Dodgy Tenergy Rubbers

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Fake or not?

Is it normal for the writing (Butterfly) and the Logo to fall off the top sheet?


The first one is 3 months old:

The user of this bat bought this to my attention. The rubber colours is different to another identical setup which was purchased overseas. They obviously play very different too and there is no doubt his sheets are dodgy.

His top sheet was extremely fragile too and bit and pieces of it would fall off (not from contact)

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Now this belongs to another player, very likely from the same supply source, and the logos is also coming off

These ones are around 2 to 3 months old:

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Another player's sheet and same issue
Not sure how old is this one:
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To reply about the top one (first 5 pics)

It is 3 months old, player secures/look after the bat
He stated few weeks after he had it, the top sheet starts to "fall apart" - the corners tear off etc
Then the logos/writing starts to come off too
All this happen a while back and not just now (3 months)

The player didn't know something was wrong until recently.
Some people told him maybe it was heat or it was old rubber (stored in the warehouse blah blah blah)

But he compared it to another player - identical blade + rubbers (which was older too) and his one plays very poorly - less power and spin when compared

I haven't used it myself, but having hold them in my hands and looking at the top sheet logos coming off, is pretty shocking imo

I don't want to list the supplier yet, but these are the rubbers that are going for USD 30 at one of the local "authorised" Butterfly supplliers

There were rumors of them selling fakes in the past, but I have no proof of that, until seeing these in my hands
Interesting "fakes" compared to the Chinese tacky fakes that comes from aliexpress and alibaba etc
 
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Genuine Tenergy rubbers sell at around £50 each in the UK. If you bought it for half of the price, then it is very likely that it is fake.

Yes, I know that
But for a while, I suspect those being sold are indeed genuine. I know many that used the "lower cost" ones, and it seems fine (last year)

I do not want to go into details of why I understand they can do that price, so lets just forget about price for now and just focus on the rubber

PS - Rubbers are sold from legitimate Butterfly Importer!
 
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You should feel a big difference when playing with real or fake rubbers. However it looks like the rubbers have been hitting the table and even real Tenergys don't hold up for that.

I agree with you the edges look horrible
But look at the part where the handle meets the rubber - surely no table can do that, and I doubt "hand" can do so much damage too.

Also look at the Butterfly words - all of the pics of the letters falling off. That can't be from hitting the table too
 
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I have seen Tenergy rubbers beat up like that too, and worse, so the wear doesn't say as much to me as that they cost much less than they should and they didn't play as well as they should from the beginning.

If those two are the case--and I think Tony may have some inside info on those rubbers--then they are probably fakes.


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I think is a very delicate situation because yes butterfly products should be top quality especially if you are paying £50/$67 per sheet. This would make people presume that the above rubbers are fake however I purchased two sheets of Tenergy (05/64) from teessport (UK head butterfly supplier) and after 4/5 months the butterfly logo was cracking off on the side and also the sponge and top sheet became very brittle and would break easily.
What I'm trying to say is don't assume it's a fake straight away because there could always be that 10% chance it's real and might be one that 'slipped through the net' after not meeting quality control checks


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Difficult to judge from photos. I have seen real Tenergy with damaged topsheet a bit like that, with parts of the letters going off, because of the contact with fingers.

The topsheet colour, sponge colour and fonts look OK (from my screen).

I'd venture the player's grip is very strong, as you can see traces of finger rubbing / pushing the topsheet. On top of that, some of the damage I would expect from contact with table. And clearly these have not been taken care of (or played in bad conditions, such as dusty venue, dirty balls, hot and dry place).

The topsheet seems to have lost a lot of elasticity. Either not cared for, or cared for with wrong products which dried it up. The red rubber's surface under the finger of the Sammsonov Alpha (I think) has been kept "moisturized" and seems in better condition.

In summary, maybe not fakes, but could have suffered in storage. And certainly not have been used / maintained as well as they could.
 
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I can't really comment too much on the storage and the racket care part.
I know with bad storage and racket care, it can change top sheet colour and its elasticity etc. But when compared to another identical setup of the 1st player, the OP's one indeed many folds worse off.

But the letters and logos (even Made in Japan letters) are indeed coming off.
So there is a chance that these letters do come off then....

FYI, the top 5 - Red 64 is FH
The player just replied to me stating that the letters started to break off the topsheet form the 2nd week of using it.

The 2nd set - Red 05FX is a FH rubber

The 3rd set - Black 64 is a FH rubber

I don't have a regular communication with the 2nd and 3rd set players
The 2nd set belongs to a U15 national girls players, she put those rubbers on before the African Junior championships, and that was early April time frame.

1st and 2nd bat is around 3 months old then
 
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I have seen Tenergy rubbers beat up like that too, and worse, so the wear doesn't say as much to me as that they cost much less than they should and they didn't play as well as they should from the beginning.

If those two are the case--and I think Tony may have some inside info on those rubbers--then they are probably fakes.


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From a price/cost point of view, this was one of the reasons why I stopped my business dealings with Butterfly.
As one of the other distributors was selling them below my cost (almost 2 years back)
And apparently they are still selling them at below market rates today.

Butterfly Germany confirmed the stock is from them (that they have ordered, didn't confirm serial numbers though).
And some customers of the low cost Tenergy did state the Tenergy's were real (including coaching colleagues of mine)

There was rumors in the market that these same guys used to sell fake Tenergy and it was acknowledge by one of the sales guys (when I asked him about fakes)

So my doubts was based on price and history. But then, they do have access to the real thing and they are not table tennis (only) distributors - meaning P/L means nothing to them. So there is a chance that they are just selling the items at what ever price they can.

In South African Rand, they are selling it at close to 40% of the correct world wide retailer price.
Cheaper than Butterfly from Japan in other words

So that is why I said, the price part is difficult to confirm if these or fakes or not, as they can afford to sell below cost.

Pure assumption if my theory above is correct is that maybe they have geniune and they have fakes, and the stock is mixed together etc and therefore average cost is lowered.
I know there have produced geniune at a low price, and now first time I am seeing (and saw 3 different players bat) of letters coming off. Maybe it is just pure co-incidentally or indeed something is dodgy?

Wonder how many other people in the world have letters coming off like that.

- I will send photos of the serial numbers/sponge tonight (the 1st player is getting those rubbers replaced with Tenergys directly from Germany)
 
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I agree with you the edges look horrible
But look at the part where the handle meets the rubber - surely no table can do that, and I doubt "hand" can do so much damage too.

Also look at the Butterfly words - all of the pics of the letters falling off. That can't be from hitting the table too

Yeah agree that something is wrong, maybe he's the hulk and holding his racket extremely hard?
 
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I think is a very delicate situation because yes butterfly products should be top quality especially if you are paying £50/$67 per sheet. This would make people presume that the above rubbers are fake however I purchased two sheets of Tenergy (05/64) from teessport (UK head butterfly supplier) and after 4/5 months the butterfly logo was cracking off on the side and also the sponge and top sheet became very brittle and would break easily.
What I'm trying to say is don't assume it's a fake straight away because there could always be that 10% chance it's real and might be one that 'slipped through the net' after not meeting quality control checks


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Thats a good point, although I have never had Tenergy rubbers look as bad as these ones I have definitely felt a difference in quality from one Tenergy rubber to another. However I doubt that those are real ones but if you can prove that they are, I think you should have the right to get new ones.
 
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IMG_20150625_194624_01.jpg

As you can see, on my spinart the butterfly logo seems to come off a bit, as well. the tenergy is still ok, but this here seems to have the same problem and mine are definitely genuine ordered from www.butterfly.tt in germany.
They might look weared off, but they still play good. So....
Edit: sorry for the pic´s poor quality
 
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Thanks Suga D

Interesting indeed

In my limited 20 odd years in table tennis, and 3 years selling equipment. I have not witness top sheet letters/images falling off that much.

And now it seems to be that the most expensive brand has this problem

Really interesting.......
 
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You're very welcome. Well, i had that kinda "problem" also with my old bluefire m2, which is (as you know) a german tensor. I still have it. I hope i can post a pic of it on the weekend. And when i think way back i remember facing the same "trouble" as well with my old magic carbons and pf4s back in the eighties, when i was a kid. I guess it might be some special thumb power ;-) Nah, just jokin'. Anyway, i think it's nice that butterfly's gonna replace your padawans rubbers. Maybe you get a chance to take a look at the rubbers after they've been played for a couple of months. If this reappears, it's gotta be the treatment. :) But i guess that's been on your mind already...
 
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