Have There Ever Been Fake Koetsu?

A number of years ago I saw lots of K’s on Ebay with gold pins. At the time, all K came with silver pins, or so it seemed. Also some poorly made bamboo boxes. @mulveling would know if these were genuine.

@terry9 Some (most?) of the older Koetsus really did have gold pins. My vintage Musashino Onyx has gold pins - technically I think these were produced (in part or whole, not sure) by Musashino Audio Lab for Koetsu. Today, Koetsu treats them as Koetsu all the same.

For the vintage models, there are so many variations, that beyond a smell test you really need a Koetsu historian (more than me, I top out at "enthusiast" lol) to know what you’re wading into. Hearing that old Onyx for the first time is one of my top 3 most vivid audiophile memories - it was absolutely amazing, and I have no doubt it was 100% original, but alas its stylus was worn and it was showing very poor tracking performance on inner grooves! Now I have it as a hybrid of old and new style Koetsu (modern Onyx coils, cantilever, and stylus, but kept original magnets). I can tell you the modern Koetsu guts are much more detailed & punchy sounding, and the new Platinum magnets are smoother and warmer to balance that out. Ah, but those old coils surely did have some sweet magic in them. 

The older Koetsu cartridges did indeed have gold pins the newer ones have the silver colored pins.  I have tried the older ones with the gold pins and while they sounded good I prefer the newer ones as stated better detail and dynamics, the rolled off highs and flabby bass that you read about is hogwash these cartridges to me lack for nothing.  My other favorite cartridges are Jan Allaerts MC2 and Haniwa HCTR-01 for reference.  You can’t go wrong with a Koetsu…

The reply from mulveling is why I stay around this forum. Thank you for your time and effort to make all of us a little, or in my case here, a lot, wiser on this subject.

Btw, thanks everyone for positive feedback on the pics and my experience with Koetsu :) I've been meaning to take more of my cartridge collection. 

Nothing else quite does midrange like a Koetsu!

@mulveling Thanks for the awesome pics and insight. Always a treat to read your commentary.

Can you recommend a Koetsu that will work well with a ClearAudio Performance DC with the Tracer tonearm? I'm pretty sure none of the stone bodies are compatible due to weight.

(and taking into consideration that the current TT will get upgraded eventually, either to a higher end ClearAudio OR the Technics SL-1000RE-S).