Can you spot a Fake Klon Centaur pedal?
Counterfeiters are making Fake Klon pedals and asking vast sums of money for them
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Can you spot a Fake Klon? It turns out that there are currently a lot of fake Klon Centaur pedals being sold by unscrupulous sellers via auction sites. These faked pedals are being sold for big money and now Bill Finnegan, inventor of the original Klon overdrive pedal has waded in via Instagram.
Can you spot a Fake Klon?
The Klon Centaur overdrive is one of the most famous boutique overdrive pedals and is now very sought after. As it is no longer in regular production the prices have soared high in recent years. Prices on average can go as high as $5000 for an original Klon Centaur pedal and sometimes even higher.
The original Klon Centaur pedals were produced by hand in quite limited numbers, in both silver and gold versions, with or without a Centaur graphic. Each pedal also has a handwritten serial number on the circuit board inside the pedal. Plus, the original circuit board was covered in an epoxy resin gloop.
Occasionally, a new one is released for a special occasion to help raise money for a good cause. But on the whole, the original Klon Centaur can be considered out of production.
Fake Klon? Yes
Expensive Fakes
Now, because of this serious increase in used prices and the lack of new pedals coming up for sale, it looks like many fake Klons have become to surface online and some have sold for large sums of money.
There have always been a lot of cheap fake Klon pedals for sale online, but they were obvious and usually sold for well under $100 apiece. But now it would seem the appeal of making large sums of money has pushed the professional counterfeiters to up their game.
Bill Finnegan the man that built and designed all the original Klon Centaur pedals has now released two images of fake Klon pedals accompanied by the statement below via his official klonllc Instagram account.
Spot the Fake Klon
How To Spot A Fake
Bill hasn’t shared more than the two images above and won’t say exactly how he knows that these pedals are fake.
The reason for this is that if he tells potential buyers what to look for, the people counterfeiting these fake Klon pedals will only get better at faking them.
This will make it far harder in the future to spot these fakes.
The real Klon Centaur
Ask Bill
My advice if you are going to buy a Klon from an unknown source with no comeback, would be to contact Bill first and send him some images of the item for sale.
The Centavo is a great legitimate Klon clone and well under $5000
Klones
Alternatively, buy a modern recreation and don’t worry about losing potentially thousands on a counterfeit Klon pedal. As there are lots of good high-quality clones of the Klon available from reputable pedal builders.
These come in at various price points and will give you just as good a result as an original. Plus, some of these modern-day legitimate recreations take the design even further, making them even more versatile.
Below are a few of the Klon-style overdrive pedals that I would recommend. As you can see, some of these pedals offer a lot more functions and more importantly all of them cost way less than $5000.
More Information
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- Fake Klon?: Instagram/klonllc
- Spot the Fake Klon: Instagram/klonllc
- The Klon Centaur, perhaps the most sought-after OD pedal ever.: ArtBrom/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.0)
- Centavo: Claudius Grieger
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One response to “Can you spot a Fake Klon Centaur pedal?”
I don’t think this silver Klon is a fake. It looks like a very authentic Klon. I’ll ask Bill.