Thread: Real Dovo or Fake?

Originally Posted by tophthegoph

59caddy I asked the seller and he told me he bought a few of these razors in Germany and that the Solingen is stamped in the tang

then the straight may turn out to be worthwhile..there are so many copies and knock offs out there that you need to be careful..like i said i got mine cheap and that is why i tried it out...that one you may be one of the good ones and make you a great shaver...good luck with it

Originally Posted by mschwenk

There you have it. Since they both have the same misspelling, and it is coming from China, I believe it is more than likely fake. If I was a store selling Dovo razors I would not order it from a distributor in China, but rather from Germany directly. In the long run it would cost more as it would have to be first shipped to China, and then shipped to the store.

As for why would someone want to copy a Chevy and not a BMW, Dovo is a famous name in razors, and has a very good reputation. I would be more suspicious of the typos on a BMW than on a Chevy. It may be that the manufacturer was simply selling to people in China as well, where such a name would carry far greater weight. In that case, the manufacturer wouldn't care about liability. China does not recognize most patent and copyright laws around the world.

Hey Mschwenkm you may have a point, but then again for Chinese store owners that can't speak English let alone German, it is sometimes easier for them to go through a distributor. Also, as she only stocked a few of the razors, she wasn't going to go to Germany for them. I don't know if Dovo would have done a discounted rate for the 5 razors she said she had in-stock at one time. There are no major straight razor shops in China (like SRD or VB) that I have found. As mentioned before, most locals want the $2-3 GD/DAs.

As I said earlier, I actually spoke with the one of the head people at Dovo. For those that deal with Dovo, they can probably figure out who it was. While she didn't give me a definitive green light on the razor I bought, she also hinted that it could be real, and gave plausible scenarios for that. I imagine the stamps get worn down over time, and they have to make new stamps. If the person making the stamps made a mistake, it is possible that they stamped a few before they caught the mistake, and then offloaded them to a country that probably wouldn't notice the mis-stamp (i.e. China).

Also, I have seen a lot of Chinese razors, and never seen these particular jimps. I have seen them on the Dovos however. Also, the grind is much better than what I have seen on the Chinese blades.

Finally, in regards to the cost of shipping to China and then shipping from another store, that would not really cost more. As you see everywhere in the world, people usually go through a distributor. Reason being, the distributor will buy 200-300 blades (or whatever product they are sourcing) at a discount, and then sell to stores around them that may only want a handful of that product. They get discount on the razors and the shipping. Then they only need to pay the local ship rate, which in China is cheap as chips. Just ask the guys over on the Gold Dollar thread. It is much cheaper/easier to get one person to buy in bulk and then distribute around.

Anyway, at this point it doesn't really matter to me. After getting my hones in from the US, I rehoned it, and took it to the strop. Getting BBS when I use it. I haven't messed with the other one as I am leaving it NOS.

it is a da. strangely i found two of the exact same dovo copies- one in hong kong and one in guangzhou. they are nos fakes- if that category exists. i am guessing that they were faked in the 70s or maybe even 60s in hk or guangdong judging from what the shopkeeper told me at the shop were i bought them. they were faked to be probably sold in hk to foreigners there.

they are still pretty good razors and an interesting piece of history

Ok, did I get this correctly after reading this entire thread:

If I take a SR to Ross Cutlery to be honed, they will do a good job? That Al and Richard at Ross Cutlery are truly skilled "honemisters?"

Originally Posted by nanjinger

it is a da. strangely i found two of the exact same dovo copies- one in hong kong and one in guangzhou. they are nos fakes- if that category exists. i am guessing that they were faked in the 70s or maybe even 60s in hk or guangdong judging from what the shopkeeper told me at the shop were i bought them. they were faked to be probably sold in hk to foreigners there.

they are still pretty good razors and an interesting piece of history

Thanks Nanjinger. Really interesting. At least we know now and I won't feel bad about grinding one into a spike point. You're right though, still pretting good razors, and if they are DAs, the quality was much better then than now. Grinds aren't really similar. If they are DAs, then I wish they could get the quality up again. Hmmm.... I may need to make a trip to Ningbo soon.

Originally Posted by nanjinger

it is a da. strangely i found two of the exact same dovo copies- one in hong kong and one in guangzhou. they are nos fakes- if that category exists. i am guessing that they were faked in the 70s or maybe even 60s in hk or guangdong judging from what the shopkeeper told me at the shop were i bought them. they were faked to be probably sold in hk to foreigners there.

they are still pretty good razors and an interesting piece of history

Sorry, can we get details on this... who/what made you believe they would be fakes?

Well fakes or not, they do look pretty good. If it is a da then da must have had much better standards in the past. Either way, collecting fakes would be kind of interesting. Especially some of the more interesting ones.

Personally, I find the possibility of high-quality (older?) fakes just as interesting as this mythical Slrmany locale. Fascinating thread!

Doesn't it seem weird that people would go to all that trouble to counterfeit a blade and then misspell GERMANY?! I could understand such sloppiness on a cheap knock-off, but with the box, the little guy on the tang, and everything... I think I'd have made sure the very few letters getting stamped into metal were accurate - no matter how indecipherable the language was to me.

Well heres a challenge for you: take one of those rusty japanese straights you find on ebay and such, and try and exactly copy the kanji. We'll see how you do lol.

Originally Posted by northpaw

Personally, I find the possibility of high-quality (older?) fakes just as interesting as this mythical Slrmany locale. Fascinating thread!

Doesn't it seem weird that people would go to all that trouble to counterfeit a blade and then misspell GERMANY?! I could understand such sloppiness on a cheap knock-off, but with the box, the little guy on the tang, and everything... I think I'd have made sure the very few letters getting stamped into metal were accurate - no matter how indecipherable the language was to me.