chinese counterfeitng

Audioquest will check this for free, have your seller ship to them before payment and IF good they issue certificates of authenticity, then you pay
IF counterfeit, AQ destroys cables....,
IF your seller puckers, consider that....,,

@tomic601 - I remembered it as a problem from some time ago when the US was attempting to negotiate trade agreements with the Far East to reduce counterfeiting-- it really gave me pause. Glad that the folks dealing with supply were screening.
As a lark, a colleague who did me a big favor on a set of NOS tubes recently sent me another set-- a pair of Mullard EF86s -- that were counterfeit, but apparently really well done, at least to the uninitiated. That’s one of the reasons I shy away from E-Bay as a source for vacuum tubes. I suspect in some cases, even the sellers aren’t aware that they are offering bogus goods.
Thanks for your post.

Yeah they make bootleg cd box sets and the real box sets lol....you get to choose $35 fake $135 real....or japanesse pressed cds. You can find bootleg for $10 fake or real for $80 ...the choice is all yours ....Beatles ,Stones ,Bowie , Led Zepplin etc.i did buy a tube amp I dare its beautiful.

@whart there is a city in China w unsavory sectors that specializes in the washing of chips and restencil w aerospace grade part numbers.....faking the provance of the chip is much more difficult and time consuming...

so for example in orbit under low G solder w tin grows whiskers, which in fairly short order, pardon the pun, shorts the chip....
running special batches with no tin for low volume is expensive, hence the incentive to cheat....

which is one reason why the firm I worked for on the really critical stuff did our own chips w IBM foundry in usa.....