crystalcranium

The expensive one I'm obsessed with getting that I decide we can't afford.

No offense taken Your enthusiasm is the reason we continue and prosper.

My only comment is that making a list of near perfect replicas and prioritizing them by listing faults probably doesn't serve the replica collector's mantra of "All reps have flaws, find one with flaws you can live with" very well. I myself know that often when I find a flaw, it becomes magnified and if allowed to get out of control, can spoil my impression of a piece. I understand you wanting to get a handle on the best of the best and quantify that by a list of transgressions from the ideal, but that really wasn't the spirit in which I started this thread. This was meant to be an uplifting exercise celebrating the virtues of our finest examples of the replica state of the art. Or something to that deep meaningful effect

Homophobia lives even on a watch board!!!!! Is the topic that some designs are masculine, some are unisex and some are feminine??? Sure they are. Are colors considered masculine and feminine??? Of course. But I have gay friends who sport stainless Rolexs and straight friends who wear colorful Corums so....who knows and who cares Dont ask about the watch and dont tell Any guy sporting a genuine $30,000 Breuget dress watch is a stud to me.

Hey...not that there's anything wrong with that.... An Omega Planet Ocean an "outing" watch???? Don't think so. A Piaget.....maybe!

Yeah, the world's full of "experts" out there. I had a collegue at work take my Breitling GT in his hands with a skeptical look. He turned it over and smugly said, "This is a fake. If it's a Breitling, how come it says Bentley on the back?!" (He managed in his hubris to overlook "Swilzerland"!) "WOW, you are a sharp one!!! You got me there!!" I told him to check out the line of Bentley watches on the Breitling website and he could come back with an apology after lunch. Humbled, he slinked back with an apology and reverence for my GT. "God, I'm sorry, that's a beautiful watch. Can I see it again?" He held it like he was holding a robin's egg. Since he didn't ask me directly again if it was a fake, I had no need to offer the information. He now refers to me as the guy with the incredible watch. EXPERTS

Ahhhhh thanks. Safety in crazy numbers!!

There's something under addressed and that is the remarkable reliability and quality of Seiko and other Japanese movements. I agree with you Ubi, they are in house movements, high quality and if thew were Swiss, we'd be singing a different and louder tune about them. I think they are very under appreciated. These 17 and 21 jewel powerhouses run very accurately when adjusted and are Klingon Warriors giving many years of maintainence free service. I have a Seiko 17 jewel automatic that runs +- 15 sec/day, is 13 years old and has never been serviced or adjusted.

Sounds normal....I feel like a freak already!

When I get a new watch, it usually sees about 2-3 days of constant wrist time as I can't bear to let it out of my sight but my usual watch wearing scenario is a selection in the morning for work, then a change for the evening so...at least two seeing wrist play on a daily basis, although there are times when 3-4 changes a day isn't unusual. Where do you rank yourself on a frequency of change scale. 1. Hyperactive. I'll change watches for every concieveable situation in the day, work, play, church, cooking etc....I usually loose track of how many times a day I change my watch. 2. Troubling. Several times a day but not obsessionally. 3. ADHD but on Ritalin. I change watches on average about 2 times a day, usually situational based, one for day activities and one for evening. 4. Daily. I select a watch for the day and wear it all day. I will switch sometimes for situations but on average, I change daily. 5. Several times a week. I'll wear a watch for 2-3 days and then decide to select another that I'll wear for another 2-3 days. Usual use id 3 per week. 6. Weekly as a routine. 7. I wear the same watch ALL THE TIME. My other watches never see wrist time. I guess I'm a 3 with 2 potential.

Would LOVE to see high quality reps of Oris, Sinn and Fortis but I see the desireability/price issue for the replicators. The Oris Artillier Chronos are beautiful watches. I agree, the Tags fall into the grey zone of why not save the cash for a little bit longer and get a genuine but still, $275 for a great looking, 99% replica of a Link Chrono sure beats $1500 for a genuine.

I only own one replica Rolex, the obligitory SS Submariner. I can tell you why I buy replica watches. Two basic reasons. When I buy because the driving force is that the reproduction is so close to the original, I almost have the feeling that I am getting an out of this world bargain. I own three watches that are so close, no one would dare challenge them. They have a total genuine value of over $12,000. It seems like a no brainer. The other reason is driven by appearance. Seeing something that is absolutely gorgeous like an FA Jones and never having a prayer of owning a $10,000 solid gold piece, I have the opportunity to own something reasonably close for 1/100th the price. I don't own fakes to fool friends and co-workers. People, in my experience are much more impressed and facinated by the dark world of high end swiss movement copies and their procurement than they are by what they consider to be the frivolity of spending thousands on a wristwatch.

I guess raw, "lay it down on the counter top and lets look at it" appearance is a more basic need that "function reproduction" but I still wouldn't rate a watch that had non-functioning chrono subdials that were spot on over one that had some minor flaws but had the chrono function.

Great answers guys and gals. Some observations. No Rolex's, no Pateks. I can understand the "Make me 10,000 cheeseburger's to go" nature of Rolex copy production in China undermining the availability of very good reproductions but I would think there would be more of a demand for very good replicas of luxury brands like Patek and Vacheron. I would love a simple, elegant, 1:1 copy of a PP, but after a year of looking, there isn't a replica out there that comes close to being accurate. The FM Conqui is a terrific hidden gem.

Like Neil says, "Any idiot with a freshly stamped credit card can take a ride to a high end mall and put himself in Rolex class." The judgements about class and affordability really dont apply in this price range. Now, if you walked in with a 9/10 replica of a VC, no one is going to think it's real. The guy running around telling people you have a fake Rolex needs to be taken down a notch or two. A Sharpie and a few well chosen rumor fueling scrawls inside the mens room should shut him up!

OCD alert!!!! Can't put on a fresh new watch for the day without hacking it to www.time.gov. The fact that it's off by 5 seconds or so by the end of the day doesn't bother me but I've got to hack it at 5:30 am or I'm not comfortable with it. Zoloft, lithium, Paxil........Maybe I should look into it. I was just wondering if this is common among collectors or is a time obsession different from a watch obsession?

I agree. Non functioning flybacks and repeaters are a fatal flaw for me as well.

Good God man, get that perfect replica off that brick and put it on a feather pillow where it belongs!!!

I think there's a kind of personality who walks around waiting for someone to comment on what they are wearing. Actually, it reminds me of a funny story. I had a friend/roommate who came home home work one day wearing a sweater that looked like it had every color in the rainbow in it, like a Jackson Pollock painting. He normally changed out of his work clothes at the end of the day but this day he sat like a paint splattered peacock on the couch. Finally he asked me if I was going to ask him about the sweater. He proceeded to tell me the sweater cost an outrageous amount of money and was designed and produced by a computer program and that he was a little dissappointed no one at work had commented on it that day. I noticed and mentioned to him it looked like the product tag was on the outside of the back of the collar. "Maybe you wore it inside out all day?" "Oh Jesus, I did!!!" he said. The sweater was only slightly less ofensive turned right side out. He wore it to work again the next day awaiting questions and praise I suppose. He came home without it. "Where's your Jackson Pollock original?" I asked. "No one said a word about it so I took the [censored]ing thing back and got a refund" What a pompus ass.

I didn't intend the thread to spark the knee jerk "do your own research, we don't just give away the keys to the kingdom around here" reaction. I just wanted to get a variety of opinions on the highest fidelity copy people think is available to us today. The thought process that goes into "Who has the best replica" is a much more subjective one. Something that I think is aesthetically beautiful but only a 90% accurate copy might take preference over something that's a dead on reproduction but just isn't my style.

I was thinking about what I would buy and sacrifice a little accuracy for looks, and what I would buy for accuracy, even though it's something I wouldn't necessarily want otherwise and I've decided.......I'm nuts! One good thing about an obsessional collector's hobby. The hangover from the climax from the latest splurge of disposable cash will pass to soon be followed by the next "gotta have". There is one watch though, in my collection, that I think is the pinacle of replica accuracy. That watch is the Tag Heuer Link Chrono, blue dial. Yes, some small flaws, but I think it's the closest to the ultimate as it gets. I hear lots of questions here about Who has the best .......???? but what I'd like to hear about is what's the best replica available out there today in terms of accuracy out of the box??? Not the most modifiable, the most collectable, the most bang for the buck, but what is the best one to lay down next to a genuine in a side by side and say "Which one is live, and which one is Memorex?"

Most of the veteran buyers here know what to expect. All reps have flaws, buy one with flaws you can live with. That statement covers the full spread of deviations from perfect and all expectations. I am willing to buy beautiful, and elegant but not perfect but for a tool watch, I want as close as possible to the genuine.

That's interesting. Thanks for the post in the general discussion section. I voted for the SH and have not visited the polling thread since and would have not have been aware of this deletion. Can those of us who voted for it make another selection?????

My advice is to buy a genuine if you can afford it. I tried many combinations on my GT, aftermarket, BOB with genuine buckle....but nothing looks as good as my leather, heavily stitched genuine I picked up for about $130. And a non-genuine is a dead giveaway.

I agree, the blue/stainless is a beautiful combination. I have owned two of these. Unfortunately, they were both pieces of junk and neither is in existence today. One flew off my wrist and down a flight of concrete stairs when a bracelet screw came out and the crown fell off the dial of the other just before the stem broke on the asian movement.