37 replies to this topic

[BenHogan]

How can I ensure if my new mizuno mp 52 are fake or original?

[Bomb and Gouge]

Buy them from a licensed dealer?

[BenHogan]

hmmmm....honestly I don't know if the dealer is licensed

[PurePursuit]

So then take your serial number and call up Mizuno

[Nickcuban]

What makes you think they might be fake?
Who/ where you get them from?
Post pictures...

[SpeedyPro]

As far as I know, if you buy clubs from a non-authorized dealer, the clubs are not uder manufacturer's warranty, which means it is not guaranteed by the manufacturer for its performance/durability/etc.
If you bought them off from Ebay, there's a big chance that the club heads are from same factory in China which makes clubs for OEM, but the heads are most likely inferior ones that did not pass OEM company's quality control.
Then, will you call this inferior but otherwise identical clubs original?

[robb01]

if you bought from a dealer, why would they be fake?

[BenHogan]

PurePursuit, on Oct 27 2008, 04:06 PM, said:

So then take your serial number and call up Mizuno

isn't there any mizuno email?

[Pingnut]

SpeedyPro, on Oct 27 2008, 11:10 AM, said:

As far as I know, if you buy clubs from a non-authorized dealer, the clubs are not uder manufacturer's warranty, which means it is not guaranteed by the manufacturer for its performance/durability/etc.
If you bought them off from Ebay, there's a big chance that the club heads are from same factory in China which makes clubs for OEM, but the heads are most likely inferior ones that did not pass OEM company's quality control.
Then, will you call this inferior but otherwise identical clubs original?

There is NO WAY clubs that didn't pass Mizzuno's quality control are being shafted up and sold.  
There is also NO WAY that the same factory that is making clubs for the OEM's are also making and selling clones of these clubs ie. FAKES..

[lebanontngolfer]

http://www.mizunousa...81?OpenDocument

Here is a link for contacting Mizuno.

[SemperFi91]

BenHogan, on Oct 27 2008, 08:18 AM, said:

PurePursuit, on Oct 27 2008, 04:06 PM, said:

So then take your serial number and call up Mizuno

isn't there any mizuno email?

Just out of curiosity, why would you rather email them over a phone call where you can satisfy your question in a minute?

Do you have any pics you can post?

[mat562]

If the OP is in continental Europe, phoning Mizuno may well incur the cost of an international telephone call.

[RichardL_NYC]

After verifying the serial, take a couple of irons that do NOT have a serial # to a real golf store and do a comparison (top to bottom, grips, logos, color, stickers, quality of materials, etc). Just because the iron with the serial passes the verification, the rest of the clubs can still be fake. I've seen this happen myself. Oh and if any of your irons have a chinese holographic sticker on it, it's fake.

Edited by RichardL_NYC, 27 October 2008 - 11:31 AM.

[SpeedyPro]

Pingnut, on Oct 27 2008, 11:20 AM, said:

SpeedyPro, on Oct 27 2008, 11:10 AM, said:

As far as I know, if you buy clubs from a non-authorized dealer, the clubs are not uder manufacturer's warranty, which means it is not guaranteed by the manufacturer for its performance/durability/etc.
If you bought them off from Ebay, there's a big chance that the club heads are from same factory in China which makes clubs for OEM, but the heads are most likely inferior ones that did not pass OEM company's quality control.
Then, will you call this inferior but otherwise identical clubs original?

There is NO WAY clubs that didn't pass Mizzuno's quality control are being shafted up and sold.
There is also NO WAY that the same factory that is making clubs for the OEM's are also making and selling clones of these clubs ie. FAKES..

I might be wrong, but I saw from a post in here saying those unqualified clubheads leaving the backdoor of the factory out of sight of OEM company.
If there is no way, how can there be many cheap OEM clubs on Ebay? For example, my friend bought a 3-pw set of TM Tour Preferred irons at $500, and they came even in a retail box. What's going on?

[jaskanski]

It should be pretty easy to spot a fake Mizuno just by hitting it. I mean, their reputation has been built on the slogan "nothing feels like a Mizuno". Surely a fake would not have the same sweet feel as the genuine forged item? Just a thought.

[Bomb and Gouge]

Yeah really, tee up a few 3-irons and hit a few pure.  If you feel it, they're not Mizuno's!

[krustyburger]

jaskanski, on Oct 27 2008, 01:30 PM, said:

It should be pretty easy to spot a fake Mizuno just by hitting it. I mean, their reputation has been built on the slogan "nothing feels like a Mizuno". Surely a fake would not have the same sweet feel as the genuine forged item? Just a thought.

Exactly, everyone knows that Mizunos feel like butter.  If they are fakes, they will just feel like margarine.

Edited by krustyburger, 27 October 2008 - 12:43 PM.

[jdorsch]

Pingnut, on Oct 27 2008, 08:20 AM, said:

There is NO WAY clubs that didn't pass Mizzuno's quality control are being shafted up and sold.
There is also NO WAY that the same factory that is making clubs for the OEM's are also making and selling clones of these clubs ie. FAKES..

there are a couple of ways the counterfeit & black markets in Asia works:

1) they straight up steal the original completed items from the warehouse.
2) they steal the raw goods and turn them into finished goods (i.e. - Diesel jeans gets their denim, zippers, buttons, etc stolen and the thieves turn these into fake-real Diesel jeans - fake-real because the material is the real Diesel material but Diesel's people did not make the jeans.)
3) they just make a cloned copy of the clothing, handbags, phones, etc. some of these are good, but most are poor copies.

these are some of the ways that I know fakes/clones/counterfeits can happen. I am sure there are other ways that i am not privy too.


Now back to the OP's question - just post some pictures and we can help you out. the group of guys on here are very knowledgable about all and every club out there. We can usually tell from the pictures 95% of the time.

[Brad6260]

I was with our local club fitter and repair expert last week having him tweak my 52* MX 25 gap wedge to 50*. This guy's been around forever and really knows his stuff. I brought in a couple of my MX-25's asking if he'd ever seen the amount of gouging and scratching I've encountered with these irons. I bought them "new" from an E-Bay seller with a high number of positive feedbacks. They have about 80 rounds on them and look like they have been to war. The thought occurred to me early on that I may have gotten ahold of a knock off set but I've been told by a number of Mizuno dealers that the wear is just the price one pays for the "buttery" softness of the Mizuno metal.

My club guy  agreed and felt that I may have just gotten ahold of an unusually soft run and that he had never seen or heard of a counterfeit Mizuno iron. He said that forgeries rarely show up in the higher end clubs for two reasons. One...that the volume in higher end stuff is so much smaller than the mid to high handicap sets so why go through the effort when there's better money elsewhere and Two..a set of Mizuno's is going to be in the hands of a much more astute player most of the time so the chances of being spotted as a fake go way up. Seems to make sense.

Hum?

[mr.beasley]

getting ahold of mizuno's definitely going to be the best way to figure it out... should be pretty easy to tell if you can get a legit set to put side by side with them as well...

Edited by mr.beasley, 27 October 2008 - 04:27 PM.

[BenHogan]

all solved:
Thank you for contacting Mizuno USA. Â The clubs and serial number listed below will be authentic. Â We appreciate your time and interest.

[beninfluence]

Not trying to piss on your bonfire,
BUT,
they are copying real serial numbers on fake clubs.
Admittedly i've never seen a fake Mizuno, but seen fake Callaways with real serial numbers!
So be careful!
Ben

[BenHogan]

Admittedly I saw some fake Mizunos!! I have already been caruful on checking the serials, what more should I do?  

[mat562]

What is making you think that they are counterfeit?

[jdorsch]

BenHogan, on Oct 28 2008, 12:52 PM, said:

Admittedly I saw some fake Mizunos!! I have already been caruful on checking the serials, what more should I do?

we told you already; post some pictures on this thread so we can give you peace of mind. HELP US HELP YOU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

step 1- go grab your digital camera
step 2- put digital camera on macro mode for close-up shots of the face, back of club, sole of club, and hosel
step 3- put camera on normal mode for farther away shots
step 4- upload these photos to a free photo site such as FLICKR or PhotoBucket
step 5- grab the URL of these photos by right clicking on them once you complete step 4 and choose properties to grab the URL
step 6- post the photos here
step 7- we give you our thoughts once we see the photos

really, you keep asking what you can do but you are not really listening to our advice. the one thing you did is write Mizuno with the easiest piece to fake - areal serial number on a fake club.

quit asking for help if you are not going to listen to our advice/suggestions.

[sandy]

Hit them and if they feel odd take a shaft or two out and see if there are any lead plugs.  If they are back door or fake they probably don't care about the swingweights being right and won't have lead plugs....  Since Mizuno uses everything they are shipped,  if they have all kinds of different weight (1 gram to 10 grams) lead plugs they are probably real authentic Mizunos..  Nothing like that Mizuno forged lead plugged feel...

[crf1967]

I bought a set of new MP-52s from an eBay shop - 2 of the grips still had the wrapping on them, the clubs look perfect but there is no serial number on the hosel. (There is, however, a serial number laser etched into the shafts just below the grips.)  As with the instigator of this discussion this has made me suspicious.

I called Mizuno this morning here in the UK to query this and was told that all Mizuno custom fit clubs have a serial number on them BUT ones that are part of a standard production run do not.  Still no idea what the serial number on the shafts is!

One thing that really made me worry was that I made a cheeky offer for the clubs and he accepted - maybe I was being paranoid but I wouldn't of sold them for that price.

I've been down the range and am certain there is no problem - they feel like Mizunos.  However next time I think I'll get them from the pro and accept that it'll cost me an extra £100 - it's just not worth the stress!!!

[jdorsch]

crf1967, on Oct 29 2008, 11:22 AM, said:

I bought a set of new MP-52s from an eBay shop - 2 of the grips still had the wrapping on them, the clubs look perfect but there is no serial number on the hosel. (There is, however, a serial number laser etched into the shafts just below the grips.) As with the instigator of this discussion this has made me suspicious.

I called Mizuno this morning here in the UK to query this and was told that all Mizuno custom fit clubs have a serial number on them BUT ones that are part of a standard production run do not. Still no idea what the serial number on the shafts is!

On the shaft? That doesn't sounds right at all since a shaft can be replaced at any time, but since my Mizuno's were order custom I have no frame of reference to call BS against this statement. I'll go over to golfsmith at lunchtime and see if there rack clubs have serial numbers on the hosel or the shaft, and I'll post my findings this afternoon.

[teejaywhy]

krustyburger, on Oct 27 2008, 10:41 AM, said:

Exactly, everyone knows that Mizunos feel like butter.  If they are fakes, they will just feel like margarine.

LOL