Replica watches

[superkartracer]

LukeBird said:

superkartracer said:

Interesting topic and cyberfaces information is very detailed but would he have saved much time and effort simply purchasing a new watch from an AD?.

Anyway, hi-end fakes are easy to spot if you also own the real thing, i'm talking Tag/Breitling/Rolex 3k and above watches.

Take the new Tag Monaco Cal 12 with curved sapphire crystal Glass and clear caseback or the Breitling Super Avenger Blacksteel, i'd love it see these so called hi-end replicas next to the real thing, you can't copy these watches for $300 and make a profit, no chance. ~ But do believe one could be fooled be greed and not having access to the real thing to compare.

Or are we taking more expensive replicas? that cost much more.

I own tens of thousands of pounds worth of real watches and always purchase NEW limited addition models from an AD, secondhand is taking a risk for sure.

But very interested in these $300 hi-end replicas you speak of.

I think you're rather missing the point.
These decent quality replicas are like some high-end watches. If you think that $300 can't buy most of what the high-end brands are knocking out (especially as CF mentioned, those using 'generic' ETA movements) then you're sorely mistaken.
What makes you think they (the Blacksteel and Tag Monaco you mentioned) can't be copied for $300 anyway?
As much as I like 'nice' watches, most of the 'Swiss Made' tag is a load of rubbish and is just an excuse to charge a lot!

Check my image above!

Out of interest why are they *rubbish* ?

[tomirk]

It is indeed scary stuff, especially if you're not an expert. I am hoping to acquire a nice watch in the next couple of years(IWC) and planned on buying a used watch which would allow me to save a lot of money. However having looked through the TZ-UK thread and one of the replica forums, it seems there are replicas available using modified Swiss ETA movements, with ceramic cases etc. I don't think I have a chance in hell telling the difference between an original watch and a fake. It looks like buying new from a offical AD is the only way to really be sure

[sneijder]

The snide you posted a picture of is 20 - 30 quid tops from a certain Chinese auction site. The replica websites pick them up and sell them on for at least 8 times the price by the look of it.

[LukeBird]

I wouldn't describe that Tag replica as a particularly good one, there are some scarily good Submariner replicas about. And the replica guys were making the Stainless Steel version of the new 116610 before Rolex even were...

My reasoning behind my comment about Swiss Made watches is the fact that there are several watches about that are assembled in Switzerland, using in bought in movements that are labelled 'Swiss Made', that's laughable to me and they are just tagging onto the Swiss quality line to up their prices.
Tag are a beautiful example here with one of their new watches (I forget which one) which uses a Seiko movement. How in anyway is that "Swiss Made", "Swiss Assembled" maybe; also no doubt at a significant mark-up to an equivalent Seiko!
I'm not saying all Swiss Made watches are a farce, far from it! But the notion that a Chinese made watch is inferior to a Swiss made one is generally not the case IMO; certainly so if China up the QC and start making more of their own watches, rather than copying others...

But I agree with CF here and reckon that the fact ETAs are so easily copied means Swiss manufacturers will have to make more in-house movements and this is a good thing for the market!

tomirk said:

It looks like buying new from a offical AD is the only way to really be sure

Not really, as long as you're careful and check thoroughly there's no reason to be that worried.
Don't buy without paperwork, cross check the S/N with the manufacturer and speak to the original supplying dealer. Those three steps will almost certainly remove any doubt; if there still is any doubt in your mind, then walk or be prepared to take a gamble (as I have done on one occasion! ).
Buying 2nd hand from a reputable dealer is not a problem either.

[superkartracer]

The reps using original parts seems very problematic, even so.. still looking for a rep showing internal parts that matches the orginal.

That tag was on some *top Swiss* site selling for £300 odd.

Thanks for the thread above

[superkartracer]

Interesting read -

David Grome, a barrister who specialises in prosecuting cases relating to counterfeit goods. He assures me that while it is theoretically possible to say that someone who knowingly purchases a counterfeit watch is aiding and abetting the commission of the offence by the seller, buyers in the UK (unlike those in France and Italy) are never prosecuted.
This is good news for the 34 per cent of the UK population who admit to having purchased counterfeit goods. Many of us do it while overseas, using excuses like: ‘I buy abroad because that way our country doesn’t lose money on tax.’ Or: ‘It contributes to the local economy of poorer countries.’ But does it really help the locals? Or does it simply line the pockets of some very unpleasant people?
‘Ten years ago, counterfeiting was a cottage industry. Nowadays you really do see the involvement of major organised crime, with links to other activities such as drugs, prostitution or people-smuggling,' says Grome.
Counterfeiting is perceived as a fairly low-risk, high-profit crime where the professional trader can clear £1 million in a year. I’ve worked on cases where the proceeds of the sale of Class-A drugs were being laundered through counterfeiting operations.’
Most of us believe that buying counterfeit goods is a victimless crime – a bit of fun. But the conditions suffered by the people making the goods are often appalling. According to Grome, the fake Rolexes I’ve ordered are almost certainly made in the Far East.
There are reports from China of workers being imprisoned so they can’t inform on their bosses. Their families are threatened, and violence and intimidation are part and parcel of the operation. Children are often forced to assemble counterfeit watches and sunglasses as their hands are better suited to handling tiny parts.
Moreover, according to a 2003 Interpol report, the proceeds of counterfeiting have been used to fund terrorism. I’m not suggesting that by buying a fake Rolex I’m contributing directly to the coffers of Al-Qaeda, but the point is, I don’t know.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-10...

[Miguel Alvarez]

tomirk said:

I am hoping to acquire a nice watch in the next couple of years(IWC) and planned on buying a used watch which would allow me to save a lot of money. However having looked through the TZ-UK thread and one of the replica forums, it seems there are replicas available using modified Swiss ETA movements, with ceramic cases etc. I don't think I have a chance in hell telling the difference between an original watch and a fake. It looks like buying new from a offical AD is the only way to really be sure

This is what I was getting at earlier. You could I suppose tell the difference between a fake Tag, Breitling, Rolex and Omega (insert any otehr popular name) as there tends to be alot more of these about. But I've only seen one IWC in the flesh, outside of a dealer so have very little point of reference of which to check one against.

[superkartracer]

Bored and found this on Youtube, the comments are great

No one would bother doing stressful high paid jobs if they didn't get rewarded with things that destinguished them from the middle and lower class. Expensive watches are a status symbol to show other people how successful they are, it's that simple, so yes you're right when you say "all it does is tell the time".  It's like watching a monkey flash it's bright ahole at another monkey in order to showoff that its the dominant monkey. lol I still love Tag though, it's very well made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6BmfDmKVTA

[cyberface]

superkartracer said:

Interesting topic and cyberfaces information is very detailed but would he have saved much time and effort simply purchasing a new watch from an AD?.

Of course, if the watch I wanted was a current model still available new... However the fashion in watches has gone to 'huge' sizes and some of the best looking watches for thin wrists like mine are only available on the used market.

There's also the financial argument, there's nothing impressive about throwing money away and the depreciation hit on certain marques is so large that buying new is really only for the footballers or new money (or truly money no object). I feel no embarrassment in saying I'd rather pay £2800 than £8600 for a watch, and don't think this makes me 'cheap'...

superkartracer said:

Anyway, hi-end fakes are easy to spot if you also own the real thing.

This is *exactly* the point!!! It's easy if you lay the rep and the gen (to use the lingo ) side by side. But if you're in a dealer's shop pondering whether to buy... how do you tell?

BTW the Breitling Avenger Blacksteel is available as one of the most accurate replicas out there... uses same steel treatment as the gen, etc. Bad example to pick

[superkartracer]

All fair points but if you are thinking of sending that sort of $$ on a watch one would assume you know what they look like from ref material etc?

Show me these Rep Avengers and i'll compare to my sparkling Edition Limitee, how do i know it's real, well i purchased brand new from a respected AD and also tried a few on, for the discount i had i could make £700 on this as they are selling over the RRP as hard to find.

Cracking watch tho

Here's a few pics of real watches and the movements, now check against the rep pics on the net ( that tag i posted was expensive around £300 i think )

Interesting topic.

P.S. A rubbish tag thrown in for good measure also ;-)








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Edited by superkartracer on Tuesday 10th August 19:43

[superkartracer]

And the tat from the *top swiss* site for £300 $$

[Dupont666]

i asked this question when i wanted a watch and didnt want to scratch it so wanted a cheapo fake one... it didnt go down well and in the end looked at a normal watch that looked good and a decent one that was scratch proof and so ended up looking at omega.

My advice is you wont win any friends asking it and you might as well go for one for dress wear and one for everyday wear and just be careful.

[anonymous-user]

Dupont666 said:

i asked this question when i wanted a watch and didnt want to scratch it so wanted a cheapo fake one... it didnt go down well and in the end looked at a normal watch that looked good and a decent one that was scratch proof and so ended up looking at omega.

My advice is you wont win any friends asking it and you might as well go for one for dress wear and one for everyday wear and just be careful.

Just to say once again I do not want a fake watch! I just came across the sites when I was looking for deals on my chosen watch and thought it may make a good topic!

[superkartracer]

So what did you purchase Matt?

[darreni]

cyberface said:

However it's fun, and cheap. And it keeps the genuine watchmakers on their toes. I've railed against Swiss firms taking generic £200 off-the-shelf mechanical movements, engraving the rotor, giving the movement a new 'calibre number' and bunging it in a case with their badge on the dial and selling it for £2,000. That, to me, is as immoral as the counterfeiting - but one is illegal, whereas the other is just customer exploitation (most buyers don't realise what markup some of these big brands are making). It's a different argument, so not really for this thread.

Is your name David, from slough per chance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d04vfciq6tw&fea...

[cyberface]

superkartracer said:

All fair points but if you are thinking of sending that sort of $$ on a watch one would assume you know what they look like from ref material etc?

If the acid test of gen vs rep means having side by side (i.e. already owning the watch) and the watch is not made any more, and you don't already own one, then knowing what I know now I'd want to take the back off the watch. Not many dealers will be happy with you turning up with a set of tools and demanding to dismantle a watch. If it hasn't got a display caseback, as many 'sports' type and virtually all diver type watches don't, all you can go on is the look and the 'feel' of the pushers, the behaviour of the quickset date, the resistance of the winder, etc.

It's not as simple as that, most certainly not for watches which themselves are merely boggo movements in branded cases. A few choice upgrades to boggo movements will fox the counterfeiters, sure (like screwed balances on *anything* and Breguet overcoils on virtually anything, and in your case below, the G-shaped fine adjuster on the balance on a 7750, but that's *exactly* the modification the counterfeiters were working on to 'perfect' their Hublot replicas so it can't be long (if at all) before the modified 7750 is available on the market). But for the watches with normal or merely 'decorated' versions of OEM movements (Panerai are a case in point here, with the Unitas movements - available on the market freely anyway (not marked as ETA) by Sea-Gull, but there's a German chap who decorates these to Panerai spec for you to buy and put in your 'homage' if you so desire… etc.), you've got to be a movement *expert* to spot the differences.

The Tag you use as an example is a good one - it's a two register chrono, and by the looks of things it's an ETA 2892-2 with a Dubois-Dépraz chrono module piggybacked on it. I like that combination, because it's on my wrist right now It's also too expensive for the counterfeiters to bother with. They can get the clone 2892-2 from Sea-Gull but they can only buy the chrono module from Dubois-Dépraz. D-D won't sell to some Chinese firm that is impenetrable to due diligence, but even assuming the counterfeiters set up a bunch of Swiss front companies, the D-D module itself simply costs too much to make the finished rep worthwhile. Not when more 'prestigious' branded fakes can be made which use 7750 chrono movements, such as the Hublot Big Bang series, which are making the counterfeiters a killing because Hublot are high-ranking and the watches are easy to build to near-perfect spec.

superkartracer said:

Show me these Rep Avengers and i'll compare to my sparkling Edition Limitee, how do i know it's real, well i purchased brand new from a respected AD and also tried a few on, for the discount i had i could make £700 on this as they are selling over the RRP as hard to find.

Hmmm… I'm not into Breitlings much for the reasons above (however now they're making their own movements, I may reconsider) so I haven't researched them into oblivion (and I sure as hell would, if I was considering one, because they use 7750s are are popular counterfeits). But if that's meant to be an Avenger Blacksteel then I'd call it as a replica. The pearl doesn't look right, the lume spot at 3 should be *smaller* than the rest and the 6 and 9 the same size as the rest, apparently the latest development in the Blacksteel replica situation is this: note the V1 replica uses the wrong PVD technique and is the wrong colour, the V2 uses the correct (same as gen) technique and looks the same. There are a couple of tells but ***you have to be an expert, or see it side by side with a genuine watch*** to tell.



What if I were to tell you that no 'limited editions' of this watch existed, and ALL of them should have the engraved numbering between the 15, 30 and 45? There's this interesting market called 'fantasy watches' where versions *slightly* different to the genuine are instead given some neat little distinction (like different coloured segments of the running seconds, etc.) and sold as 'special editions'. If you don't know your history of 'limited editions' (because the manufactures do this a LOT - look at Rolex and the small numbers of *genuine* limited editions it does - would you know whether an old-looking Sub with more than the expected number of words in red rather than white was a rare and fantastically valuable limited edition, or something never made by Rolex? Seriously?)

OK mate, I'm not *seriously* suggesting your watch is snide but it's a 'special edition'. If I was to get the guys who sell the V2 version of the watch above to do me a special dial - nothing extreme, just maybe some modifications to the hands, colours, guilloche on subdials, etc. - and then post a pic here as a 'limited edition' Skyland Blacksteel then who, other than the hard-core Breitling experts, would have *any* idea that it was counterfeit? You wear a Breitling, presumably you have done your research - in all honesty, would *you*? Look hard at that V2 watch. The tells are there, but they're bloody hard to spot… it may be a poor photo, but the pearl in your watch looks duff, and everyone knows that *most* counterfeit Avengers have the lume dot at 3 cut in half, whereas it really should be just smaller due to the position of the date window….

I'm not supporting replica watches, but by the same token I'm *not* going to stoop to listing my collection and how much it's worth, and how much I can afford to spend on watches. All I'll say is that I didn't buy the replicas to get the watch cheap (unless you count saving money by being much less likely to accidentally buy a replica from a dealer). What you learn very quickly is what costs money in horology and what doesn't. And that, to me, is useful if you want to support the maintenance of Abraham-Louis' and the rest's tradition, of continuous innovation in the *mechanical* world.

It's just jewellery for blokes who are brought up too traditionally to wear pure jewellery nowadays, since the war for superior timing performance has been won - a cheap quartz can beat anything from Patek - but even though advances in horology aren't going to advance engineering anywhere else (save perhaps in materials science, where cutting-edge research *is* welcomed) - I want my money to go towards keeping this tradition alive. Simply badge-engineering ETA movements - which is where the industry was, more or less, until the replicas got so good the Hublot Situation occurred - is NOT what I want to spend my thousands on. And yes, sadly a couple of my watches *do* have movements based on ETA 2892-2s in them… but you can't have everything you want, I don't have the money for that

[anonymous-user]

superkartracer said:

So what did you purchase Matt?

Im torn between a Hamilton Ventura Chrono and a Raymond Weil Tango Sport! I am getting it as a graduation present from my wife so got a few weeks to decide! I bought a Pulsar Chronograph at the weekend to tide be over as my DKNY watch doesnt work! only to find the new one doesnt work either!

I will get a Tag Monaco one day!

[whoami]

Some of the self-justification here is priceless (unlike the fakes being discussed).

[cyberface]

whoami said:

Some of the self-justification here is priceless (unlike the fakes being discussed).

Who's justifying anything? I'm certainly not - I bought a couple of replicas, that's two more crimes to add to my list of criminal activities and bad habits. I'm not proud of illegal things I've done, and I don't need to justify them.

I *do* feel the need to tell people to watch (ho ho) out though, I can't think of anything worse than paying a few grand and ending up with a fake on your wrist and *not knowing* until an expert calls you out as a fake-wearing wannabe. If you know the watch on your wrist is fake - hey ho, it's your life and your call - but if you get that 'feelgood' factor from having something you've aspired to for a long time acquired at long last, only to find out later that it was all bogus, it must be crushing.

[superkartracer]

I'll respond in more detail later, but sadly you are very wrong CyberFace, all 3 of those are FAKE in that image you posted! ( the stamped font on outer bezel is also piss poor and wrong )

The real deal -

http://www.breitling.com/super-avenger-blacksteel/...

Small dot at 3? ha ha

Mine cost 4k and is very real

Cheers

Edited by superkartracer on Tuesday 10th August 21:44