Hi, been lurking awhile, thought Id say Hi

[gazob]

Been lurking a while reading alot on various aspects of watches.

I will be heading to Thailand for a couple of weeks in a little under a month and had initially planned to buy a few fake watches. My wife and daughter are going to be spending mucho time in the markets looking for clothes, handbags, shoes, etc, and I thought setting myself the task of picking up a few watches might make the whole experience more pleasureable for all.

So I joined here and RG and started reading and have been constantly looking for the last month or so.

I dont expect to get the exact watches the dealers have here at the sort of dollars I am going to be spending (or trying to) but at least I know a little of what to look for, and I know a few of the watches I am most interested in getting.

Hopefully can get some of the following, Ive never even really worn an overlarge watch, the last 2 years has been a Tissot PRS200 that is starting to get very battle worn, but this wears quite small on my wrist so think I can pull of a big watch for fun.

Rolex Hunter PVD with the green crystal

Omego PO

Uboat flightdeck 50mm PVD black face orange markings

Hublot BB (Ice or AB)

Plainish black or silver PAM, leaning towards a 183

Cartier Ballon bleu white face

Choppard something large and autosport themed

Im sure Ive seen lots of other watches that may make the list, and Im sure some of what Ill see over there wont be worth even my cheap dollars, so will be playing it a bit by ear, but hopefully a fun way to spend some time waiting for the wife and daughter to check every store for an elusive item.

With the watches I am more interested in getting half decent timepieces than getting 100% reps, in alot of cases I think I will be happy with quartz movements, but I suppose it all depends on how they look and feel.

Im a little worried carrying this many fakes back through customs, are there any tips or tricks?

GaZ

[Watchmeister]

Welcome and good luck with the trip.I suspect it will be a lot of fun but buy carefully. Things are not always what they seem. That is why the forum goes to great lengths to find trustworthy dealers. Not trying to discourage you but just remember that when you get home and that movement dies the next day you have no one to complain to. In any case, have a great time in Thailand and please post about your adventures.Those of us who have never been there can live vicariously.

[plaifender]

My advice is don't buy any reps in thailand (not known for any high quality replicas anyways). For your money, you'll get a lot better quality using the trusted dealers here and you'll get the goods delivered to your doorstep. It's also nice that you won't have to haggle for prices. (which is a HIGHLY overated experience in asia). Most asians are QUITE firm in their prices and hold their own against "westerners". Buying from dealers here gives you the benefit of a huge pool of buyers. Our forum acts as a "Union" of sorts that can negotiate with the dealers on behalf of all of us. We get great prices through our dealers as well as decent quality control. Something that you won't be able to do in thailand. You can't exactly open up a watch, inspect it to make sure it's properly regulated.. etc.. and then decide to buy. Here on the forum you can.

My advice. Don't waste your time on crap reps in thailand. Use our trusted dealers and gain some peace of mind.

[maxman]

Welcome to RWG,good to have you here. I cant put It better that the two gentlemen before me,take there advice to heart. I hope you and your family have a great trip,Im sure you will. Mike

[gazob]

Thanks for the advice, but really its just a bit of a fun thing to do at the markets while waiting for the wife and daughter to finish looking at their stuff. I dont seriously expect to get great reps, I am sort of hopeful that by looking carefully, feeling the items in my own hands, and haggling strongly I can come away with at the very least a story or two of being taken into the back room in a number of establishments and shown their "best" stuff. At the end of it all I may walk away with only a couple of poor fakes and some great stories, and wont have been standing outside the 300 stalls my wife is currently looking through tapping my toes making her miserable as well. With low expextations I can only be pleasently surprised with what Im shown.

If the reps are no good I may just have to get one of those awesome seiko monster divers which evrryone says is the best watch ever.

If I get home and have nothing much I will surely be hitting up the dealers on these boards for some decent reps, but at least I now know what I can get online, and therefore wont be paying $50 for a bad submariner rep.

GaZ

[maxman]

Thanks for the advice, but really its just a bit of a fun thing to do at the markets while waiting for the wife and daughter to finish looking at their stuff. I dont seriously expect to get great reps, I am sort of hopeful that by looking carefully, feeling the items in my own hands, and haggling strongly I can come away with at the very least a story or two of being taken into the back room in a number of establishments and shown their "best" stuff. At the end of it all I may walk away with only a couple of poor fakes and some great stories, and wont have been standing outside the 300 stalls my wife is currently looking through tapping my toes making her miserable as well. With low expextations I can only be pleasently surprised with what Im shown.

If the reps are no good I may just have to get one of those awesome seiko monster divers which evrryone says is the best watch ever.

If I get home and have nothing much I will surely be hitting up the dealers on these boards for some decent reps, but at least I now know what I can get online, and therefore wont be paying $50 for a bad submariner rep.

GaZ

Good luck.

[gazob]

Been back a few days now. Did buy some watches, between my son and I we ended up with 10.

Many Stores, and Market stalls visited, was ushered into many back rooms with intricate hidden doors and locking mechanisms.

I wrote up a fuller post on rwi, including photos of my share of the watches and a few of my wifes handbags, if anyone is interested I can repost here.

It is worth noting that I dont think I got too many watches that compare with even the cheaper reps sold by the trusted dealers. That being said I didnt pay much more than $50 AU for any watch either, and quite a few at less than that.

In order of purchase the watches bought were

Corum Bubble Diver Sharkface SS/RU Auto

Tag Cal 17 SS/SS Quartz

FM Crazy Hours Medium size SS/SS

UBoat Flightdeck 50 SS/LT Non Chrono Auto really poor quality has the chrono case with pushers

Omega PO Casino Royale SS/SS Auto

Omega PO Quantum of Solace SS/SS Auto

Montblanc Timewalker SSCE/SSCE Auto, nice details but instead of chrono has 24hr Day Month on subdials

FM Crazy Hours SS/LT Auto this is for the sister in law, but has the correct caseback whereas the first one was a casablanca caseback

Corum Bubble Dive Casino, the crown on this broke and I have reglued it but the roulette spinner no longer functions, although the time change and winding still functions

Corum Bubble Dive Knight

I think as the trip progressed we got better at negotiating price and the last 2 watches purchased were only $33AU ea, the market stall at Kuala Lumpur China Town Night market probably had the greatest selection and the seller for these 2 watches had a great selection of Bubble Dive watches which my son had taken a liking to after I got my Sharkface one on the first day.

I am still a couple of posts shy of being able to add a photo so ask a question or 2 and as I answer the postcount will rise

On a last note, this was a great trip, I think I spent almost as much time looking at watches as my wife did shopping for Handbags, shoes, etc. She was happy as my son and I who normally would not see any joy in shopping were often the ones My wife and daughter were waiting on.

GaZ

[gazob]

Well after this post (nbr 5) I can post some pics, I promise there will be none of me in a mankini.

Just to add something with this post, of all the watches above, my favorite is the Sharkfaced Corum Bubble. I understand why some may nott like them, but there is just something about this watch which says, "I dont take anything very seriously", and thats exactly why there are no rolex's on my list.

GaZ

[gazob]

Got back from 2 weeks in Thailand and Malaysia earlier this week. Was a fun couple of weeks spent mostly in Phuket, with a 3 day stopover in Kuala Lumpur on the way back.

A few months back I realised my wife would be going to lots of markets buying clothes / handbags / and stuff. This didnt interest me greatly so I figured I would buy a couple of fake watches. I Joined Repgeek, RWI and here and started reading and have been reading pretty consistently ever since.

So from all reports the watches I would get in Phuket would be cheapy fakes, and I would have to haggle hard to get a reasonable price. Forearmed with knowledge of what I could get online, and how much I would likely pay I set myself the goal of spending around $50 per watch, and buying watches i liked the look and feel of more so then trying to get 100% accurate replica's.

In total My son (12) and I got 10 watches and we did stick to roughly $50 per watch, I wont put individual pricing in but in Thailand expect to pay 1000-2000bht (divide by 30 for rough $AU $US price) per watch, and in malaysia we were either more hardened to the haggling process or they were a bit cheaper.

The best places in Phuket we found for watches were,

#1 Phuket-Town Night market, fri/sat/sun, evening market. Selection was not great, probably 10-20 sellers spread around a thousand stalls. Each seller probably had something like 500+ watches half decent reps, and a similar number of throwaway fakes. If you have photos on your phone of what you are looking for you can quickly skip from stall to stall as their selection outside the standards is a bit slim but surprising.

Bought at the Night market Corum Bubble diver shark Auto and Quartz Tag cal 17, 1300 bht ea, took a few walk aways in the haggling to get this price, but he changed the strap on the corum to the better rubber deployment clasp.

Corum Bubble Diver Shark face

TAG

#2 Patong Bangla Road and the beach road south of Bangla road. Many shops along here, the best stuff is in the back rooms, they are generally cooler then the shop fronts anyway, sometimes the backrooms would be well away from the actual shops. The sellers are knowledgable, and willing to take the time to show you every one of the 500-1000 watches they have in stock. Quality is a bit variable, generally higher than the night market.

Bought here - Franck Muller Crazy Hours black face coloured numerals auto mvmt, this was a hard one to find, after 20 shops we found the first one, but it was the large size and just too big for my sons wrist, next shop had the medium size and I bought a Uboat flightdeck for myself to assist with bartering, not a good uboat, no lume, chrono pushers on a non chrono face, but the auto movement seems to work well. Paid 1600 bht ea for these.

No pic of the FM as at the time i took the photos my sons watches were still in his suitcase

Bad Uboat

A couple of days later went back for more, and got 2 45mm Omega 007 watches, the son got the Casino Royale in black face, black bezel, I got the Quantum Of Solace black face orange bezel, both SS on SS bracelets. Once again 1600 seemed to be as good as we could go.

Omega PO QOS

Kept looking but nothing really stood out, was looking for a nicer dress watch for myself, and my son really liked the Bubble diver that I got early on.

Malaysia Kuala Lumpur

China Town Night Market, every 5 stalls is a watch stall, some with better selection then others, but lots of competition. Wasnt really sure how much to pay here and after looking at a number of stalls spotted another medium sized FM crazy hours, this time on leather, that would be perfect for my sister in law who also shares a love of watches. Was looking for an IWC FA Jones SS on leather which this seller didnt have but had a photo on my phone of a montblanc timewalker and he pulled out the exact watch. Wasnt real sure on pricing and started haggling to high but got both for 300 ringit ($AU 100).

MB Timewalker

FM CH

Was still looking for another bubble diver for the son, had seen a few but he didnt like the faces and most were on leather. We ended up finding the Corum Bubble diver heaven with maybe 30 different versions, and judging by the dustiness of some of the cases felt confident we could do a good deal, he finally picked the roulette table face and the knight one and we haggled down to 100 ringit ea, both on rubber deployment but not the better clask that I had got on my shark watch, but at $au 33 ea seemed a bargain. On a sad side note the crown on the roulette broke from the stem, I fixed it with some glue, but no longer works as a roulette spinner, but time set and winding works.

All in all a great trip. Thailand is a great place to visit, the Thai people are very friendly and your dollar sure goes a long way when going out on tourist day trips, sitting down to eat, and shopping for fakes designer clothes and accesories. If anyhting the pricing at the KL night market was better but the sell was a bit harder and the people not as nice.

This is quite a long post, hope I havent lost too many people.

The wife was no slouch in the shopping dept, here are a few of her bags and purses

GaZ