TLDR Watch out buying a counterfeit and illegal copy of any code book.

Yesterday at a jobsite a good friend and electrical contractor I have known and worked with for decades had bought these Hardcover NEC 2023 Handbooks for all his electricians. About 50 of them.

He said he found them online at Walmart for around $30 bucks each for the regular code book and around $50.00 each for the handbook. They also came with a copy of the current 2023 Ugly's and code section tabs for the books.

If you have been in this trade for any length of time, you know the true cost of code books from the publishers = very expensive....

He let me take some pictures of the book so I decided to share them with you in case you have never seen one of these copies before. I took quite a few pics outside on a porch at a jobsite so they are not the highest quality.

Let me start by saying they seem "off" and here's the biggest things I noticed.

1- The pages seem thinner and feel like they will won't last long and will tear pretty easily.

2- The coloring, highlighting, and print are not as clear and crisp, with many that are blurry.

3- The binding feels junky. Kind of loose and it seems like it's ready to separate, although it's new.

4- The tabs feel cheap and have sharp edges on them.

5- The tabs move around and don't stay in place well.

With that being said, here's a couple of questions for you.

1- Have you ever bought or owned one of these cheap books?

2- If you have, can you tell the quality and how well has it held up?

Lastly, we took about 15 minutes to try and find any missing pages or sections and we couldn't.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments.

Be good 👍

This is absolutely not an advertisement, and in no way do I advocate buying or using counterfeit and illegal books. Bad idea....