teddy boy

I saw the price in the catalog with my own eyes. When my friend found the asia 7750 he asked me to guess the price. I said, oh what, $75, $100. He responded, no, $16 and showed it to me in the catalog. Maybe it was a sale, maybe the movements are garbage, but I did see the price. The $16 movement price did shock me. It was the piece of information that really made me rethink the notion that you can't produce a quality rep for under $200 and was thus the piece of information that prompted my initial post. The same catalog has similarly low prices on a 26 jewel "rolex style" movement. I don't know rolex movements well enough to know if or when they had 26 jewels. I share that to point out that the asia 7750 wasn't the only suprisingly cheap movement. As an economist, I understand the importance of scale economies in sourcing these parts. I would think that for the more popular reps it would be easy to make the numbers necessary to exhaust all scale economies and incur costs comparable to the prices I saw in the catalog.

I am an economist and fully agree that an item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. As I said previously in the thread, my post was motivated by the assertion earlier this year that you can no longer manufacture high quality reps for sale at the prices that existed a couple of years ago. Without calling anyone out, various collectors were making this claim in their forums. Based upon what I saw and also the points that you made, a more accurate statement would be that you can't sell at those former prices and earn the profit margin that you're seeking. My point would be that the higher prices of replicas are probably more a demand phenomonon rather than a supply (cost)driven event. The greater demand likely being due to the combination of a booming economy at the time and greater access to and knowledge of high quality reps. It will be interesting to see what happens to retail rep prices as the worlds' economy slides into a severe recession.

The motivation for my post was the claim earlier in the year that the costs of high quality components has gotten so high that it's no longer possible to manufacture a high quality rep for sale at the prices we were paying a couple of years ago. My quick look at the catalog suggests that the facts just don't support the notion that you can no longer sell high quality reps in the $200 range and make a nice profit. I realize that rep manufacturer's incur certain costs related to the sale of an illegal item. Whether those costs justify the apparent margins is a subject open to debate.

There are lists of rep scammer sites at various places around this site. You should read those lists before you buy anything but you need to realize that just because a site isn't listed as a scammer, it doesn't mean that they're ok. Scammer sites breed like [censored] roaches. Personally I would spend my hard earned with anyone who is not one of the recommended sellers by this forum. Although there are clearly quasi legitimate sellers that aren't recommended here, there is just no way of knowing and the number of scammers greatly outnumber the number of quasi legitimate sellers. I say quasi legitimate because we are talking about the sale of a counterfeit good here.

My experience is that it almost never comes up. Close friends and some people at work know of my interest in reps and they will sometimes ask, but it's not by way of busting me. Generally it's because they're fascinated by the quality of reps. I always tell the truth to these folks. Knowing that I own both reps and gens, some people are interested in seeing if they can tell the difference. If I was ever asked by a stranger my response would be, "it's a real watch", which is absolutely correct and truthful. In all likelihood my rep would be a better watch than the $70 seiko he would likely be wearing. Personally I don't think you owe someone rude enough to ask a stranger that sort of question the truth. And btw, the number of people out there who can spot reps of the quality that we buy is very very small.

I am an avid cyclist. The bike shop owner and I have become good friends, he is also a watch lover. In his bike shop he sells large numbers of watches, heart rate monitors and bicycle computers, all of which take watch batteries. Because he buys watch batteries in sufficient quantities, he has an account with one of the leading wholesale companies. I meant to remember the name of the wholesaler but frankly I don't do details like that very well. My friend recently became interested in buying a rep Patek Philipe so I showed him some rep sites. That led to a discussion about whether it is possible to build a watch of the proported quality and sell it at the prices that the dealers recommended on this site charge. My friend said, "well, let's see", and pulls the catalog (which I previously didn't know he had) off the shelf. After looking at the catalog, I can assure you that it is possible to build watches of the quality claimed and make a profit. A few of the prices that I remember are sapphire glass crystals for around $12, asia 7750 movements for $16, 316 stainless watch cases for $10-15 and 316 stainless braclets for $10. These prices were for relatively small purchases quantities, in some cases quantities as small as 1 provided the overall order met some minimum dollar amount. While it is true that these prices were generally for generic watch parts or replacement items for specific high demand gens (such as rolex), it would seem that the rep manufacturers are producing in sufficient quantities to get these prices or lower for parts manufactured to rep a specific watch such as a case to rep a sub or a particular PAM. Adding the prices of the components together, it appeared that you could manufacture a pretty high quality watch at a material cost somewhere in the range of $60-80 from this catalog. Again, it would seem that the rep manufacturers are paying these wholesale costs or less even for the parts to rep a particular watch. Given where the watches are made, the labor costs wouldn't add much (percentage wise) to the cost of the parts. So my conclusion is that it is definitely possible to make a profit selling high quality reps at the prices advertised. That, of course, doesn't mean they actually do it since you could make a bigger profit selling junk at those prices if you're able to dupe customers into believing that the items are high quality. Before anyone asks, it's not possible for a private individual to obtain one of these catalogs.

sorry for duplicate post

I have a Breitling superocean (not the steelfish). The dial is a very brilliant blue. I couldn't say whether that blue is captured in the rep.

It's easy, whenever I get the urge I purchase a bicycle, an expensive bicycle part or a bottle of wine instead.

Most retail watch stores that sell high end watches would refuse to work on it if they know it's a rep. To that end, I wouldn't go near an Omega AD with that watch. However, in the area where I live there are plenty of jewelry stores that don't carry any high end watch brands. They likely wouldn't spot it as a rep and you might get them to adjust the band for a fee. That's the approach that I used with my rep ingeneur and it worked like a charm. In fact, the guy said to me as he was using a jeweler's hammer on the band, "I bet you don't like me hammering away on your brand new IWC." He clearly believed the watch to be a gen even though it had the white dial which happens to be a phantom in that particular model. He did a great job on the band btw. Servicing is a different matter. Many watchmakers won't service reps and any watchmaker worth their salt will know it's a rep the minute they open the case. My question would be, why service a $100 watch? When it dies, throw it away and buy another, or buy something else.

I bought it from the AD brand new, Omega warranty and the whole nine yards for a shade more than $1500. They had the watch marked at the quartz price and then took their normal 15% discount off that. I didn't feel obligated to point out their mistake. I love the blue dial of your SMP. It really stands out.

Bernard watch has a good selection and they have a pretty good reputation. http://www.bernardwatch.com/Omega

The usual advice is to read read read and it's almost always good advice. Also you're not likely to go too far wrong looking at the recommended dealers from this forum. Stay away from sellers who claim that there are grades to replicas, who inflate the jewel count for Swiss movements (i.e. claim a 27 jewel eta 28.24 or 31 jewel eta 2892) or claim that their watches cannot be distinguished from gens even by experts. And for sure look at the list that fakemaster linked in this thread and stay as far away as possible from anyone on that list! If you stick with a reputable dealer, you usually get what you pay for. The UPO does present a good, more prestigious, alternative to the SMP.

Beautiful watch and outstanding pictures. I have the SMP in black with the bond bracelet. Frankly I would have preferred the speedy bracelet but the watch I bought was marked incorrectly by the AD (it was marked with the quartz movement price)and just too good a buy to pass up. I know that you'll love the watch; I share your appreciation for the Omega 1120 movement.

I have the gen of that watch, in fact it's on my wrist right now. By-Tor did a review of Omegas and included the SMP. I would recommend that you read his review as you will learn both the strengths and flaws (what few flaws there are)in that particular rep. Overall it is considered a very good rep and at one time would have been considered one of the very best reps. If you're considering the SMP you might also look at the UPO (ultimate planet ocean). It's a more prestigious watch and the rep of it is generally considered even better than the SMP. So far as the differences in the two reps that you linked are concerned, the biggest difference is the obviously the movement. The ETA movement is 28,800 like the gen omega 1120 and should have a similarly smooth sweep. The 21J asian movement is slower (21,600 I think) and would not sweep as smoothly. There could also be differences in longevity. Some people question whether we're still getting genuine swiss eta 28.36 movements or asian copies. That's certainly an issue when deciding whether to pay the difference. Another physical difference between the two watches is the crystal which is supposedly sapphire in the perfect clones watch (as per gen) and mineral glass in the other. If I remember By-Tor's review correctly, the SMP that he reviewed had AR on the inside of the crystal like the gen. If the one that By-Tor reviewed had AR, I would expect the perfect clones watch to also have AR. The biggest justification I see for buying the more expensive watch, however, is the dealers. Perfect clones is one of the recommended dealers on the forum and generally has a very good or even excellent reputation. The other guy I've never heard of. Realizing that there are a lot of scammers out there, I'm leary of sellers I've never heard of. There was once a comparison of the gen SMP to the basic black sub. It makes for interesting reading to anyone interested in either or both watches. BTW the SMP wins which made me feel good since I own the SMP. http://www.rolexreferencepage.com/smpvssub.html

BTW, you may want to run your very best spyware software if you've been on global replica's site. They are rather notorious for putting some nasty stuff on your computer. The last time I was there my spyware blocked something that was rated at the very highest risk category.

Anyone who claims that they can make a watch that the manufacturer cannot spot is a bold faced liar. Did they also advertise the 31 jewel eta 2892 movement, a movment that doesn't exist?

It's been way too long. However, the length of time probably increases the likelihood that it really is a swiss eta movement. The watch comes from a time when gen swiss movements were fairly common.

I bought a basic black sub on ioffer a couple of years ago. I had bought a PAM029 from the guy and it was quite good cosmetically and my watchmaker said that it does have an eta movement. I bought the black sub from the same guy sight unseen because of my prior experience. I bought from him primarily because he took paypal. The watch was not good cosemetically (date too large in cyclops, m in 300 meter not aligned with m in submariner, bad cgs and very large crown). I didn't wear it very much; recently the insert in the bezel fell out. It was already scratched. The watch supposedly has a genuine swiss eta movement. So here is what I have in mind and would appreciate input. I was thinking of buying the beginner sub from Josh with the 21j asian movement. You can buy it right now for $108 with no shipping. I figured I'd keep the asian movement in it so long as it lasts and then replace it with the 28.36 from the other side once the asian movement dies. Does any of this make sense? Has anyone seen whether the basic sub would make a suitable replacement? Thanks!

I did a search to see what the scam sellers are up to these days. First of all, I wouldn't recommend going to their sites as my webroot spyware software immediately threw up a warning that there was an attempt to download very dangerous spwyare on my computer. For the brief time that I was on their site, I saw a supposed solid white gold day date with a 31 jewel 2892 movement selling for $2900. Given that eta manufactures the raw ebauche with 21 jewels and even Omega only adds 2 jewels when manufacturing the Omega 1120 movment (based on the 2892 platform), it seems highly unlikely that you would get a 31 jewel movement from a rep seller. Never mind the whole issue of up jeweling to fool consumers, I don't believe that the movement inside the watch is what they say. And if they lie about the movement, what would you bet that they're lying about the solid gold? My guess is that if they send you anthing at all that it's a gold wrapped (plated) watch that contains at the very best a 28.36. In other words a watch that you could buy for around $300 from a more reputable seller.

A friend bought a Rolex YM from Chris (Eurotimez) based upon my recommendation. I took the watch to my watchmaker to verify that the movement was genuine swiss eta. My watchmaker has decades experience and said that although you can't be absolutely certain, that he would be very surprised if the movement wasn't genuine swiss. That's obviously just one data point, but Chris does seem to have access to pieces with genuine swiss movements.

I have a total of five reps, all have eta movements (supposedly swiss). Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never had a moments trouble with any of the movements.

Very nice collection. I particularly like the datejust and the two Breitlings. Those are pieces that you don't see everyday.

I respectfully disagree with your assertion that you shouldn't worry if your credit card gets stolen. Having your card stolen is hell. While it is true that you won't have to pay for any fradulent charges, you have to figure out what were and what were not your legitimate charges. That process will go on for awhile and is very difficult. Moreover, having your credit card number stolen can lead to identity which makes the aforementioned credit card theft seem like a day at the beach. If I was going the Joshua route, I'd buy one of those prepaid visa or mastercard accounts.

There is at least one, but he is sort of persona non-grata around here because he apparently steals Joshua's pictures. His prices are high but the quality that I received (more than two years ago now) is good. He does take paypal. The guy doesn't really ship from the U.S. so much as he is a drop shipper. The advantage that you gain is paypal primarily. If you want to go with a recommended dealer, Chris (Eurotimez) takes paypal and he has an excellent reputation. A friend ordered from Chris and was generally pleased with the whole experience. My watchmaker looked at the friends watch and indicated that the watch did, most likely, contain a genuine ETA movement.