Surprise Spectra Line on the Cheap

One of my favorite stupid hobbies are shopping for deals on Fleabay.   Over the years I have purchased several large spools of Spectra and Dyneema line under different odd labels from Chinese Manufactures / Sellers.     I stumbled onto a good number of auctions for "Spectra Braid" giving very few details other than color, strength rating and yardage.     Not much info from the one auction photo though for some reason the box looked familiar.




 Ordered a couple of spools because of the cheap cost of $12.50 for a 300 yard spool or about $10 to $15 less per spool of equal length basic Power Pro or Tuf Line.

After the typical "Slow Boat from China" wait,  I received a package and was surprised at what I found within.  I ether received spools of Power Pro, or the most amazing counterfeit version that you could imagine.   I pulled out a couple boxes of Power Pro that I bought at Sports Co.  years ago and I can not see a single difference.     Inspected the line and again I can not tell a bit of difference in diameter or feel.



I was stumped since I had always thought, due to it being stated on Power Pro's packages, that it is made in the USA.    I did a little research and found that Power Pro aka Innovative Textiles Inc. was purchased by Shimano.   Perhaps Shimano is having it outsourced overseas    

Just for fun, I have been doing some Red Neck Scientific Testing of tying 10 foot lengths of locally purchased line with a equal length of the ebay line.   Taking that now 20 foot length of line,  I have been using it for Tug-a-Wars between a fence post and Quad while finding that it is pretty much a tie regarding which breaks first.  Spooled up a reel with the stuff and if feels exactly like the local bought stuff.   

I thought I would throw it out there as this might be good for those that want to save same money on braid, yet feel better in sticking with a major name brand.   

Nice score! I should probably dust off my ebay credentials start snooping around.

Careful, there are many stories on the internet about counterfeit Power Pro being sold on Ebay.  I can neither confirm nor deny these stories other than the existence of them.

-Allen

Thanks for the heads up.   Since my first thought was counterfeit,  I should have done some Gooogle-ing myself.    As you stated,  I did find several different forums addressing the subject.   Even found this which gave good info on how to tell the difference

http://www.tackletour.net/TTForums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=30243

The boxes seem to pass the test,  but I no doubt just received the updated Fake boxes that address imperfections missed on their first run .

I was a little disappointed to here that the QC of real Power Pro is suspected to be questionable.

Since these auctions never claim the line to be Power Pro,   I guess I can't hold that against them.

Again,  thanks for the heads up as I was tempted to pick up a few more .