The Chinatown shopper's guide to:
Shake Flashlights!
Maybe you came across one while on vacation. Maybe you live in the heart of Queens or Chinatown,
and you saw it, in its bootleg-discount store shelf. A shake flashlight. Now, I have two shake flashlights,
and know enough to tell you some interesting things. But first, a few words:
This is not for those of you that bought or saw it at a Sharper Image, Home Depot, Costco, Wal Mart, or
one of those other big-chain-dealers. If your flashlight has prominent packaging with proper grammatical
English, you probably got a real one. This site will be of no use. This site is for those of you that got or
saw one in a little blister pack with little or no text and no separate instructions. Or text that looks like it
was written by an extremely smart monkey.
To help you further identify the bootleggedness of your flashlight, here are some known packagings:
- A black box with a photo of the flashlight, horrible English descriptions on back.
- A plastic "two halves" blister package, sometimes stapled. Blue cardboard insert.
- The flashlight is clear.