Replica watches?

Bullseye1

I know there is a sticky on the subject which is now closed. But this site appears to be up front about their product being a replica. It looks pretty good from the photographs provided. Have replicas gotten better?

<link removed>

Bullseye1

Sorry about that B. I found it interesting that they have included a mechanical movement insome of these. They are certainly better than those watches you would see on the beaches in Ibiza. I'm not condoning buying these just curious to the quality of them.

peasant

Bullseye1 wrote: »

. Have replicas gotten better?

There may also be a case for originals having gotten worse

With some expensive brand watches/models, you don't really see where all that money went, other than the name.

So it would be relatively easy for a cheaper replica to achieve the same kind of quality and finish for much less.

But once they fake the label, it's still just a fake

Bullseye1

The watch I posted had a

Asia Valjoux 7750 Automatic Movement

. It appears to be based on the ETA 7750. It was always my assumption that replicas were quartz.

Wibbs

bedlam wrote: »

Can't speak of the quality of them but certainly it seems that you get what you pay for and some of the more expensive replicas, at first (or second or third) inspection would pass for the real thing.

Yea I've seen TAG Heuer fakes that were very hard to tell apart from real. I've seen vintage Omega seamasters faked from the ground up not "marriages" or Frankenwatches. The latter is usually the problem in vintage stuff. Put togethers of old parts, or old movements in recently made cases of more valuable design. The most obvious would be the "military issued" fakes. You can take a bog standard mid 60's Rolex worth maybe 3 grand on a good day, tweak the case, new dial and military caseback markings and whammo 20+ grand. Or more. Same with JLC and IWC too. The civilian versions were more numerous and since most militaries are cheap bastids(well the civil servants funding them are):) they usually buy the cheap/mid range watch anyway.

Another prob with the vintage market are old pocket watch movements in new cases made to look old. Pocket watches are cheap as chips, unless very special(except for the Italians who go mad for them). Certainly cheaper than the wristwatch equivalent. So there's a ready supply out there. Plus they're bigger movements, but that plugs into the fashion for oversized watches today. The most popular of all are pocket watch chronographs stuck in new cases. That's a biggie. Quite a number of dealers in the US were caught out by this in the last few years. As well as a few of their famous customers. Breitling and Heuer are the charms for this. For a few reasons. 1) they're well known and highly regarded today so demand is there 2) they didn't use in house chronograph movements like say Longines or Zenith or IWC, so generic bought in movements would be "correct" in them. Of which there are a lot out there and 3) their serial number records are crap until recently and jumped all over the place so harder to pin down.

and then on the flip side you have the likes of JCB of Hublot who almost sees it as a badge of honour that their watches are knocked off and is not too worried about losing sales as those buying fakes were unlikely to buy the real thing.

Classic you could very transparently translate that as "Please to "save face" Mr Chinese person buy our watches with your new wealth. Pleeeease." Jaysus he couldn't be more obvious.

peasant wrote: »

There may also be a case for originals having gotten worse

I'd agree in a lot of cases. Most Rolex movements are nothing to write home about at all. A lot of the lower end, yet still expensive models of famous brands the same.

With some expensive brand watches/models, you don't really see where all that money went, other than the name.

Pretty much.

So it would be relatively easy for a cheaper replica to achieve the same kind of quality and finish for much less.

But once they fake the label, it's still just a fake

+1. I have no problem with "homage" watches. Usually done up by enthusiasts, usually online ones. Fakes no. Though I did have a Bolex oyster once. Just had to keep that.

Bullseye1 wrote: »

The watch I posted had a . It appears to be based on the ETA 7750. It was always my assumption that replicas were quartz.

Not any more B. Even basic ETA movements are not that expensive today. With labour and manufacturing being cheap as chips(or rice) in China you can drop that cost even more, so it's nearly as cheap to make it a mechanical if it sells for more. The other problem is China itself. Fakery and copyright rip off is endemic in the place. To the degree one would wonder is copyright translatable into Mandarin. Then organised crime in Italy and the eastern European countries get involved and it gets a bit mad Ted. Hell some fashion houses have been caught buying in clothing stick from such sources when their own stock ran out. The "copy" was that good.

peasant

and then there is the pointlesness of it all

http://cgi.ebay.de/SLAVA-CJIABA-RUSSISCHE-AUTOMATIKUHR-HERRENUHR-NEU-/130527728766?pt=DE_Kleidung_Schmuck_Accessoires_Uhren_Armbanduhren&hash=item1e640f147e

Russian Slava (Cjiaba) mechanical watch for 59 Euro

Except that it isn't Russian and doesn't have a Russian movement either.
It's 100% Chinese. Why bother to try and make it look Russian?
Just stick a fancy name on it and sell it for what it is ...at the same money ...it's cheap as chips anyway

Nolimits

Bullseye1 wrote: »

The watch I posted had a . It appears to be based on the ETA 7750. It was always my assumption that replicas were quartz.

Pretty certain I saw an Asian 7750 somewhere recently (possibly ebay) for about 30 quid, so I wouldn't put too much stock in the materials or workmanship

Bullseye1

Here is a picture of the movement in question.


Interesting subject matter thanks guys for participating. It really is amazing the Russian and Chinese can produce non replica movements much cheaper than the Swiss. Some of these pictures in the Chinese thread look very nice.

peasant

Bullseye1 wrote: »

It really is amazing the Russian and Chinese can produce non replica movements much cheaper than the Swiss.

Most of the Russian and Chinese movements are copies/variants/developments of old, mostly Swiss movements.
These (and in most cases their tooling as well) were bought in the 50's and 60's to get a communist watch industry going in both countries.
Being communist and a planned economy, these movements were mass produced in factories in huge quantitites. There is loads of old stock flying around for half nothing and some of the movements (Vostok, Seagull) are still mass produced to this day. The machines are there, they are "hungry" and need to be fed.

In the case of Vostok for example ...their quartz watches are more expensive than their mechanical ones, ex factory. Simply because the cost for producing mechanical movements is lower than buying in foreign quartz technology (and that's saying something considering how cheap quartz movements are)

THIS ikkle watch consits of a long since discontinued Russian Slava movement (the whole factory is gone) which in its heyday would have been quite expensive, a cheap Chinese housing and a fancy watchface.
I bought it for 40 Euro from a reseller ...it probably cost a tenner to make, the rest is mark-up.

Plenty of opportunity there to make a quick buck for enterprising people with access to cheap (but not necessarily bad !) movements.

Monty Burnz

Nolimits wrote: »

Pretty certain I saw an Asian 7750 somewhere recently (possibly ebay) for about 30 quid, so I wouldn't put too much stock in the materials or workmanship

I think they are probably fine - they'll be made in the same factories as the ones that go into normal, domestic market Chinese watches. I've two Chinese 6497 copies and they work fine. Interestingly(ish) one is the 6497-1 and the other is the 6497-2 - so they look slightly different with different bridge plates, and they run at different rates.

marcus1971

I have got a few replica watches in my collection as well as lots of genuine watches, there is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in buying or wearing replica watches - the only problem I have is sharks that try to sell them on as the real article.

This is the main reason why I dont understand why forums dealing with the watch collecting hobby are so down on talking about them, the advent of ebay has done more for watch collecting worldwide than any other single event ever while also providing an unpoliced outlet for conning the unsuspecting punter, yet most forums are too strict on the whole subject which restricts the genuine buyer to be easily fooled into paying full genuine article price for a cheap replica watch.

The whole replica scene requires as much time and research as the genuine one, there are lots of places to buy watches and lots of different grades of watch, but the idea that they are all quartz is a big mistake to make if you are shopping on ebay for a new purchase of a genuine watch.

I can buy for under $500 an Omega Ploprof with a genuine 2834 swiss eta movement, functional bezel lock, sapphire glass and bezel with blue super luminova rubber or mesh bracelet even the hands are anodized like the original - it is so good that without opening the case up even an ad wouldnt know it was fake.. and some would even have to pass it on to a watchmaker to get his opinion (I have even shown one of mine to a respected watchmaker who has been well endorsed on this site and he couldnt say for sure that it was a fake without me telling him), there are some that are not so good but as for Tag/Tissot/Hublot/Sinn/AP/Ulysse/Oris/Breitling and lots of others there are what are called "super reps" where they are almost 100% perfect copies, the handwind gen will have a handwound rep, the automatic gen will have an automatic rep and the quartz will have a quartz match also Chronos with seconds at 3,6 or 9 using the a7750 movement with an extra plate to adjust the subdial spacing and positions.

The Rolex sub is and probably always will be the #1 rep out there and it is always flawed, this keeps the rep community buying them over and over again...this has led to the birth of the "franken rep" where some owners have bought maybe 3 different versions of the Rolex Sub for example and have made one almost perfect rep using bits and pieces from all 3.

It is however not as simple finding one of the "recommended" replica sites and just buying one if thats what you are after,
An example would be:
I was looking for a nice 5512 or 5513 Rolex ala Live and let Die James Bond, anyone who knows anything about the Rolex Sub will know that these were discontinued years ago and command pretty high prices on ebay etc. so I decided that I would buy a replica version.

I contact "my guy" in China, rep is delivered and a quick shake and off it goes, keeps good time and looks brand new. But I know the scene with them and this will not last long, in order to be true to the real 5512 I ordered mine with the low beat DG2813 movement, which as a standard Chinese movement is more than ok, but in the rep world this will not be the case, the geartrain is painted with maroon paint to resemble a real Rolex - which will flake off and destroy the movement that had little or no oil in the first place.... the max lifespan of this movement would be about 6 months.
So I order a new movement from Ofrei in California for the princely sum of $15, but its not that simple, these watches while the components are mass produced to pretty good standards the assembly is more likely to be on someones kitchen table in a slum somewhere in China so Its out with the stem, off with the movement clamps and out with the movement and off with the hands... the seconds hand is always on reps like this crimped to fit the cannon and so breaks off and leaves a new handset needed, so its on to another supplier, this time in Thailand for a new set of "vintage hands" $15,
the plexi used in this rep is nothing like the quality of the Rolex so a new one of them is needed, off to ebay for that and a bezel spring (all parts are interchangeable with gen) another $45, next is the Crown that is the biggest giveaway of a replica Rolex, so a genuine 702 Rolex crown ordered for another $98 from the USA, the crown tube now needs replacing to fit the new crown thats going to be $22 from singapore and a tap to rethread the case another $15, now I need to open up the holes on the case to accept genuine springbars for that vintage rolex look with the springbar ends almost poking through the sides of the case, Genuine springbars $12, 1.3mm drillbits for the press drill to open up the holes another $10.
Thats all the money required now it all has to be assembled and some other work is needed, the dial, bracelet and case needs to be aged and the bezel insert bleached to look like a 40+ year old watch, the crownguards need a bit of reshaping to make the new crown fit perfectly in the centre, the endpieces need to be opened up to fit the gen springbars and resoldered...then it all has to be put together.
Total Cost: $350 (Rep was $98+shipping)
Lots of labour needed to put it all together, now its passable as 100% real unless you take off the back and see the crappy $15 Chinese movement....but when it does give up in 3-5 years another one is only $15
So the Reps while it is possible with some effort to make really nice exact 1:1 copies of older vintage models a lot of the newer or current models are really that good right out of the box, for me watch collecting is as much about tinkering with watches as owning them.

.........the only advice I could offer anyone buying watches, especially on ebay is to cover your ass and make sure there is the facility there for a refund before you buy because there are so many really top notch fakes and fake frankens out there is is impossible to tell from the pics if they are real or not........... and if you do decide to actually buy a replica and you are not skilled enough to do your own repairs be sure to have a "rep friendly" watchmaker (of which there are very few) who is willing to service it for you because it WILL most likely breakdown within a year if not serviced immediately after you get it and even though they are fakes the good ones usually run around about $500 and thats a lot to spend on what will inevitably stop within a year or two.

Wibbs

Interesting post M

marcus1971 wrote: »

the only problem I have is sharks that try to sell them on as the real article.

That's my biggest issue. The vintage area is mostly this. Though far more problems with frankenwatches rather than outright new Chinese fakes. Though of late some pretty convincing Heuer Bund pilots watches are coming out of the land of the great wall. Well convincing to a newbie. The other thing I've heard of is chaps like yourself who will put together a very good fake/homage, maybe sell it down the line and clearly state it's a fake with zero intention to defraud. Then two owners later it's suddenly genuine. I saw that with a 60's Omega seamaster fake/homage/franken. The eejit who tried to pass it off, made the mistake of trying to sell it on the forum where the original guy had outlined how he built his homage/fake. Doh!

This is the main reason why I dont understand why forums dealing with the watch collecting hobby are so down on talking about them, the advent of ebay has done more for watch collecting worldwide than any other single event ever while also providing an unpoliced outlet for conning the unsuspecting punter, yet most forums are too strict on the whole subject which restricts the genuine buyer to be easily fooled into paying full genuine article price for a cheap replica watch.

Well personally, I have no issue with discussing them in an effort to educate. The vintage forums out there discuss them at length in an effort to let the unwary know what's what. Plus the vintage market has more genuine homages which can blur the lines a bit. Maybe that's why I'm less dodgy about discussing them as that's the background I'm coming from? Maybe they're different to the "new" forums? I suppose they would be as the manufacturers aren't currently losing money on 40 year old watches that got a fancy redial.

Though that said, links to where one may purchase? That still stands as a no no.

milhous

Sorry to revive an old thread, just came across this on a quick search and I'm thinking of buying a replica. Don't feel as confident now after reading marcus1971's post. I'm just wondering if off hand without physically having the watch are either of these any good as far as replicas go and how long could one expect them to run for?

Editjust realised I can't post links, now removed! So never mind the question.