Grey Market lens? What is fake?

I bought a grey market lens (nikon 18-105 ed vr). the box on it is just plain white. is this normal? did i buy a fake nikon item?|||There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to what Nikon will cover and what it won't. I live in Australia, and often travel and work in the UK, parts of Asia and the US. I have NEVER had a problem with warranty with regard to Nikon, no matter where I purchased their equipment - the same with Canon. I have had equipment fail while traveling in other countries and the Nikon warranty has always been honored at the nearest Nikon branch.





Possibly because Australia has some of the world's toughest trade practice laws with massive fines for companies who try to circumvent them. The laws are based on "What a reasonable person would expect" after reading any advertising or warranty material - not exempted by any amount of fine print. If any product has "Two Year Warranty" in clearly visible lettering, it must live up to it, even if they say "At our discretion", or "Conditions Apply" in fine print.





I would not for one moment consider purchasing any product where the warranty was not valid whilst traveling overseas. This is what is on the warranty insert for my last two Nikon purchases, one purchased in Melbourne, the other in Japan





PRODUCTS COVERED BY WORLDWIDE WARRANTY





All Nikon Film Equipment (listed below) are covered by one year international warranty(otherwise stated).





* Compact Cameras [35mm]


* SLR Cameras [35mm]


* APS Compact Cameras [IX240]


* APS SLR Cameras [IX240]


* Nikkor Lenses


* Nikon Speedlight


* Film Cameras' Accessories


* Binoculars





They have an offer of a two year extended warranty, but if you accept the offer, your warranty then becomes a two year local warranty. After reading the conditions of the extended warranty I have not opted for it.|||As above ... Nikon USA will not touch it if you need warranty work.





The item is not fake, it is the exact same lens as the the Nikon USA lens, but you got a deal.





If you have a problem, you have to deal with the seller or in a worse case scenario, you will have to ship the lens to an International repair location and deal with customs and pay with an International money order.





These "deals" are usually not worth it in the end ...|||A grey market lens is the same as the one with US warranty.





It was made to be sold outside the US and is not covered by Nikon USA if something goes wrong with it.





You may save a little money on buying one of these, but consider that you may have to use the store's own warranty (a 3rd party) instead of getting it repaired by Nikon, it may not be worth the saving.|||One thing that may not be clear from the previous answer... the lens came off the same assembly line as the USA warranted version, but was not intended for sale here. So instead of going to France or where ever it was supposed to go, it ended up in the US of A. It isn't fake, or any different from any other Nikon 18-105VR. Only the warranty is different... in that you don't have one.