The StarWalker Resin is one of the most difficult cases: seen from the outside, original and copy are practically impossible to tell apart, either as a whole or with the cap unscrewed. In the photographs of an internet auction the fake cannot be spotted at all. Only in a direct comparison with a guaranteed original do the differences emerge.
The floating star in the cap is the first dependable feature. On the original it cannot be brought into direct focus — it sits beneath the plastic dome and therefore appears optically offset. On the copy it focuses sharply, and it does not have the typical Montblanc shape but looks more like a dented circle.
The second most important feature is the clip. The underside of the original clip carries the lettering “GERMANY metal Pix”; on the copy it is missing. The original clip is stamped, while the copy's clip is bent from a single piece of sheet metal — which is also why it lacks the internal stamping. Where the clip runs into the clip ball, the copy shows a distinct edge, whereas the original is smooth.
Third, the clip serial number: on the original it sits to the right of the clip and is burned in with a laser, which is why it looks grey. On the copy it sits on the clip itself, is barely visible and appears pressed in. As a rule of thumb: any marking that looks pressed in rather than burned in belongs to a fake.
Further pointers: the surface of the barrel feels distinctly duller on the copy. The section of the original is darker and its stamping crisper. When changing the refill you notice that the metal part of the copy is longer — Montblanc only fitted that long version in the early days. On the examples examined, the refill and the gift packaging turned out to be copies as well; the star on the box did not look like a star at all.
