Seven Sins of Agarwood Fraud & an Avoidance Checklist

High prices breed fraud. Knowing the common plays is your best defense. Systematic methods and cases are in the Identification pillar.

Seven common plays

1 Oil injection: low-pressure oil to add weight and scent; 2 dyeing/aging: shoe polish or pigment faking dark old wood; 3 fake sinking: injected then artificially densified; 4 grade-passing: Sinitic sold as Hue-an; 5 story-spinning: fictional "millennia-old" or "temple" provenance; 6 fake certificates: Photoshopped or bogus labs; 7 kyara-counterfeit: ordinary material as a prized variety.

Avoidance checklist

① Smell: natural sweet-cool, no perfume? ② See: resin naturally distributed, no brush marks? ③ Touch: moist or clammy? ④ Weigh: sinking is unrelated to resin — don't overpay for it. ⑤ Certify: demand verifiable third-party testing and provenance. ⑥ Price: far below market is a red flag. More in Chinese Incense Studies · Authentication.

Mindset

Don't chase cheap, don't chase stories, trust only scent and evidence. Keep the Encyclopedia as a desk reference to build judgment.

(This is industry observation and popular-science summary, not investment advice. Buy agarwood through legal channels with traceable, testable sources.)