Are these fake Posilver SI ?

Blades received. Thanks. I'll shave with them later, but a first inspection doesn't look promising. Everything about them looks and feels wrong. The printing and font on the outer packaging is not as good as on my PolSilvers. The paper wrapper is flimsy and there are no glue spots. The printing on the blades is thin and uneven to say the least. The blades feel different when slightly bent. And they do smell, unlike mine. I have looked at other blades made by Gillette in Russia as well and they all look professional. These don't.
I haven't decided yet which razors to use or which half of my face to slice up. I'll report back later. :eek:
 
The verdict
Before I started the shave I noticed that the blades differ slightly in colour. I decided to have a closer look at the edge with a small 40x microscope. The blades do look very different - different colour and different honing pattern on the edge. I'm not expert enough to judge blade edges by looking at them under a microscope, I just noticed a difference.
Here was the plan: I'd put both blades in my Digress. Use the 'new' one for one half of the face first, then change blades and shave the other half of the face with my own PolSilver. I'd use Wickhams Club Cola soap, so I'd have at least something to smile about :)
I abandoned the plan after about five seconds. The 'new ' blade was not very sharp, but made up for this with plenty of tugginess. It was Rough (with a capital R)! There was no way I'd shave half my face in several passes with this blade. So I put my own PolSilver into the Digress, lathered up the other half of my face as well. The PolSilver performed as expected. Marvellous blade.
So is the new blade a fake? Let me put it like this: If it doesn't walk like a duck, doesn't quack like a duck and doesn't even look like a duck.. what are the odds that it is a real duck?
Blade binned. Second bladed locked away in the cabinet of horrors. :eek:

To sum it up: Either Gillette Russia have lost the plot, or the official Gillette distributer has been had. This ain't the PolSilver I love.
 
To be fair If I had my way a couple of the vendors or even Gillette would step up and provide us with Polsilver samples to rule out the possibility of duds...
 
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Gordy said:
I'm sure the fakes are few and far between...
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From what Paul at Connaught has said in this thread, the "funny" blades have had the seal of approval from Gillette's Eastern European agent.

I have no idea what's going on or whether they are fake or not, but it doesn't sound like they're an oddity.
 
I can't imagine these left St.Peterburg factory, too. Too much is different about them, boxes, cutting edges, printing. Even with set-up runs and inconsistent quality control issues, I still wouldn't see these leaving the factory.
In saying that, I do believe we need to be more vigilant in future, in the light of recent trade sanctions.
 
Scratch said:
From what Paul at Connaught has said in this thread, the "funny" blades have had the seal of approval from Gillette's Eastern European agent.

I have no idea what's going on or whether they are fake or not, but it doesn't sound like they're an oddity.
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I'd be looking for St.Petersburg seal of approval, not an Eastern European agent. There is too much unrest between Europe and Russia at present and I personally believe that given the aforementioned trade sanctions, a country like Turkey (which has its own blade production lines!) may have tried to introduce its own "Russian" blades. These are BIG business in Turkey (much more so than Turkish blades) but the sanctions imposed have more than likely included blades.
Remember that Turkey is a MAJOR player in the world counterfeit market!
Recent events in Egypt have damaged relations with Russia. Do they not also have a large blade manufacturing facility?
 
riverrun said:
The PolSilvers I got from Santa were from gemstone shaving and perfectly alright.
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Do you know when they were bought? Bearing in mind this seems to have been a very recent change, I'm keeping my ear to the ground for a while before buying them from anywhere.
 
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