There are large online communities dedicated to collecting, modding and wearing fakes (they call them replicas
) very similar to us here on ATG with shaving. Easy to sell for minimal loss in the BST to fellow fake enjoyers.
I was about to comment on the strangeness surrounding that part of the internet - then I remembered where we hang out.There are large online communities dedicated to collecting, modding and wearing fakes (they call them replicas
Here's one of the larger forums: New tab (replica-watch.info)
Also a popular subreddit: The place for replica watch discussion (reddit.com)
The fact that you can spend real watch money on a fake is just insane.I have some experience with these...
All sub £100 replicas use the Chinese 2813 movement which is a Chinese clone of the Miyota 8215, if you get a good one they are a perfectly accurate and reliable budget movements which can last years without a service... The issue is 50% of them leave the factory either dry as a bone or with some mechanical defect which means the watch doesn't run correctly out of the box or dies within a couple of weeks.
Once your budget increases to £100-£200 the replicas contain genuine Miyota, genuine Seagull and Asian ETA clones. ETA used to have factories in China, so the Chinese know exactly how to produce the movements. The materials are worse than genuine ETA and the quality control is nowhere near what you would find in a gen Breitling etc, but they are reliable and any watch smith can service or repair them.
At around £400 they contain genuine Swiss ETA movements, only issues are how they procured and stored them which is always an unknown.
£500+ They contain replica Rolex and Omega etc movements known as "superclones" which are theoretically no different to the real deal, only made in China with less than stellar QC
Such is the strength of quartz, even a cheap quartz movement is going to be accurate and reliable short of immersion, actual abuse or just getting unlucky. I know mechanicals get most of the love in the watch nerd community but my favourite is a quartz and its accuracy and ruggedness are two of the things I love about it. Ultimately it's a tool watch and in the purest sense of the term quartz makes the most sense.
Spend $15 more and get a Casio MDv 106 or the new 107.
Actually, I have a 106. I wear it from time to time. I don’t consider it one of my knock-offs.
I do completely understand your standpoint, but I have room in my (extremely small!) collection for both mechanical and quartz, I appreciate the benefits and drawbacks of both. My favourite watch is the CWC SBS diver, in a way I'd prefer it if it was mechanical but as it's a military-issue dive watch mechanical just wouldn't make sense for its intended purpose. The appeal to me is that it's form following function, it's designed for a very specific job so it also has fixed strap bars, which is obviously limiting but they're there for a reason and I like that. If I was buying a dressier watch it'd be mechanical all the way. I'm also a fountain pen user. As to cars, when I had my MX-5 I absolutely wanted the manual and on a twisty B road it was glorious, but my current car's automatic as I spend most of my driving time schlepping to work at 45 mph in a queue of traffic. Which is sort of my rambling way of saying that, for me, there is a time and a place for the more modern but less mechanically interesting version.
This sort of reasoning I don't understand. Realistically I'll never own a Submariner, but if I buy a fake one I still won't own a Submariner.Bizarrely my fellow Op has a £5K Tudor and a £12.5K Rolex and is tempted by a fake AP because he’ll never afford one of those
