tvt

Ouch.... They have some horrible PAMs all "iced out" like that as well... just aweful.

But simply put you are NOT owning the "watch of your dreams". You are owning a copy of it of much lower quality. Now that is GREAT. Nothing wrong is sort of pretending to yourself that you have something which otherwise would be out of reach and all of that. I am not trying to debate the general premise of these watches, simply that if you try to compare them to the gens and then say you are getting a great bargain you are just fooling yourself. They are NOT the same thing and because the movements are (in most cases) nowhere near the same they are hardly 1:1 copies (and in fact even removeing the movements from the picture I have yet to see anything REALLY close to a 1:1, maybe the old factory SeaMasters come close). These are all shades of gray and like everyone else I really enjoy these things and collecting them and the fact that they allow me to have many different styles of watches for cheap and all of that... but I can never compare them to the gens and think I goy some sorrt of steal because I am not comparing Apples to Apples. Now, on the other hand you CAN compare then directly with a brand such as Invicta because they are more or less the same watches. Same movements, same construction (hell, possibly the same factoires in some cases) and therefore it is an equal comparison.

HK and mainland China are about as different as two places could be.

Well the story is not really funny or anything, just long and interesting if you care about that sort of thing. In a nutshell the movie rights to Casino Royal have been passed around from studio to studio for years. It was originally made into a TV show in 1954 and so the rights to Casino Royal laid with the producers. In the early 60's the Bond movies started and became popular but those producers did not have the rights to Casino Royal. The producer who DID have those rights (after he bought them from the TV guys) approached the Broccoli's (the producers for the official movies) and offered to do a joint venture to make Casino Royal into a movie. Well the Broccoli's felt they had been burned by doing thi sonce before. They had done a co-production on Thunderball with the guy who co-wrote the book. This is a very convoluted sotry in and of itself and it was why that producer was able to re-make Thunderball years later (Never say Never again) as an un-officual bond movie but still using the characters. ANYWAY, the Broccolis did not want any more co-ventures and so they turned down Casino Royal. The producer went ahead and started producing it as an alternative James Bond movie and hired Peter Sellers to star. Sellers wanted to play it more or less straight while the producers wanted a spoof. This led to Sellers leaving the production mid way through... they had to change the script and hired David Niven (who was one of the original canidates to play Bond in Dr. No) and then tried to piece together a spoof of Bond using the old Sellers footage and the new stuff they were shooting. In part this is why the movie is so aweful, it never had any sort of focus and was changing as they were making it and so on. So the spoof Casino Royal came out in 1967 and the official Bond producers never had the rights to it. Then all sorts of bizarre things happened including casino Royal almost being made again as a serious un-official Bond movie in the 90's. Eventually through several studios merging with each other Sony now has the rights to ALL the Bond films including casino Royal and Thunderball / Never Say Never Again. this allowed them to make Casino Royal as an offical Bond and also prevent any more un-offical films from being made. I have simplified this of course and some details may be incorrect but you get the gist of it... nothing is ever as simple as it appears.

>>>And remember paying $500 including service for a rep of something that may retail for $10,000 is still quite cheap. <<< That is incorrect, flawed and nonsensical thinking. You must look at these watches for what they are (good or bad) based on thier own merits. It has absolutley NOTHING to do with what the genuine costs. A copy of a $10,000 watch is in no way any better than a copy of a $1,500 watch, the cost of the genuine simply does not playa factor. In fact some of the very best fakes (in fact it would seem MOST of them) are copies of less expensive gens (Omegas, basic PAMs, etc.) not rare or expensive originals. You go down a bad road if you start justifying the cost of a fake based on the cost of the genuine. They are NOT the same thing, they are not built to anywhere near the same levels of quality, the movements (in most cases and especially with the Asian 7750) do not compare. Buy a fake based on it and it alone. Is it a good watch? Does it work well? Does it look like the genuine it is copying? All of that is great, but if you start saying "A genuine is 10 grand and the fake is only $500 so it is a good deal!" you are missing the point. If I take a honda and stick a porsche logo on it I am not getting a good deal on a porsche and in fact I may simply be overpaying for a Honda.

Not sure about the watch but the movie is horrible... though it does make for some interesting Bond trivia, especially after you learn the story of why Casino Royal was never made (until now) in to an official Bond film.

Just do the Black Magic version, that is the one we REALLY want!

Doesn't surprise me that Ken got called out on the fake just by the feel. it is almost always the FEEL of a watch that is the dead giveaway. I think 99 out of 100 fakes can be caught with your eyes closed if you are at all familiar with the way the gen should feel. With gens you simply do not have clasp issues or bezel issues or winding issues that you often have with the copies. I think that visually, especially whe on the wrist it is MUCH harder to tell. On a side note I was at an Panerai AD today and they had a Daylight. The bezel engraving was fine, I mean REALLY fine, MUCH finer (by that I mean think and sharp) than any fake I have seen. I wonder if this is a newer change they started recently as it seemns finer than the gens used to have.

I've never had anyone accuse my gen Rolex as being fake. I have said this before but the exact opposite happens to me. Because most of my friends know I am into watches, and that I own several very nice watches they just assume ALL of my watches are genuine and expensive. Since they generally know very little I could be wearing a Timex and they would assume it to be a $5K watch which is quite ammusing. In fact I was wearing a fake PAM a year or two back and a friend made a comment about it. Since I never keep the fact that a particular watch is fake a secret I let him know that it was inexpensive and a copy of a genuine. He flat did not believe me. He thought I was trying to be modest or I was embarassed about spending so much on watches or something like that. I had to agrue with the guy for like 10 minutes before I convinced him it was in fact fake. Of course a week later he had me order two watches for him, one for himself and the other for his dad.

Michael Bay = sucks

>>>For example... Angus' Big Bang thread. Seems that perhaps it's one operation that's overseeing complete production of this one, from parts manufacturing to assembly. <<< Right, this is a new trend we are seeing and quite different from the normal mass produced subs or what have you. Of course it pays for the maker to use collectors as a resource for making better copies. First of all they get to sell a great copy to all of us, and then they still can sell them to the meat of the market, all those markets and alley ways or what have you. All those people will still buy these watches even if they do not realize how much better they are because of the front end time put into them. So it is a win win or atleast I hope it turns out that way for Angus and the maker because it will encourage more special projects like the Big Bang. Sadly it also means that these watches will be sold more and more as gens on eBay and wherever else people can get away with it. >>>Degrees of accuracy is of the utmost importance, as it separates those who are selling 'replicas' for novelty, from those who are creating counterfeits that could be passed off as real. Two totally different areas. Same as the difference between a print, or a forgery.<<< I'm just telling you that this is not how trademark law works. It is not an opinion here, just a factual statement. These minor differences or even HUGE FLAWS make absolutley no difference in the eyes of the law. I don't Know if Rolex cares any less about some cheap watches which are obviously not genuine as compared to really good fakes that might be confused as the real deal. Maybe they DO care more about the more realistic ones but in the eyes of the law the cheap inaccurate fake and the 99% accurate fake are the exact same thing. Plus we are talking about TINY inaccuracies. These things such as the size of a second hand or crown, the difference between bright white or off white printing, the serial numbers, the thickness of a crystal, AR coating and so forth certainly woud never be anything close to enough to make the watch fall into a "novelty" category even if that did mean something. I do think that Rolex has to choose it's fights and may be more interested in stopping the really good fakes while allowing the $10 brass crap to be sold on the sidewalks... but again, the flaws we are talking about would not separate these watches into the cheap category. The idea that a watch maker intentionally creates a near perfect looking watch, but then has one or two tiny flaws in order to skirt the law is just wrong, it just does not work that way. And the real difference between a print and a forgery is that a print is either created by the original artist or is authorized by the original artist or his estate. A forgery is trying to pass itself off as genuine. But ALL "fake" or "reaplica" watches fall into the later category because NONE of them are authorized. This is why I do not like the term replica. To me replica implies something more like a print, an authorized reproduction of something.

Crystalcranium got it right. If you saw the video of the watch "factories" I posted a few weeks back or if you have been lucky enough to visit the Chinese watch markets when they were still running 100% you know how there is flat no quality control. Before I go on let me clarify that I am NOT talking about some special project like what we see Angus working on, I am talking about your general fake Rolex, the submariner or DD that make up the bulk of sales for these guys. Westerners think of some sort of factory producing watches. Every watch coming off the line is the same and if there is a small flaw they can identify it and correct it. But nothing could be further from how these are actually made. Parts come from all over the place, they are assembled in back rooms and often by people who are ot highly skilled. At the watch markets I would see the same model watch sitting side by side with each ohter at the same sellers booth. These came from the same source and were made at the same time and yet they would have huge variations within themselves. Perhaps this one had a long second hand and the next a short one. Maybe this one has a fat crown and the next a thin one... it all depends on what the maker happened to grab. By the time the watch is being assembled the people doing it are not studying photographs and the like, they are just more or less slapping them together. Remember, these things are by and large not made for collectors. They made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of watches that are sold all over the world. From markets in Hong Kong to China Town in New York they are being sold on eBay as gens and out of a trunk some place as a fake. They are being sold in many ways to many people and almost none of them have any idea at all what is correct or not correct. In order for a watch maker to somehow centralize and operation and instal real quality control would be a HUGE operation, cost all sorts of money and be at constant risk of being shut down. It simply does not pay for that person to make those changes, he has zero incentive.

This is a very old question and one that I believe has a CLEAR black and white answer, and that is that mistakes have NOTHING to do with litigation. Teh simple fact is that as soon as a trademark is broken (ie: using the Rolex name or logo) then the law has been broken as badly as it can be broken. The fact that a second hand may be too short or some engraving may be wrong offer no safety net for the maker whatsoever. The law simply does not work like that. Now if someone calls the watch a Polex and puts a logo that SORT OF loosk like a crown on the watch, that is a totally different story. Those pople are skirting the law but that is NOT was the watches we talk about here do... they blatently break the trademarks and thus the law. The fine details of the watch thus become meaningless. If you put Rolex logo and name on a $2 digital watch it is breaking the law just as much as if you put them on an exact copy of a solid gold Day Date. As for why they continue to make mistakes, well most likely because killing themselves to make an EXACT copy just does not pay for them. The mass majority of these watches are not sold to "collectors" who would ever notice or care about these things. Now we are staring to see some newer efforts (such as the Big Bang) that do seem to cater to the collector and want to get it as right as possible. Bot they sell tens of thousands of Submariners and Day Dates, far more than all the collectors in the world combined, and they sell them to people who just don't know or care. So why bother going through a lot of extra work? The "why" is speculation on my part but as for the law it is very clear cut. Inaccurate fakes, especially the small details we are talking about, offer ZERO protection from the law.

Yea, this is one complex way of asking the question! I THINK you are asking: Who would be more angry, a guy with a genuine watch who is accused of wearing a fake, or a guy with a fake watch who is also accused of wearing a fake? I think 9 times out of 10 the genuine guy would not care. First of all if he is a knowledgable collector HE knows it is genuine and that is all he really cares about. If he is just a guy who had some cash and bought a nice watch (ie; most, but not all Rolex owners) he would just dismiss it as jellousy or being illinformed or what have you. Agin HE knows it is genuine so who cares. On the other hand a guy with a fake, who is actually trying to fool someone, would in essence be busted. His cover blown and he would be left either feeling foolish or continuing a charade and insisting it is genuine (thus digging a deeper hole). If he is a guy wearing a fake who does not mind sharing the fact that his watsh is not genuine then he likely would not be embarassed at all, and simply aknowledge that yes, it is a copy.

The thing is that to me the final watch is just plain ugly. PAMs do not lend them well to this type of thing. They are based on rugged miltary designs so when you make them delicate it just does nto jibe.

First of all, obviously I hope, do not take a fake to a genuine authorized dealer! While they will not take your watch or anything silly like that it will likely be an embarassment for you and at the very least waste your time and gas. You can either send the watch to someone like The Zigmeister (who is a member here and does lots of different services for people) or you can find a local independant watch repair shop. If you have a goodquality ETA based watch and are honest with them it is likely that they will service it. They have no alegience to any company and simply want to make the money. An ETA movement is easy to get parts for, a cheap Aisan movement is not, and so they often will not work on those. You should get it serviced when it shows signs of not working well which might be day one or might be 5 years. If it never shows signs of not working every 5 years or so is a good rule of thumb to keep things running smoothly. A gen Rolex costs $500 to have serviced, an ETA fake should be $75-$200 or so.

Orbita makes the best winders and at $300 you actually got a great deal. Though I find that I rarely need a winder while traveling even for a home winder it is nice.

For me the key to any studio shot is in the lighting. People rely on photoshop way to heavily. It drives me crazy because I lot of younger photographers (I am talking pros here, not hobbyist whom which I think this is fine) have no clue how to light something. They take poor shots and then spend hours trying to make them acceptable in PS. If you light something and expose it properly you need very very little PS.

Not to pile on but I must agree with what some of the others have said, the filters are too heavy handed and draw more attention to themselves than to the watches you are showcasing. I happen to be a photographer as a profosion (I do not think I am alone in that here) and I often find that amatures grossly over aply PS filers. It is fun and cool and all but rarely helps the images and more often than not just distracts.

Black magic is BY FAR the coolest one. Pleas Angus, go with BLACK MAGIC!

You can't take that mother off because of it's size! There is no way any one person could handle such a massive piece. First of all remain calm, do not panic. Call for help, get 3 or 4 frineds over who can help remove that mamouth slab of steel. If that fails call the fire dept. for the jaws of life and pry that thing off. It will be OK, just take deep breaths and stay calm.

Well just like many newbie rep buyers do with fakes many 1st time gen buyers do as well... that is buy a Rolex Submariner and that was in fact my first high quality gen. Well, I did have soem other fairly good gens before then come to think about it, but none quite as well known as the sub so lets just stick with that.

I think he was saying the Slytech is his favorite. I mean he does not specificaly address it but I htink that is what he was saying.

Over on the movie site "aint it cool news" Sylvester Stallone has been answering fan questions leading up to the new Rocky movie. I fired in a question for him about his connection with Panerai but someone else beat me to it. Here is the question a fan asked him and his response... kind of interesting. Question: Sly, Long time fan. I’ve noticed that you are truly a connoisseur of fine wristwatches. From the Tag Heuer wristwatch you wore in “Cobra” to the sweet Panerai that you wore in “Daylight.” I even understand that you’d given Arnold Schwarzenegger a Panerai as a gift that he subsequently wore in “Eraser.” In watching “The Contender” last year, I noticed that you always had a sweet timepiece on your wrist. What would you consider your favorite wristwatch? What wristwatches do you wear on a regular basis? Michael Answer: Well, I’m very flattered to wear a Panerai that’s named after me called “The Sly Tech,” even though it resembles a bathroom scale because of it’s prehistoric proportions. It reminds me of how the original Panerai was discovered. When I was doing DAYLIGHT, which by the way was the most toxically enhanced film I’ve ever done. By that I mean, the Italians, who were the special effects people, would light actual car tires and would burn molten rubber to create smoke in the tunnels, which made us resemble overworked Welsh coalminers in a matter of minutes. Sometimes the haze was so thick I couldn’t even see my watch, so I went looking for one and there I found this obscure watch called Panerai, which was designed for underwater demolition teams stationed in the murky waters of Naples Bay. If you have never seen Naples bay and it’s renowned clarity, you can do a legitimate reenactment by plunging your face into a bowl of molten fudge and you’ll get the idea. So when Arnold saw the Panerai he liked it and it caught on. Before you knew it, the company grew from a $1.3 million mediocre watch company to one valued at over $400 million and purchased by Cartier.

I have a feeling that Chubbchubb is not alone. How many peopel are strolling around with various levels of fakes which they belive to be gen. Some could be from eBay, others from dishonest stores or pawn shops... Maybe ignorance is bliss.