Counterfeit Nickent 4DX Hybrid from Hurricane Golf

[Clambake]

I read this thread last night after a day of spending hours on the phone chewing out a significant vendor to our company for their screw ups with our product.   They're undergoing financial difficulties and have been cutting back on QA and even were substituting cheaper materials on our product.   After the butt kicking we gave their CEO and other execs yesterday, I suspect there are a few more people unemployed in the UK this morning.

Which brings me to my speculation (which is what we're all doing here) on what happened here with the OP's club.    Since Hurricane Golf professes to be legitimate and it is sort of doubtful a company would go to the trouble of counterfeiting Nickent clubs, I suspect that Nickent themselves were making last ditch efforts to save their company as it was going under and they began substituting cheaper materials in their products in an effort to cut the red ink.   Steel alloys cost a lot less than titanium, and since changing the head materials wouldn't be apparent to most golfers I'll bet Nickent directed their suppliers to slash costs wherever possible.        This theory also fits well with Hurricane's indication they bought the lot from the bank trustee - these would likely be some of the last product produced by Nickent, and they were throwing everything overboard they could find to keep the ship afloat at the end.

[bugeye]

Originally Posted by Clambake

I read this thread last night after a day of spending hours on the phone chewing out a significant vendor to our company for their screw ups with our product.   They're undergoing financial difficulties and have been cutting back on QA and even were substituting cheaper materials on our product.   After the butt kicking we gave their CEO and other execs yesterday, I suspect there are a few more people unemployed in the UK this morning.

Which brings me to my speculation (which is what we're all doing here) on what happened here with the OP's club.    Since Hurricane Golf professes to be legitimate and it is sort of doubtful a company would go to the trouble of counterfeiting Nickent clubs, I suspect that Nickent themselves were making last ditch efforts to save their company as it was going under and they began substituting cheaper materials in their products in an effort to cut the red ink.   Steel alloys cost a lot less than titanium, and since changing the head materials wouldn't be apparent to most golfers I'll bet Nickent directed their suppliers to slash costs wherever possible.        This theory also fits well with Hurricane's indication they bought the lot from the bank trustee - these would likely be some of the last product produced by Nickent, and they were throwing everything overboard they could find to keep the ship afloat at the end.

Your assumption is that Nickent as it was, actually had something to do with these products. Wasn't this stuff turned out by some Chinese giant OEM golf manufacturer? I suspect the latter, and if true, anything could happen!  Based on the small sampling of my magnetic 7 wood it isn't junk that is being sold as Nickent and I suspect the factory is, or was, making unauthorized product out of what they had left. The OEM factory probably expended a lot of resources gearing up to make quality products for Nickent, and they would have a loss based on the end of this business that they would seek to minimize by cranking out some fproduct, yes?

I recently saw a chinese copy of a product that was far more complex than a golf club, had never ever been manufactured offshore, and only had a market of about 20K per year, so don't underestimate what these Chinese criminal copy cats will take on or what a small market they will exploit. In the case of my guess, it would be pretty easy for them, what with the production line and the tooling and components on hand or easy to order more. The Chinese gov looks the other way on these matters while speaking out against it and blaming our system for all the worlds problems.

Anyway, that's another set of speculation, but it makes sense since we are still seeing quite a bit of new unused Nicket on the market.

[Clambake]

Originally Posted by bugeye

Your assumption is that Nickent as it was, actually had something to do with these products. Wasn't this stuff turned out by some Chinese giant OEM golf manufacturer? I suspect the latter, and if true, anything could happen!  Based on the small sampling of my magnetic 7 wood it isn't junk that is being sold as Nickent and I suspect the factory is, or was, making unauthorized product out of what they had left. The OEM factory probably expended a lot of resources gearing up to make quality products for Nickent, and they would have a loss based on the end of this business that they would seek to minimize by cranking out some fproduct, yes?

I agree there is a lot of the black market product such as you indicate, but I don't think that is the case here based on the statements from Hurricane that they purchased through the bank trustee.   An OEM making black market product would be selling through distribution and retail and not have a stock which was owned by the bank and later purchased.   The bank seized the inventory owned by Nickent and would not even been aware (or care) about black market clubs built by the OEM.

Originally Posted by bugeye

I recently saw a chinese copy of a product that was far more complex than a golf club, had never ever been manufactured offshore, and only had a market of about 20K per year, so don't underestimate what these Chinese criminal copy cats will take on or what a small market they will exploit. In the case of my guess, it would be pretty easy for them, what with the production line and the tooling and components on hand or easy to order more. The Chinese gov looks the other way on these matters while speaking out against it and blaming our system for all the worlds problems.

Yeah, I agree it is pretty much out of control there.   I used to run a company and we built two factories in China for our products, so I spent a lot of time there and the rest of Asia, and I've served on a couple boards and panels concerned with intellectual property and business in Asia.    I've found an amazing array of counterfeit goods in China, including many brands of golf clubs different from the usual Callaway, Taylormade, etc.      One thing I've seen in the markets, though, was that they tend to counterfeit goods that are pretty popular or have strong name recognition in the US, Japan, and Korea markets, so even if a brand doesn't seem popular in the US if it is popular in Japan or Korea you'll find it well counterfeited.    I've never seen Nickent clubs in my many visits to those countries, so I still think it fairly low probability that they were copied for essentially just the US market.

[newtogolf]

The world watched as China took over the majority of manufacturing for it and now we're paying for that decision.  The Chinese government doesn't care about patents, copyrights or trademarks as long as they get their cut.  Once something is sent to a plant in China for fabrication there's no way to prevent the company from producing fakes and selling them on the internet.  This is happening with golf clubs, watches, clothing and footwear.

While it's possible that Nickent decided to make the clubs out of substandard materials I doubt that's the case.  More likely the Chinese decided that since Nickent was going out of business and not manufacturing any longer it was an opportunity for them to continue to sell clubs without competition at the same prices that Nickent was charging as there was no reason to be cheaper.

[bugeye]

Maybe 4dx clubs have magnetic faces, the company I got my wonderful -cheap magnetic 7 wood from says that  the faces brazed titanium to steel, and the allow of stainless used in golf clubs is magnetic, based on how well my club works I'm guessing it isn't a fake. Do any of you have 4DX clubs and can you check that the faces aren't magnetic? We only have the hearsay that the original poster had some non magnetic 4DX's.

[mountainmisery]

Nickent, when it entered bankruptcy proceedings, was using a minimum of 4 foundries and stuck them with well over 70,000 heads, cumulative.  They used both major (Sino), mid (Performax) and low-end foundries.  Each of these foundries made heads solely on the instructions of Nickent and there was no "independent" design work going on by the foundries other than like all foundries, if they come up with something innovative they will produce heads with no markings to show Nickent and other OEMs.  At the foundries, as well as at the Denver-based warehouse, there were 3DX, 4DX and even a few thousand 5DX hybrids, all of which are in the US and being sold through various internet portals.  I got a look at the legal documents as a company with whom I am affiliated pondered acquisition of the brand and inventory.  Believe Dicks overpaid for the brand but they were competing with Nickent's former South Korean distributor, which had heavy financial backing, for ownership of the brand.  Dicks owns Golf Galaxy which owns Golfworks.  Not sure how much of the new design work is being performed by Maltby's guys because the guys at Dicks who are responsible for design work for the other brands, did not want to turn much, if any, design work over to Maltby and lose control of the process.  It's a turf thing.

[LBlack14]

I don't buy that it's "counterfeit" and Jason and DTG are top notch, PERIOD!

[18thbunker]

Hurricane Golf is a good outfit. Customer service is top notch, items bought from them are all good.

[luu5]

Originally Posted by bugeye

Maybe 4dx clubs have magnetic faces, the company I got my wonderful -cheap magnetic 7 wood from says that  the faces brazed titanium to steel, and the allow of stainless used in golf clubs is magnetic, based on how well my club works I'm guessing it isn't a fake. Do any of you have 4DX clubs and can you check that the faces aren't magnetic? We only have the hearsay that the original poster had some non magnetic 4DX's.

What I have read (as I have no 1st hand experience), none of the fakes are 1:1 to original product, i.e. lookwise. What about these?

[Up & Down]

A fake Nickent club ? Who in the world with any brain left would do that ?

[18thbunker]

Great point !!!

Originally Posted by Up & Down

A fake Nickent club ? Who in the world with any brain left would do that ?

[bugeye]

I have now used a magnet on the crowns of 3 4dx hybrids and woods that I own, and I found that the magnet stuck to the crown in all cases, however it stuck with less force than on the face, implying a thinner steel and seemed to have a nearly non magnetic section toward the center back. Nickent said the crown was thin titanium brazed to steel so it being magnetic is no problem. The 4dx driver is titanium all over though, and the magnet will only stick to the weights in the back.

So, I think the original poster took us on a fictional chase.

[bugeye]

Originally Posted by Up & Down

A fake Nickent club ? Who in the world with any brain left would do that ?

Agreed, but I don't lose much sleep worrying about my Acer's being fake either, as I know they are fake.

[Jmdmbike]

A fake Nickent club ? Who in the world with any brain left would do that ?

[quote name="18thbunker" url="/t/47387/counterfeit-nickent-4dx-hybrid-from-hurricane-golf/18#post_658980"]

Great point !!!

[/quote]Agree. Gotta believe if you were in the fake club business, you're gonna go with the big selling brands. My golf partner and I both carry 4dx hybrids. Don't see too many of them around - Nickent was never a huge seller from what I've seen.

[NuclearMike]

Believe what you want, but magnets don't stick to my 3 or 5 hybrids, only the 4,   The company took care of me when I wasn't happy, and I don't think that they even knew what they had.

Regardless, I think it's time for this thread to die a peaceful death.