This is just a quick one to give everybody a heads-up about fake products targeting the Camping / Bushcraft market …
I noticed how there are about 3 different companies online in marketplaces such as ebay selling titanium cups, spoons and sporks as well as cooking pots / billy cans, at a very low price. The first advert that caught my eye was a three piece Tomshoo Branded bundle that was a 700+ ml cooking pot, a 420ml drinking cup and a folding spork – this was going for £23!
Luckily for me, all of these were sold out when I had the extra money to buy some more gear, so I opted for the Tomshoo 420 ml cup (as I was getting tired of lugging around a normal coffe type mug) and to save money, I found the Lixada 750ml Cook Pot / Billy can (which as side-folding handles to use like a mug and also a hanging handle for over fire cooking – and a lid).
Long story short, I put some water in the 420ml to boil for my coffee, minutes later there was a horrible chemical smell and I saw the bottom surface of the cup looked like something was melting off of it. Titanium is actually quite expensive to produce and so, £12 for a seemingly well crafted camping cup is very little and I don’t believe you could actually make any margin on that …. They spray painted the cup to the same colour as titanium!!
I happen to own a very expensive titanium cooking set which took me three years to pay off via installment, the cost of one pot alone is quite staggering and I have also been educated on the uses and advantages of titanium products over iron, stainless, non-stick and aluminium.
Titanium happens to be the only metal allowed inside the body due to non-contamination – it is used in bone repair (screws), implants (dentistry) and even pacemakers. It is the only metal that we can cook on that will not give off heavy metal contamination – purchasing my cookware was purely a health-conscious decision.
I own two products from Tomshoo and two products from Lixada (both Chinese brands online targeting the outdoors / camping arena). So far I am happy with the Lixada products and consider them actually very suitable and high quality for the price that I paid. In regards to Tomshoo, the 420ml mug was a big dissapointment and the Wind breaker is quite flimsy, but seems to be doing the job so far. Lixada seems to have a titanium range that looks very similar to the Tomshoo, they are similarily priced and I have a feeling that it may be the same result as the Tomshoo so ….
It you don’t have the budget yet for Titanium Camping gear then just buy the Stainless Steel Lixada equipment and maybe a Zebra Billy can until you can fork out the higher amounts for the Titanium stuff!
I bought the 10cm wide, 750ml capacity Lixada Stainless Billy can / pot as my main drinking mug and I deliberately went for the 12cm Zebra Billy can so that my Lixada can fit into it when packing away as my Lixada folds down to 11cm wide due to the hanging handle. Both together with delivery costs came to around £25+-.
Bushman AllOutDoors 