mount a factory and create blades exactly like hurricane long v just like that." 

Haven't seen such a ridiculous comment in ages. TT is the national sport in China. China has over 1.3 billion people. At least 10 million people in China play tt frequently. Let's take the fake H3 for example. A real one costs 60-70 RMB. A fake one is about 40-45 RMB. That's a 15-30 RMB difference per sheet of h3. The cost to make a fake H3 is much cheaper than the cost to make a real one. But let's just say the companies that make fake H3s profit 1 rmb per sheet of rubber. Approximately 3/10 people buy fake H3s. That's 3 MILLION rmb right there, and that's only considering the fact that only 1 RMB is made per rubber. So open your eyes, please.

3. "and much smaller is the amount of people who actually wish to buy dhs w997, which is not that great to start with.

2. the w997, w968, and HL5 are indeed all created by DHS with directions from the company. No one said that wasn't true. But that is not to say that replicas of these national blades (w997 and w968) are not in production. As I explained above, research facilities can make replicas of the national blades that have similar feel to the national blades. 

3. w997 is probably one of the greatest blades that DHS made. You must really be retarded to think that w997 is not a great blade. So many CNT members use w997 and w968. Ma Long won the 2014 WTTTC with the w997. Why on earth would Ma Long use w997 if it's a crappy blade? 

4. "just check chinese players on videos and pictures, you rarely see one using w997 or w968." Excuse me. Have you actually trained in China? Which videos actually show you the exact blades any player is using? I used to train with the Shanghai prov team, and at least 10 guys use w997...

Do you just not have the money to shell out for a w997 or something?

haha no problem. I don't understand why people can be so skeptical of things like this. Lack of common sense I suppose 

Once again: you may be right (and I think you are), that the "real" national versions come from ONE special DHS factory, but I can`t believe, that DHS (the biggest chinese seller) produces only 10% of all the available DHS blades. Sorry, but this sounds unreal. 

I still think, that most of these blades are produced in order of DHS, who order their blades from different factories, but official and legal.

Of course there are also fakes available, but not SOOOO much and not sooo good. Look at the ugly Butterfly ZJ SZLC-fakes with this terrible handle-design. If the chinese companies are so perfect in building fake-blades: why do they sell such ugly fakes which are so easy to see? 

MLFan, thanks for the insider info, at least now we have a better clue.
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For your first question, I'm unable to answer that since I've never actually wondered why that is the case. But that is a consistent issue with the replicas and the real versions. The replicas have never had the special laser font that the real blades do. It's just something that "is" unfortunately. 

As for your second point, it's incorrect to say that 90% of blades are fakes. Most of the blades are actually REAL. But I am referring to the commercial ones, ie. HL5. There are many DHS stores in China, and all of them have real HL5s. However, DHS only makes about 20-30 w997s, for instance, for Ma Long to try. Ma Long picks the ones he likes, and the rest are either given to other CNT members or to certain higher-ranked employees to make a quick buck. It is this that started the confusion between reals and fakes. Since there are very few "real" national blades, people who cannot get them but also have certain connections will get the "replicas" from the DHS research facilities. That's actually all there is to it. So for example, if I had enough connections, I could get a bunch of DHS w997 replicas and start selling them on taobao. Some people on taobao actually have such connections, while others make purely fake stuff (eg. I played on a 100 rmb tenergy lol). 

Why the "fake" blades and "fake" rubbers are so popular is because the authentic DHS items that can be bought in DHS-authorized stores are ridiculously expensive. For example, commercial HL5 sells for 1k+ RMB, and tenergy rubbers are 628 RMB (100+ USD) a sheet. As a result, many taobao sellers capitalize on this and claim that they are DHS employees who can get authentic equipment at a cheaper price. Since nobody wants to get equipment at such absurd prices in the DHS stores, they're gonna turn to taobao. 

A final note here: the "real" w997 replicas are not bad at all. Unless you're a very high level player, you're not going to feel that much difference, if any at all, between the real and the replicas. 

I said that higher-ranked employees can ask the research facilities to make them replicas of the blade. These employees can then choose to sell them or use them themselves. There is no ultra-secret ninja hijack corrupt classified story anywhere...

w997 replicas made by the DHS research facilities are actually really good blades. But the fake w997 ones (not made by DHS) are obviously not. 

And you've never even set your foot in China have you? Even I can call in to DHS right now to have a w997 replica made, simply because I know certain people in there. If you know how stuff works in China, you'd know that these people who ask for replicas just have to pay DHS for them. It's exactly the same idea as a person who, having special privileges, can buy things that other people can't. The DHS research facilities do not make the commercial blades. If you don't understand anything, don't launch verbal attacks. 

Do they make enough to sell to demanding market and lot of prov. players who want them?

There isn't actually a demanding market for blades like w997 because most people aren't going to shell out so much money to buy one. It's usually just certain people (ie. people who used to train professionally, good amateur players, rich chinese people who just want to have the exact same equipment as Ma Long, etc) who buy them. Not that many provincial players actually buy them either, because their coaches either don't let them switch blades, or they'd rather spend the money to have the coaches pay more attention to them, etc. The market is much, much bigger for commercial blades like HL5 or h3s (hence the number of fake blades and fake h3s around). The special national blades like w997 and w968 are also not as well-known as you'd think, believe it or not :)

mere humans with no vip access like you claimed yourself use everything national in your intro thread, you just prove yourself a liar without good intention to help the forum community once again.

This thread is meant to help each other to identify the variation of the national blade like W997, if you don't have any contribution, please don't waste your time and the forum resource, go elsewhere to do your daily trolling and argue for the sake of arguing.

Various members have expressed politely that your messages are not appreciated here, do yourself a favor and spend your time on training, may be one day you can really reach 2560 rating with your imaginary equipment.
 

i know someone here who is selling lots of fake blades .  

Hi Giangt,

Are you saying if the w997 with wide font has a date around spring/summer 2014, then it's as good as the real deal?

How about any date after that? mine has a date of march 2015, I won't keep high hope  

We are only referring to the national blade W997 here, which TT11 doesn't carry. TT11 only carries the HL5, and they are legit

The confusion lies when we have the following variety:

1) Legit Hurricane Long 5  (by default it has wide font)

3) Legit National W997 / W968 blade  (the one that Ma Long or national team uses has narrow font)

4) Replica W997/W969 (has wide font)

5) Fake W997/W968 (has wide font also)

For the last time, DHS research facilities are responsible for the replicas of the national blades. "DHS" research facilities means that these facilities are DHS's. 

I'm not sure how to tell the actual fake blades from the replicas, as I've never gotten a fake one lol. Perhaps Qualizon can provide some insight here :)

Those who are still confused about this, who are not intent on trolling, can pm me and I'd be happy to elucidate :)

In base on all the collaborative findings, the following things are most easy to spot: (note, only apply to HL5)

- the statistic card has the 130mm, 224mm, 68% value, almost every fakes have these same values

- the letters/numbers engraving on the handle are not align on the same line horizontally

- the shakehand blade shoulder is sharp without any shaving, the real HL5 should have the shoulder slightly shaved

I'm still a bit skeptical because there might be different sources for the replica...

Time to learn some Chinese, folks!

How does a legit HL 5 compare to W997/968?

It's very easy to search for a W997 from taobao, ask for details pictures of the actual blade and you'll be fine, and it'll cost you roughly 140usd + shipping to US.

HL5 is based on W968, so I assume it's a non selected material version of W968, which is faster, harder, less dwell time comparing to W997.

I won't post any shop information in this post just to keep this thread neutral, but if any member is serious about buying the real non replica w997, I'm sure either MLFan, Giangt or me and give you the pointers by PM.

my goodness, that means another wave of national blade hunt and replica production