Why You SHOULDN'T Buy A Balisong Clone

Today it's finally happening, we're talking about the taboo subject of butterfly knife clones! I'm going to cover the history of clones as well as the ethics, and what alternatives you might be able to buy instead!

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Director of Photography: Brandon Baker

"I'm a clone... are clones bad??"

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:55 Should I buy a clone?
01:19 Starting Simple
02:15 Why Do Clones Exist?
03:57 Are Clones Bad?
04:46 I've Bought Clones.
05:49 I Have Alternatives!!

[WillHirsch]

I think this needs to be said:

Do NOT shame anyone for buying clones. There is no reason to do this and at I said in the video, buying clones does NOT make you a bad person.

Harassment of people because of buying a clone is silly and will only serve to put the person off the community as a whole instead of helping.

Yes, it's better to buy the real thing. BUT, many people get into the hobby because of clones and its important to recognize that, and the fact that those people often them go on to buy the real thing later.

[OneThousandTerabytes]

I've bought clones not because I can't afford the real knife, but because I can't fucking find it for sale.

[haloc]

I have a clone, here's why: I live in the UE. I've been considering buying a squiddy until I found out shipping costs where half the price of the balisong itself and that it would have required me to wait a month to get it delivered. Other avaliable entry options that I picked were (with reasonable shipping costs):
- Bear and son, absolute trash (30€)
- Boker plus, but it gets a lot of play very fast (I bought one of them: very small balisong, not a great flipper for 50-60€)
- the Amazon balisong, you know which I'm talking about. That is decent

In the end I was tired of spending money in absolute fucking garbage (even tho legit garbage) so I decided to buy the kraken clone (40€), the absolute best fucking thing ever for that price (look it up yourself), this thing should be sold at 100€.
So my question is:
-why do I have to spend 50€ for a trashy but legit balisong when I can buy a mid tier clone for that same price? I mean, the legit Krake Raken is priced 250€ and it's not even available bruh. The clone costs 5 times less and it's slightly SLIGHTY LESS good.

- Also, WHY THE FUCK companies like BRS and Squidind. don't upscale production and rent warehouses in THE EU so we Europeans can buy their balisongs for a humane shipping price?

Clones are the only avaliable option in the EU if you are looking for a good flipper and it's not out fault.

[randomnico]

yeah most of the "cheap" knives you mentioned are definitely not cheap outside the US and not easy to get at all

[bromomententerprises]

There wouldn’t be a market for clones if official balis were accessible for everyone to buy. For now with high prices and immediate sellout times, clones are a good deal

Does it really affect the companies profits if their products are always sold out within seconds? It's not only a matter of affordability but a supply problem.

[pilgrim_eater]

You have forgotten (or haven't thought) about the fact that for the people not living in USA most of the og balisong models are A LOT harder to get (none of big knive shops ship outside US, also still many people don't speak english well or at all so they can't communicate with sellers or proxies) and A LOT more expensive (shipping, proxy, duty, currency converting, different living standards). Also shipping from abroad is really risky and usually takes months

[izumi]

In latam a 200usd knife is exactly a minimum wage. and that's without the taxes. in argentina those would be +65% and 50% of anything higher than 50usd. that considering it is in first place something not illegal to import. the community doesn't end in the first world and clones certainly are the only reliable option to have anything better than a ccc in some countries like mine.

edit: IMAGINE A SQUIDDY COSTING LITERALLY 150USD

[aromaz]

It’s officially confirmed in the will hirsch canon that Brandon is being cloned in the millions

[foofoobabyz]

This is some solid, well-researched advice! For people who live in the US.

[staragmait]

The thing is, let's say you have a budget of 50 dollars and that's the only money you can spend on balisongs for a while. For me even 50 dollars is quite a bit of money so if I have two options one being a plastic trainer, and second one being a metal live blade (clone), even though I don't wanna "support" the industry of cloning I will rather buy the clone, because it's just a better option and a deal for me. Maybe I won't buy clones in the future, but clones are really useful in the sense that they allow a lot of people to get into the hobby (such as me, and yourself). This comment isn't supposed to hate on the video, in fact I agree with most that was said, but I just wanted to say that to some people the clone is still better than an original product at the same price.

[thehomiejw]

just because buying clones are bad for the actual company doesn't mean i'm obliged to buying over priced products.
not to mention some of them get sold out in seconds.

[wacontse]

I'm on board...except for BM4X Clones!! To quote Will from his 2019 Collection video - "I would feel bad about owning this clone, but with BM4Xs, I don't really care. BM could absolutely rerelease the 4X series anytime they wanted to...the giant company BM could definitely do it but the won't, they never will, and I don't give a s**t anymore!!!" Well said, Sir!!

[alexmiller]

It's not about the money for a lot of people. I was willing to pay up to 300 dollars for a Krake Raken. Looked for months. In the used market, they're sold within minutes if not seconds, and they're basically non-existent in the new market. The "drops" they do are not like the other hobbies where it's essentially a pre-order and they can make the amount of units ordered. It's more of a "we have this many units you better have good internet and keep your finger on the f5 key" I bought a clone, and do not feel one bit bad about it. For the one I bought, it's not that far off of the original, and I ultimately DID save money. I will, on the other hand buy one when the supply can keep up with the demand. Artificial demand is truly a thing, and I do think a lot of these companies do this to keep prices high. As I said, I WILL support the company who originally designed it, but in the meantime, I am going to have fun with my clone until supply catches up with demand.

[joshchu]

And thus I told my friend, don't spend 150$ buying that channel titanium thingy that resembles a DDR designs, here, you can have my used gen1 CS AA for only 999.95$!

[moslimislam]

Stealing is bad! I have to admit I have been flipping since 2017 and almost all my knives are clones. They are still the best option if you live in Europe.

[timothyprescott]

That intro had so much energy, I actually jumped😂

[grusive]

Maybe people wouldn’t buy clones if companies actually made enough to go around without them selling out in 1 second

[bigbrainflipz]

Will Hirsch one yr ago in his bali collection vid: I will be making an in depth video about clones in the future

Viewers: finally, we have been waiting for one year for this

[lazi]

A couple of points:
Balisongs are unfortunately forbidden in many countries and clones can often come with a trainerblade.
A lot of good knives are sold out almost all the time, so the companies don't seem to have issues getting enough money off of their knives even if production is slow.
I don't mind clones as long as the companies don't sell them as "the real deal" and I can see myself buying a clone to check if I like the design in general (Handle shape, tang vs zen pins, bushings vs bearings, etc.). Copying a good idea is a compliment. I rather buy originals but without that cheap CCC I wouldn't have gotten into the hobby.

I tried to buy from Atropos once but there was no opportunity to ask questions about orders and custom stuff and the little communication there was was in Russian. Their knives really look great.