Good eye Alex! If that is not a smoking gun I don't know what is! Good work and thank you!
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Good eye Alex! If that is not a smoking gun I don't know what is! Good work and thank you!
That would be great if we could meet up! Keep me updated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Utopian
Morale of the story hasn't changed: don't buy Jnats from vendors you do not know to be reliable.
and another update to the story. The allegedly sold Hatanakas are back for sale and being offered at 50% discount to people he has dealt with in the past.
As I said once a scammer always a scammer
Guy’s tenacious, but it makes sense. I’ve watched his site for a while, he sells those stones at a pretty good clip. Despite this thread (which is fantastic), I doubt he’ll see any real dip in sales.
Alex here's another 'Thank you' for doing the leg work here. Excellent detective work, we're really proud of you!
I had bought a stone from him, and so did 2 of my friends. One of the SR guys on Facebook kept buying tons from him (and probably ended up with a fake Asano nagura as well). Now that guy is helping to further expose the scammer, and needles to say, none of my friends will ever go back to him. With this information on here, B&B, Kitchen knife forums, the Russian sharpening forums, the Italian shaving forum, all over Facebook and a few other shaving forums, I think we've made a real impact. Maksim at JNS also has it posted on his Facebook page, so his followers will see it, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cornmuffin
Rewind 2 years ago.... I think I was among the first to buy a stone from him. I remember back then, he didn't have any stamped stones. Perhaps an occasional Ozuku, or Shobudani stamped simply with the name of the mine. Then a Maruka popped up with a faded stamp, and I picked it up. Whether it's real or fake is impossible to say, the stamp has faded too much, I can barely make out the Maru (circle) anymore. It's a nice stone, but at that time when people asked me, I used to say, yes, nice stone, finishes my razors flawlessly, feels genuine, but the guy can't judge hardness. He had sold it to me as lv 5, but in reality it is a 4-4.5. This in fact is the main reason why I never bought another stone from him - I couldn't be sure about the hardness and speed, as he never really demonstrates the stone's ability to polish.
Fast forward to October 2017 - Hatanaka and Maruichi stones started to pop up. He asked me to advertise him a bit through my Instagram feed. I asked about the origin of those Hatanaka stones. Long story short, I did not get a believable answer, so I basically stopped messaging with him. Dodged a bullet there, didn't I.
Putting him on blast like this on here and other related forums will get his attention. It was clearly one of those too good to be true things. Again good freakin work guys, you did a great service for our members who were unsure of this site and his ebay sale and auctions.
Perfect example of crossing ALL your "T's" and dotting ALL your "I's" before you buy!
Closed for mod review re "vendor bashing"