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Counterfeit Olympus BLN-1 batteries beware

Started Jun 27, 2014 | Discussions thread
Klarno
Klarno Veteran Member • Posts: 4,239
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Might be worth noting that sometimes battery designs can change without notice. For example: I just bought a new Sony NP-FW50W battery for my A3000, directly from Amazon (not a third party seller) and this battery has changed versus the one that came with the camera in the following ways:

Lighter (42g instead of 57g). Casing for the battery has a little more "give". Instead of an insertion direction arrow, "i" glyph, infoLithium and "W" glyph silk-screened onto the battery in gray, the same design is engraved into the battery in black. Anti-counterfeiting hologram, sporting Sony, L, and some sort of code. End of battery has a label in Japanese where the one that came with the camera has no label here. The package says ©2014 and doesn't raise any red flags compared to other Sony packaging quality.

Now, just to add to the body of knowledge about the BLN-1 (because that's what we need to effectively fight counterfeiting), here's some things about the two BLN-1 batteries I have:

Both say Cell made in Japan, further processed in Indonesia.

The battery that came with my E-M1 has the second sticker printed in Japanese. The spare I bought has the second sticker printed in French/German.

The package that my spare arrived in (purchased directly from Amazon) looks identical to yours on the front, but there are differences in the back print.

They're close enough in weight by feel that I don't feel a need to dig out a scale.

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Sony Alpha NEX-6 Olympus E-M1 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4-5.6 R Olympus 12-40mm F2.8 Pro +9 more
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