Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

one of the problems with provenance these days is that they have now perfected the box/wallet/hangtag bit! And as recently as yesterday I removed a high end clone with all the box/paperwork etc that also had a suspected fake Torneau receipt 🙈 what hope has the ordinary Joe got of avoiding buying a fake when people will go to THAT level!

i envy Mrs Cyrus too, she has a gold cartier tank and a gold lady president rolex, both bought by me and she has no desire for anything else in the watch department. why cant it be that easy (maybe it can be) not frequenting watch forums would help!

I mean Fitz is right: the value of Rolex is because people are willing to buy them as a flex of status and wealth. I have a very wealthy friend who doesn’t bother winding / setting his expensive watches. He wears them for reasons unrelated to keeping time, in the end.

I am becoming fairly convinced that China is an existential threat to Swiss watchmaking in multiple ways: Rolex “super clones” getting ever better is one way this is true.

I met a lovely local watch collector tonight, really nice guy and living very near me too.
The plan was that I'd swap my Boldr for his Seiko prospex GMT.
Unfortunately, and I have no idea how it happened!
A tiny little chip was spotted on the bevelled edge of the crystal.
I've dropped Boldr an email to see if a replacement crystal can be sent out.

A nice collection, a couple of Sinn, a couple of tags and other bits.

Anyone here thinking a "super clone" is close to original needs to actually handle one of the "super clones".

It is far from cheap Citizen and Seiko not to mention +10k watch.

Yeah, face will look good, but the rest of it is absolute shite.

Since Porsche was mentioned here, likely if someone wanted to make a car look like one they could get pretty damn close in terms of how the chassis looks, but as soon as you'd grab the door handle you'd notice, same with super clones.

The entire purpose of buying something this expensive is quality, talking about gens of course, I just don't understand the appeal in clones, they are simply terrible. All without exception. Unless you have never ever handled a superb quality item and simply don't care for small details it makes 0 sense to even consider one.

People who buy them at the end of the day when they tuck it away are still tucking away a shite piece of item, spending 1k on one is like shredding 1k, it is just bonkers vs getting an actually recommended for quality 1k gen of whatever.

Also when it comes to San Martin's mentioned here, they are also mostly terrible. I mean I ordered one couldn't stand the thing after 2 days. Except the dial. I'll give them the capability of making a nice dial. But that's where it ends.

With vintage market I get it gets very tricky, but that is likely mostly marriage watches and similar stuff which I have actually nothing against, if you don't intend to auction it and it costing you a fortune, marriage of pieces is perfectly fine to me, as in buying the looks of a vintage watch.

Speaking of, reported loads of fakes on adverts recently but no one seems to be taking them down at all.

As any of the regulars here will know, you've handled more high end pieces than some of us have had foie gras ;)
Seriously though, as I mentioned earlier when WIS such as yourself and a few others are handling the fakes and finding them very close?
The rest of us are in trouble.
I posted an example of a vintage fake I came across at the start of September.

An Omega constellation that only for spending months researching them when I was buying one last year, would have taken me in completely.
The case size and the caseback medallion are what stood out to me.
The dial, the handset and general finishing of the case itself were v.good.

On the current models, the Daytona was faked well enough to take in professional dealers 5yrs ago.
I've handled a couple of the current Rolex fakes and their genuine counterparts recently.
Extremely close, especially the no-date sub!
The one I'd handled, compared to the gen, fit of bracelet, clasp and bezel action were all spot on.
The main visible difference, the finish on the rehaut was less crisp and the only other thing that stood out, was the winding action.
It wasn't at all rough, or jittery, rather with a genuine Rolex to hand too, it just felt less refined.
If I din't have a gen to hand?
I'd have just put it down to perhaps needing a service.
As @Wibbs has already mentioned, some brands such as Panerai are faked pretty much perfectly and pretending otherwise is a path to disappointment if folk don't keep their eyes open.

Panerai is actually the easiest to spot clone. Or ie. a gmt hand moving in 2h increments wouldn't be suspicious to you?

If an owner is someone who wouldn't be bothered by that fact, then yeah, I drop my case, clones are then good.

With vintage stuff it's again a lot trickier. Wibbs described the details of that well and it's problematic.

Newer quartz the same from TH where people for some reason expect a high quality item, why, beats the hell out of me.

With everything else, especially new Rolex, it's just hilarious to say the clone is anywhere near it or can be mistaken for it. And if it can, it can for a person who would mistake a Porsche after driving it for 0.8l whatever and claim the later also got them from point A to B and that there is no difference.

Clones (like any counterfeit) aim to replicate appearance, not quality. So I would assume that are using the same metals. Most likely generic 316 stainless. Ditto movements, if cloned are to look the same on the surface. Not work the same.

Though the value of materials/movement is not 9k. The rest of the price is to cover overheads, marketing, design, R&D, profit, etc. People may not see the value in those, which is ironic, because they are the factors that drive the desire to clone in the first place.

is that @Wibbs in the red frock😉