I read today that there are only 3 companies in the world that manufacture fluorocarbon tippet, and 2 of them are in Japan. If this is so, then clearly each company makes tippet for a number of brands (Seguar, Orvis, etc.) and there must be profound similarities between the brands. In fact, it seems likely that many of the brands are identical except for the packaging...and price.

I examined the fluorocarbon that I have at home, and could find no obvious differences between many of the brands that I have. This goes to items like stiffness, labeled diameter, and labeled strength for the "first generation" tippets. The new second generation tippets are clearly less stiff than the first generation products, however.

If this product overlap is real (i.e., if all the first generation tippets are virtually identical, and all of the second generation tippets are virtually identical) then it would be reasonable to buy fluoro tippets solely on price.

Can anyone confirm or refute my suspicions about the similarities (or exact sameness) of these products?