mock-up vs. knock-off

[Three Valves]

I was busy mocking up my knock off, I’m sorry, what was the question??

[bort]

A mock up is a crudely built proof of concept, to do just enough to be functional. A mockup of a tuba body with a valve block, just to see if it all fits and makes enough sense to move on.

A knockoff is a cheaply built copy, intended to take the place of the real thing for a fraction of the price, when the brand name matters to people. People know the knockoff is not the real thing, but might try to pass it off as such... like fake sunglasses, purses, shoes... tuba players don't seem quite so vain to make a big deal out of brands as a status thing, even if we do have pretty strong preferences.

[Ken Herrick]

Well put, Bort.

[Donn]

Mock up precedes, knock off follows. Hopefully with enough sales in between to cover expenses.

[Ken Herrick]

I wonder where this is headed...…………
BEWARE!!!!! If somebody tries to sell you CSO York #3, and it didn't come from me, it is a FAKE!!!
COFEVE (or was that coffee?)

[Donn]

Depends. With manufactured goods it may be easier to guess how it's going to work out, but there are also agricultural products that get fraudulently represented. Coffee that's supposed to be from Kona, Hawaii for example - somewhat notorious case where loads of it turned out to be from Colombia instead. Worse? Maybe, maybe not. Coffee is subject to many forces of nature that aren't really reliably accounted for by whether it's in Kona or Colombia; the best from the worst region is likely better than the worst from the best region. So the counterfeit could easily have been superior drinking quality. (Also, don't buy a bag of coffee that's only 10% Kona origin - there's no way that could be worth any extra money, unless you just get a charge out of doing it because makes you think about lovely Hawaiian maidens with ukuleles and stuff.)

[windshieldbug]

Knock-off hubs...

[hup_d_dup]

Different industries use this term in slightly different ways.

In advertising, a mock-up, also spelled mockup or mock up, is a non-functional product used to pitch a concept design, or in later stages, to photograph a product or product line previous to rollout. Mockups built for photography are partly or fully built by hand, and because they can be highly detailed are sometimes very expensive and may far exceed the price of the final product they are designed to simulate.

Many years ago a full line of mock up televisions was stolen from a photo studio in Manhattan. The thieves didn't notice that the TVs were unusually light, and they didn't know that what they had stolen was, to them, worthless.

Hup

[NCSUSousa]

mock-up - We occasionally work with contractors to do cardboard mock-ups of spaces we're designing. This is a full-scale build, but with cardboard instead of real building materials, so it's completely non-functional in the traditional sense, but quite functional as a design tool. It gives the owner/users a chance to walk around with tape or markers and indicate where they want to change light switches, outlets, furniture, etc.

knock-off - not the same as counterfeit. A knock-off can be a legit copy that functions just as well as the original if done correctly. A true knock-off will have it's own brand while mimicking the original. A counterfeit will have a false copy of the original brand logo and exists only to make $ off of the original brand's reputation. Example from golf - top-selling Scotty Cameron Putters are mostly knock-offs of Ping's original 'Anser' design, but made from machining a piece of stainless steel vs the original casting method. Scotty puts his own name and 'design' (paint and such) on them, so they're not just facsimiles. There are also counterfeit versions of Scotty Cameron putters available online. They look almost perfectly identical to the real ones, but are made with lower quality (lower cost) materials.

[Three Valves]

A knock off is only a counterfeit if the knocker offer intends to deceive, passing it off as genuine.

Otherwise, it’s just a knock off.

[Donn]

... in which case, the incentive to meet or exceed genuine quality is pretty low, right? The reputation comes with the name, which belongs to someone else.

[Donn]

With a "counterfeit" (illegal, typically), the incentive to fool consumers could be fairly high.

Sure, but the means by which one may fool the consumer are many, and quality manufacturing isn't the one that comes to mind. To me, that means 1) high level of consistency, so that each (for example) tuba of a particular model is fairly similar to the next, and 2) time and money is spent on details and materials that may not be immediately obvious but contribute to the function and longevity of the item - not just glitter. You're going to do that only if you have an ambition to be a particularly sought after counterfeiter, which seems improbable.

[MN_TimTuba]

[quote="bloke"]so - in LIKELY order of quality from lowest to highest...??

> mock-up
> knock-off
> facsimile/counterfeit

I'm wondering whether "copy" could fit in between knock-off and counterfeit. A tuba that's a copy of a Hirsbrunner or a 2341 or a 186 (all of which are out there) could be a pretty fine-playing tuba, at either a lower or a higher price point, with maybe a modification or two based on the copying company's idea of improvement to either the playing characteristics or the price point. It's not intended to fool anyone, whereas a counterfeit has deceit implied.