cybertek

Sorry for revitalizing a 3-4 year old posting. This is such a great thread. I'm here now in GZ as we speak and I'm taking out a couple of thousand yuan to spend.. I'm still in the noob phase so I can't really detect all the subtle nuiances of the good reps and bad. I have a couple of reps that got shipped at home when I flew out. I'll shoot some photos of what I find. I've been to the mecca 3 days.. just window shopping but I'm gonna make the big purchases tmrw. Man! You start to zone out after a while.. I don't even make eye contact with the vendors anymore.. they are a faceless bunch of people. I just see counters. I saw a real tourbillon that I like. I think it's just a fantasy watch but they are sooo sexy to pass.

That seems to be the MO of Chinese made products. Take hand tools for example.. yes it's damn cheap. Anywhere from 1/3 to 1/10th the price. But if it breaks then you are sh!t out of luck because there's no one to service it. Same with the (Chinese) people that sell the stuff, they'll undercut each other and make very little profit but there's never any post sales service. Luckily everything I've read about Narikaa seems good.

Seems like they have the workforce and the tooling. They're about 75-90% there. Now they just need to give a sh!t Use better metals for stuff, polish sharp edges, not leave lettuce and pubes to get to 100%. It's a whole shift in mentality. If they started today it may take 20 years or more but when it does.. they will be unstoppable. Better brush up on my chinese. Nee how mah.

FYI I was reading in another forum this guy PrestigeWatchCo (Robert) had access to a guy/factory that made uBer highend reps but they went for $$$ (1k-2k). Yikes.

Bottom line? The factories don't care. They are not driven craftsmen .. they want to make something they can sell you, and spend the least to make it as is possible.

Why develop and produce a clone ETA 7750 or 7753 movement with 200 internal parts but never clean them before installation so that they arrive in your watch full of metal chips, HAIR and LETTUCE LEAVES? (not kidding here)

Hmmm I'm very interested in the UPO 42mm version if and when that ever comes out. I saw the original posting 10 months ago claiming it was due out. I wish the UPO 45mm would work but I'm afraid it'd look like a small White Castle hamburger on wrist.

Clearly I'm not in the business of making knock offs but if I was, I'd have the genuine next to the rep and keep on tweaking it until it comes out perfect. Why is it some damn hard for them to get the rep closer to 100%? I can understand imprecision with manual calipers and micrometers, but this is the digital age, with digicams.. especially with CAD/CAM and CNCs. I doubt they read these forums and take in our feedback. Maybe I can be the great communicator that bridges these gaps! I'll be like Nixon (of the rep world) and start a dialog.

Or maybe I'll just stick with a cheap noobmariner that narikaa offers and wait for this UPO 42mm.

Hope I can get it in < 2 weeks time to bring with me to Guangzhou so I have a baseline of what is good.

The POrikka is a great 42mm starter rep, but is only available in Asia 21j movements, not the better Asian ETA clone copies or genuine ETA. The A21j series are good movements but suffer terribly from hit n miss QC .. you either get it and it runs great or you get it and it sucks. Buying from Narikaa in this case is a plus since he hand picks his reps personally in Asia.

FYI the 45mm Planet Ocean version called the Ultimate PO (upo) accepts all gen parts. You can slap on as many real Omega parts as your wallet lets you until it's just a replica case and movement .. all else is gen.

Thanks guys,

I've got my eye on the Planet Ocean 42mm. Seems to be a nice common "starter" rep. Owning both genuine ETA Valjoux 7750 and 2824-2 I'm curious how the Chinese made versions hold up. Maybe a Panerai after that..

Guangzhou is actually on my list of places to visit during my trip. Thanks for that link. Haggling comes second nature to me so I have no hesistations about doing it. Plus it's fun (for me at least)!

Just thought I'd say "hi". Canal Street watches just weren't cutting it for me as I see the level of quality on these reps are top notch by comparison. Also my doctor buddy just bought himself a Patek Aquanaut 5065 against my protest. While its nice and elegantly understated, I'd sooner put that towards a car. So in my searches for a knock off.. I stumbled onto here.

I typically like to collect Orient and (Accutron) Bulova watches because they are quality budget watches. And Bulova is a New York native like me, although nothing is really made here anymore since being bought by Citizen. Big fan of automatic watches in general because it's as complex as a car engine shrunk onto my wrist.

My next big purchase will probably be an automatic tourbillon when I take a visit to Hong Kong in 2 weeks.

I'd like to buy some reps while I'm in HK as well but.. I could use some recommendations.

The pics looks really sharp and well shot.. but am I the only one that sees some chips in the slots on the caseback where the wrench goes. I realize $400 bucks is a lot less than the 15-25k for the real one. Is it unrealistic to expect something a little closer to perfection?

My friend just bought the real thing.. and I wanted to get one to bust his balls a little for spending what he did