A disintegrating battery

Everyone who knows anything about Lithium-ion batteries will understand the horror I experienced when I found that this battery had fallen apart in my gadget bag.

It is not a genuine Canon LP-E6 battery, although I thought it was when I bought it in 2014 - it wasn't that cheap either.  It was only when I bought a second battery from the same source in 2015 that I discovered that the internal serial numbers were the same.  It is a "very, very good" fake though - few people I've shown it, along with a genuine LP-E6, spot that it is the fake one.

I can't tell whether or not the fake battery has proper overcharge and short circuit protection circuitry, and I'm not going to short it out to see if it explodes or catches fire, but there is a lot more to a genuine Canon LP-E6.

Third party LP-E6 batteries may be a different matter (I have some Hahnel HLX-E6 once which have been OK), but be careful what you buy - these batteries come with a cover to prevent short circuits, which is totally useless if the top part of the battery casing falls off, the cause of which seems to have just been the glue deteriorating!