A few times, I would be invited to company HQ and introduced to the product, have the stitching and design details explained to me, a lay humble scruffy programmer. I can still spot a quality handbag from miles away because of it.
The work itself was _fascinating_ to me, and spotting fakes was... obvious but only once you knew _why_ it was obvious. A couple of examples:
* (easiest) Does brand X make phone covers? Well, probably not because that would make them look cheap and accessible to all, and that's _very much not_ the point of being a luxury goods house.
* (... tricker) Are there _any_ loose stitches visible, or imperfections of any kind? If I had been thinking logically, this wouldn't be an issue. But, like the buyers, I hadn't been, and I hadn't realised that -of course- luxury goods are hand checked by many people, many times over, because... again, that's the whole point of being a luxury goods house.
While there was plenty to learn about mismatched parts - plus the joy of independent designers creating new and sometimes quite brilliantly designed new items (always a shame, some of them knew the brand styles staggeringly well) - looking at the zips that match a leather which match so-and-so design element, the examples above covered the majority of counterfeit items by far. Can't imagine it's changed that much in the meantime.
On the plus side, the factory faces a problem as the consequences of being caught are severe. They’ll often take mitigating action to try and obfuscate the source, such as using slightly different materials so eg leather stock can’t be traced. When I was in the industry, it’d be unusual for a factory to produce the exact same thing without _any_ attempt to hide.
If you’ve ever seen a dvd with the various identifiers sanded off, now you know why :)
There are of course forgeries in music instruments of high value - violins - and the ugly reality that Chibsons exist and are pieces of shit because they’re produced by a culture with serious fucking problems relating to creativity and freedom of expression and individuality.
As a beginner, I’m too much of a cheapskate to drop $9,000 on a musical instrument. I can’t even play properly or distinguish the right tones yet.
I agree with you that, at my current skill level, my ability to express creativity and individuality is limited. But I’m okay with that. For now, I just want to enjoy learning to play the music I love. I’ll consider upgrading once my skills improve.
I am not learning guitar.
Not sure about acoustic guitars specifically but for electrics there's plenty of evidence that the magic is mostly in the hands (and the brains) of the player.
Plenty of yt videos on that subject blind trials and stuff as well as stars playing regular or cheap kits.
Somebody's buying them, though.
It's very strange and a bit sad but gripping.
"I'm addicted to philanthropy." --Mark Landis
But to the degree art is an individual's self-expression, then the fake is what you want. It's not giving you insight into and empathy with a person. You might as well be in love with an AI.
I'm interested in the beauty of the painting.
But when it comes to history, fake art can pollute our knowledge of the painter and the history. While many fakes use the same typical subjects, imagine that a faker created a canvas with a different story. If this story gets injected into the history, everyone's knowledge of the painter is corrupted.
Owning a beautiful Van Gough is a pleasure to look at. Frankly if it visually fools an expert then it completely fulfill goal 1.
But if you're trying to impress others, or a buyer, then the point is not the painting itself, but rather the status it imbues. To those that value status, faked status is the worst offense.
Of course if the point is to show "I can afford to spend x million on a painting ", and you did, then forgery or not presumably you've achieved the goal.
Once you get beyond "pretty picture" the art world is completely arbitrary.
I'd be happy hanging up worthless fakes that it takes an expert to discern from original great art.
My computer "wallpaper" throws up scans of great works of art. Unfortunately, it is bafflingly hard to find good scans of that stuff. It's all public domain, what's the problem?
I am also going to present an idea for something in addition:
The beauty of almost anything is mostly emotional appeal. That song I love, the person I'm attracted to, the architecturally amazing building I see on my commute every day - they have an emotional effect. Arguably, what else is 'beauty' in our minds? What else is the effect of the harmony of certain sets of colors or shapes or representations of life, or the disharmony of others?
In much artwork, we can find a deeper emotional connection when we choose to, seeing as a product of the creator's mind and soul, one work a result of a lifetime of being human, maybe decades of exploration as an artist as well as expert skill and knowledge development, and the weeks / months / or more put into that particular vision. And we get to stand there and stare at it, at them, delving into their mind and soul. When else can we do that; when else does someone express something so deep so openly - and with such expertise - and we can examine it?
There is a wide range of choices before you reach $9K. If I'm being honest, $9K for an electric is absurd.
For beginners at guitar, this is a great time. Thanks to CNC machines, guitars at low price points are ridiculously consistent. Yes, they're cheap, but they are precisely cheap. You pretty much get exactly the same level of guitar at the price point no matter whether it was manufactured 6 months ago, today, or 6 months from now.
The downside is that you don't find the bargain "stage queen" where all the stars lined up that day to make a much better guitar than it should have been. The upside is that you get way, way, way fewer absolute dogs that are unsalvageable.
A Korean made Agile for $300 is an actually playable instrument and not garbage. You don’t play so I don’t expect you to understand. Let’s just put it in a method you can understand - Chibson is the equivalent of somebody using your picture and LinkedIn profile to apply and get hired for a job. Do you extend your excuses to that scenario?
And, sure, a master player can make any guitar sound good, but it's a lot easier for an amateur to make a nice guitar sound good.
Electrics are a totally different story. It's pretty much all about pickups, strings, and the distance between the two. Wood is almost completely irrelevant.
Basically a lot of critique on my post boils down to “well I think and feel this” with no grounding whatsoever. I’ve seen those YouTube videos and they are entertaining but substantively shit from a professional musician standpoint.
I don’t wander into Ruby threads telling people JavaScript or Python is better.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9v5e1TTwts
Audio's not ideal, but it's still him with his tone and recognizably so!
Sure Strats and, sayy, Les Pauls are noticeably different but you can still play heavy stuff on a strat with minimal adjustments (Yngwie Malmsteen for one).