How to tell a fake ic! berlin

There are many reasons why consumers want to buy a fake product. One of the most important reason is the price. However, many consumers who purchase fake eyewear  can obviously afford the real stuff but they feel that “it’s not worth paying such a high price when I can get the same thing for more than 80% off the retail price of the real stuff”. On other hand, some consumers may be duped into thinking they are buying the real stuff from unscrupulous sellers because they can’t differentiate between the real and the fake. So how do you tell a fake ic! berlin ?

  1. If it’s so cheap, it’s most likely is fake. For example some website will advertise that retail price is $580 and their price is only $169.99 .
  2. Some sellers claim their ic! berlin are authentic but you can’t find the same models in the official ic! berlin website . For instance, the frame color looks weird and the temple sleeve and nose pad color combination cannot be found in the official website.
  3. The quality is usually quite poor. This can be seen from the finishing and the temple cannot be removed smoothly. The frame weight may also be heavier because they cannot cut the sheet metal as thinly as the real ones.
  4. The frame and model etched onto the temple is exactly the same as the real thing but it’s not branded ic! berlin. One very popular fake ic berlin is ic! merlin.  At least they make it known to you that you are not paying for the real stuff.
  5. The temple sleeve and nose pad is a dead giveaway. If you have seen the real ic! berlin, you will be able to differentiate the real from the fake by just looking at the nose pad and temple sleeve. They put a lot of effort in copying the styles but surprisingly not the temple sleeve and nose pad.
  6. Fake ic! berlin nose pads spoils easily and come off easily over a short period of time.  The same can be said of the temple sleeve. Replacement temple sleeve and nose pads that are “compatible” (ie not original) with ic berlin frames are in our opinion quite poor in quality.
  7. Fake ic! berlin do not have anti reflection coating on the back of their lenses and they tend to chip off easily on the edges. FYI, the replacement lenses can cost quite a lot.
  8. If you buy your ic! berlin in Germany, can it be fake ? We have customers showing us their ic berlin (which they claim is bought in Germany) that does not look like the originals. The finishing and point 5 above gave it away.

When you buy from the internet, you will have no way to tell if they are real or fake because you can’t examine it . In order to avoid buying a fake product, get it from authorized and reputable retailers. We hope the above list is helpful when making your purchase of ic! berlin frames and sunglasses.

update Feb 2018

Here are some pictures that we took from a fake ic! berlin. Fake ic! berlin can come various finishing. Some are very high quality while some are dead giveaway that it’s fake.  Below is one of the variants,

fake ic berlin

the above shows the wordings are printed rather than “lasered”. you can feel the textured wordings on a real ic! berlin.

fake ic berlin (1)

When we remove the nose pads, we further confirm that it’s fake. Although we must say that some nose piece from fake ones look like the real ic! berlin.

The hinge clips looks different. The black one is the fake.

The above fake ic! berlin shows that the hinge cannot be opened to remove or insert the lenses.

The above is an example of a C or D grade copy of a real ic! berlin.

fake ic berlin

We know eyewear is cheaper in Malaysia.  At current exchange rate of $1 SGD to $3 Malaysian Ringgit, the above ic berlin frame translates to a price of about $200 SGD. It’s almost 3 times cheaper than you buy it in Singapore. Should you buy it ? For $200SGD compared to $600SGD, it’s a no brainer right even if it’s a fake ? (refer to point 1 above in this post). We can tell you that if it’s fake, it’s not even worth that much, negotiate for a cheaper price.

1st published July 2014