Identifying Old and New Genuine Cherry Red Esc Keycaps?

[litster]

Just took some macro pictures of old an new genuine Cherry red Esc keycaps.  2 new ones from EK and 1 old one from a limited run for a Chinese Cherry keyboard for a pro-gamer team.





I notice something that is different between the old and the new.  Not a definitive way to ID old vs. new.  But if we get more pictures of the under side of these keycaps and other Cherry double shot keycaps, we might be able to either confirm or dismiss the difference as a way to ID.

Now, can you tell which one is which?

[jeroplane]

Original Cherry used more cross-hatching on their 1st shot

[kmiller8]

Also the E isn't as crooked as some of the $5 ones are.

[jdcarpe]

Yep, the center one is the "original."

[jeroplane]

Collected other images from around GH and DT. At this point I think we can confirm the distinction between the two.

Original Cherry (tsangan)
Original Cherry (squarebox)
Original Cherry (Ascaii)
Original Cherry vs. EK (dirge)
Original Cherry Beige vs. EK (dreamingftw)
EK (WhiteFireDragon)
EK (Acanthopis)
EK (razorsharpgears)
EK's promotional photo

[litster]

 in my pictures, the center one is the old one.  on the picture of the underside of the caps, the old one has a horizontally rotated G on the edge of the cap.  The new ones have a vertical G. 

Picture of tsangan's old one (horizontal G) and WFD's new one (vertical G) show the same thing I see.

I checked a couple other Esc caps.  A German pad-printed blue Esc and a Dolch Esc both have horizontal G.  All other old 1x keys I checked have vertical G.

So far I only see other non-Esc keycaps and the new red Esc keycaps have vertical G.

Not enough to say one way or the other yet.

[litster]

Found a few more Esc keycaps and other top row caps.  Every Esc cap except one black Esc and the new red Esc caps have a horizontally rotated G.  The first dark Esc is a white on black.  The secon dark Esc is a Dolch.





Definitely not definitive  :-)

[noisyturtle]

The Cherry one is the one you pay $250 for. That's the difference.

[jeroplane]

So you don't think the cross-hatching is enough to comprehensively identify new from old, litster? The difference in that respect seems pretty consistent across the range and since we can safely assume that the original ones were made in a single batch, it is unlikely that any original key would have the "new" 1st shot cross-hatching as seen in the EK Red Esc and a few of the other key caps in your image.

[litster]

The Cherry one is the one you pay $250 for. That's the difference.

Do you know that for sure?  Do you know how much I paid for mine?

[litster]

So you don't think the cross-hatching is enough to comprehensively identify new from old, litster? The difference in that respect seems pretty consistent across the range and since we can safely assume that the original ones were made in a single batch, it is unlikely that any original key would have the "new" 1st shot cross-hatching as seen in the EK Red Esc and a few of the other key caps in your image.

Yes, the mesh pattern is probably enough.  I am more surprised to see markings under the caps in my macro shots than anything else.  I didn't know about the markings until today.

[Shadovved]

The Cherry one is the one you pay $250 for. That's the difference.

Do you know that for sure?  Do you know how much I paid for mine?

$5?

[dirge]

posted on deskthority litster but I've checked and what you've found is correct at least in my case.

[linkz]

Even though there's a way to identify the old red cherry, I don't think that's enough to salvage the price with the $5 version everywhere ('o' )

[singaporean123]

The Cherry one is the one you pay $250 for. That's the difference.

Do you know that for sure?  Do you know how much I paid for mine?

$14

[AriesX]

Fonts different.

[remmeh]

I didn't realize the E was so slanted on the $5 replicas...

[rowdy]

The biggest question is whether you could still sell an original one for $250.

[hashbaz]

Fonts different.

I didn't realize the E was so slanted on the $5 replicas...

These are not replicas, they are literally the same molds that Cherry used, unless we are totally mistaken about GMK.  My understanding is that not all Es on the new escapes are slanted like this.  There are a lot of variables to executing the 2-shot process that might be at play here.  Maybe Ben will come in here and enlighten us.

[litster]

The biggest question is whether you could still sell an original one for $250.

I don't think that is the biggest question.  But the answer is an obvious no.  Really, why would anyone pay that much for a keycap, now or then?

I am more interested in what those underside markings really mean.

[rowdy]

But people did pay that much for such a keycap in the past.  On more than on occasion.

These days you would need to be absolutely certain you were getting the genuine article to even consider paying that much for one.  If the originals are even worth that much, now that the market is flooded with new ones.

[litster]

Like Hashbaz said earlier, they are all genuine.  Just very slightly different.

[rowdy]

Perhaps "original" would be a better word than "genuine".  With the implication that the keycap was part of the first limited edition batch.