Genuine or Fake TB ALC?

Rollko wrote: One thing I find puzzling is the serial number on the bottom right - in the originals I own it's well printed with a deep grove, with zeroes having a diagonal line. In the TB ALC in question, it's quite shallow and not as distinct, with zeroes having no diagonal line. Why would this be?

First of all: The Timo Boll ALC you have is genuine.

The reason why the serial number of your Timo Boll ALC has no diagonal line crossing the zeroes is because the blades are from different eras (according to the starting letter of the serial number the TB ALC is from 2009 and the Spirit is from 2016), so the Timo Boll ALC is older than the Sprit. The Sprit also has the newest silver tag on the bottom of the handle (the blade was likely produced shortly before it was discontinued) wheras the Timo Boll has an older silver tag. Back then the blades with the older silver tag also had slightly different looking fonts, hence the missing diagonal line crossing the zeroes...Butterfly changes "minor" things like that every once in a while.

Take a look at some pictures of the Timo Boll ALC from about ten years ago (just scroll down a bit...):

That particular blade also has no diagonal line crossing the zeroes