Reporting From Replica Capital, Guangzhou

[bklm1234]

I'm on vacation in HK, ShenZhen, and GuangZhou. I never had this much fun vacationing these locations before picking up the rep collecting hobby. The best part is visiting the watch market in GuangZhou. It's located west of GuangZhou train station, which is the old train station. There is a new station called GuangZhou East station. There are a few complexes for the market. 2 of them are for retail watches, most of which are replicas. 1 complex is for wholesale stuff like watch parts, straps. There are all kinds of tools, winders, etc. I picked up 4 nice screw drivers, a case opener, a real nice tweesers, a hammer, a plastic base to hold a watch for resizing the bracelet, 2 pliers, 3 bracelet pin pushers, lug pin remover, a jeweller cloth, all for $14.

The watch hunting part is not easy but super fun. There are so many dealers (maybe 100+ of them) selling different qualities of watches. The costs are lower than those offered by our forum dealers but it's a hell lot of work to get good stuff. Our dealers' prices can be cheaper but I tell you they've done quite some hard work for you and I think it's totally worth it buying from our dealers. I don't remember how many dealers I've talked to there and how many (same) watches I looked at before I pulled the trigger.

All in all, this is an extremely fun experience for a watch nut like us. Besides watches, parts, and tools, watch servicing is so economical. Guess how much it costs to service a 2836? About $6. I'm not kidding. I don't know if it's a full service. I watched the guy take the watch apart in a couple of mins, not fully apart though. I asked him why. He said unless the movement has problem, it's not necessary to disasemble the part that he didn't. He did take a [censored] load of things apart, cleaned them, inspect many of them, re-oil the movement, put everything back together. Everything done in an hour. What a joy for me to watch. I have the utmost respect for repairmen now.

Here's the damage:

IWC GST Ti Chrono for ~$140 + $13 for servicing => this watch is a must buy replica, it's so accurate in appearance except for the misaligned text under the day/date window. I looked at a used gen in HK. I can't spot any other flaws like I would with Rolex replicas. You know, the slightly dipped 'D' of 'WED' day text is actually existent on the real thing, may or may not be dipped as much. I highly recommend getting it before it's out of production. The asian movement is no slouch either. I immediately got it serviced for $13. It runs like a dream, as accurate as my other 2836's in a span of a couple of days. The chrono function works very well and lasts for hours without any problem (I stopped it myself).

Explorer I - I (had the repairman) pulled a 2836 from an old sub, bought an Explorer I case+bracelet+dial+hands+crown set for $17, paid the repairman $3 for assembly. Bingo, I got myself a Explorer I.

Franck Muller Casblanca w/ new ETA (2824, I think) for $90. It's perfect, the finish, the weight of the watch and bracelet. It's as satisfying as the IWC.

Datejust champagne for $50 + $6 service - movement is a used 2836 so servicing it is a good idea.

GMT II Pepsi (adjustable GMT hand) for $110 - I regret getting it. It looks good at first and then I found so many flaws with it. The bezel insert, the case, the dial, the SEL, the bracelet are perfect. The bezel is too thick, the GMT hand's triangle is too large and the hand is too long, the crown is too thick, not to mention the CG being wrong. I would say buy this model from Andrew or Paul or Eddie. Their cost is worth it.

I can't find any good sub nor Pannies, nothing near our dealers' stuff. Weird.

I gave one of my old subs to the repairman to reshape the CG. I know it could be a total failure but I don't want the sub anyway. If he can reshape it, I'll be real happy. If not, no big deal. He charges $26 for the job.

When I get back to the US, I'll post pics of my acquisition in this trip.

Edited November 17, 2006 by bklm1234

[steve92b]

I'm on vacation in HK, ShenZhen, and GuangZhou. I never had this much fun vacationing these locations before picking up the rep collecting hobby. The best part is visiting the watch market in GuangZhou. It's located west of GuangZhou train station, which is the old train station. There is a new station called GuangZhou East station. There are a few complexes for the market. 2 of them are for retail watches, most of which are replicas. 1 complex is for wholesale stuff like watch parts, straps. There are all kinds of tools, winders, etc. I picked up 4 nice screw drivers, a case opener, a real nice tweesers, a hammer, a plastic base to hold a watch for resizing the bracelet, 2 pliers, 3 bracelet pin pushers, lug pin remover, a jeweller cloth, all for $14.

The watch hunting part is not easy but super fun. There are so many dealers (maybe 100+ of them) selling different qualities of watches. The costs are lower than those offered by our forum dealers but it's a hell lot of work to get good stuff. Our dealers' prices can be cheaper but I tell you they've done quite some hard work for you and I think it's totally worth it buying from our dealers. I don't remember how many dealers I've talked to there and how many (same) watches I looked at before I pulled the trigger.

All in all, this is an extremely fun experience for a watch nut like us. Besides watches, parts, and tools, watch servicing is so economical. Guess how much it costs to service a 2836? About $6. I'm not kidding. I don't know if it's a full service. I watched the guy take the watch apart in a couple of mins, not fully apart though. I asked him why. He said unless the movement has problem, it's not necessary to disasemble the part that he didn't. He did take a [censored] load of things apart, cleaned them, inspect many of them, re-oil the movement, put everything back together. Everything done in an hour. What a joy for me to watch. I have the utmost respect for repairmen now.

Here's the damage:

IWC GST Ti Chrono for ~$140 + $13 for servicing => this watch is a must buy replica, it's so accurate in appearance except for the misaligned text under the day/date window. I looked at a used gen in HK. I can't spot any other flaws like I would with Rolex replicas. You know, the slightly dipped 'D' of 'WED' day text is actually existent on the real thing, may or may not be dipped as much. I highly recommend getting it before it's out of production. The asian movement is no slouch either. I immediately got it serviced for $13. It runs like a dream, as accurate as my other 2836's in a span of a couple of days. The chrono function works very well and lasts for hours without any problem (I stopped it myself).

Explorer I - I (had the repairman) pulled a 2836 from an old sub, bought an Explorer I case+bracelet+dial+hands+crown set for $17, paid the repairman $3 for assembly. Bingo, I got myself a Explorer I.

Franck Muller Casblanca w/ new ETA (2824, I think) for $90. It's perfect, the finish, the weight of the watch and bracelet. It's as satisfying as the IWC.

Datejust champagne for $50 + $6 service - movement is a used 2836 so servicing it is a good idea.

GMT II Pepsi (adjustable GMT hand) for $110 - I regret getting it. It looks good at first and then I found so many flaws with it. The bezel insert, the case, the dial, the SEL, the bracelet are perfect. The bezel is too thick, the GMT hand's triangle is too large and the hand is too long, the crown is too thick, not to mention the CG being wrong. I would say buy this model from Andrew or Paul or Eddie. Their cost is worth it.

I can't find any good sub nor Pannies, nothing near our dealers' stuff. Weird.

I gave one of my old subs to the repairman to reshape the CG. I know it could be a total failure but I don't want the sub anyway. If he can reshape it, I'll be real happy. If not, no big deal. He charges $26 for the job.

When I get back to the US, I'll post pics of my acquisition in this trip.

Send me your address please, I've a few movements I want to get serviced

[cornerstone]

Great write-up - thank you!!

Enjoy the rest of your stay in Hong Kong - it's a fantastic place

[fotoman]

is there like a holiday inn express in GuangZhou or is it like you have to be a native to get along

wow - looks like a cool place to visit http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/guangzhou.htm

holy crap there is a holiday inn http://hotel.travelchinaguide.com/guangzho...11524110855.htm

I recomend checking out Guangzhou in google earth VERY impressive city - its freakin huge

you learn something new everyday

[rasputin]

Awesome, I'm planning to head there in March of next year. I'm going to Shanghai and Beijing for sure, I may have to try a few days in GZ.

[Devedander]

Sounds awesome!! Last time I was in Guangzhou I was much younger (obviously without watch interest) and it was friggin hot... needless to say I didn't like it at all..

But around this time of year it sounds like it would be an awesome experience all around. Do they have stuff besides watches? Any leather goods etc?

Don't forget to have some Chinese food while you are there! If you are brave the little street side eateries offer some great flavors and very good value... just watch out cuz you might end up with some nasty stomach issues... it's a risk you take... just like with reps

BTW how are you planning to bring your collection back with you? Just pack in suitcases or what?

[Chronus]

Not to spoil the party, have you figured out how you will get them all back home with you safely ?

[SmoothOperator]

Where abouts is the repair guy .. my brother will be there in 3 weeks ..

[tvt]

I was in Guangzhou last year and left a long multi part report on both TRC and RWGI (you can stil find them on either forum).

I hear that shortly after I was there the government cracked down which may explain why you are seeing such high prices and poor selection. I was able to easily find MANY high end Panerai fakes, EASILY meeting the quality our dealers offer (in fact they are the same exact watches). I also would not measure the vendores in the tens or even hundreds but more like 1,000 or so spread out over the various complexes.

Now it is absolutley true that the MASS majority of thw watches (and again, we are talking like literally a million watches) were crap. The good stuff was few and far in between, yet still not "hard" to find. It was simply a matter of wadding through all the chaf to get to the wheat.

GZ is an increibly hot place (as is all of southern China and HK) so fall is the time to visit... it can be HELLISH in the summer. It is one of the larger cities in China and has many millions of people. Cool place to visit even if it is just for a couple days break from HK or somehting like that.

I really hope the markets kick back into gear soon as they still sound fun but SO MUCH less than they used to be (I have heard this now from 2-3 people). Oh, and yes, Guangzhou just liek ALL cities in China have LOTS of fake products of all types. I am not interested in them but you can literally find malls filled with nothing but fake items... quite interesting.

Finally, it sounds like maybe they are jacking the prioces or something. I generally paid about $10 - $20 for lower end stuff (liek what we would pau $100 for here)_ and $70 to $90 for the REALLY good stuff. the only things over $100 were those with genuine Swiss 7750 movements. I thought even at those prices I was sort of getting screwed as an obvious outsider, but it was cheap enough to not argue too much.

Getting my haul back to the U.S. was not an issue, I put them in a coupel of different suit cases and walked past customs... done.

[flavor flav]

i would love to visit! thanks for the good reading. i hope you can find a way to smuggle all the reps home!

good luck

[sammalone]

Let's do a RWG group trip to GZ!

[AMK000]

@ bklm1234 (and tvt): thanks for the report. Quite interesting.

Definately a place worth visting for all of watch maniacs (like us).

By reading your report(s) certain question / thoughts go through my mind.

I will share them with you.

- You couldn't find any high end PAMs. A bit strange.

- Any new models/brands you have seen ??

- What you have seen was mainly Asian 21J or Asian ETA,Lemanina, 7750s, etc .. ???

Watch Prices: Now this a big chapter

There is more or less a $ 100 diff between the prices there and the prices we get here.

We know that. More or less all of our good dealers here they share the same prices.

Its only Paul who is significantly cheapper (contras: higher risk and no PP payment).

So the question is: Do our dealers have higher margins for pre-approving the watches, for the PP facility they offer, for absorbing the risk and for the service they offer or also because they are using a middle man ??? Dont really know, can't tell.

Note: Don't forget that our good dealers normally do not stock watches. Usually (not allways though , watches are delivered to you not from the seller but from somebody who stocks the watches and is near the source.

- Our dealers have direct access to the factories and to the main distributors there ???

I guess yes (hand picking is still the only way to promote and sell good products) but maybe some dealers are closing the deals with the factories and distributors via internet/mail and are not really anywhere near to the source.

As I said ...... I just sharing my thoughts with you guys.

Guangzhou should be an exiting place to visist (watches and other rep articles only I guess)

Untill then , I will keep buying from our dealers (... though a bit more info on what is coming and slightly lower prices will be greatly appreciated).

Cheers

AMK000

[fotoman]

I was in Guangzhou last year and left a long multi part report on both TRC and RWGI (you can stil find them on either forum).

I hear that shortly after I was there the government cracked down which may explain why you are seeing such high prices and poor selection. I was able to easily find MANY high end Panerai fakes, EASILY meeting the quality our dealers offer (in fact they are the same exact watches). I also would not measure the vendores in the tens or even hundreds but more like 1,000 or so spread out over the various complexes.

Now it is absolutley true that the MASS majority of thw watches (and again, we are talking like literally a million watches) were crap. The good stuff was few and far in between, yet still not "hard" to find. It was simply a matter of wadding through all the chaf to get to the wheat.

GZ is an increibly hot place (as is all of southern China and HK) so fall is the time to visit... it can be HELLISH in the summer. It is one of the larger cities in China and has many millions of people. Cool place to visit even if it is just for a couple days break from HK or somehting like that.

I really hope the markets kick back into gear soon as they still sound fun but SO MUCH less than they used to be (I have heard this now from 2-3 people). Oh, and yes, Guangzhou just liek ALL cities in China have LOTS of fake products of all types. I am not interested in them but you can literally find malls filled with nothing but fake items... quite interesting.

Finally, it sounds like maybe they are jacking the prioces or something. I generally paid about $10 - $20 for lower end stuff (liek what we would pau $100 for here)_ and $70 to $90 for the REALLY good stuff. the only things over $100 were those with genuine Swiss 7750 movements. I thought even at those prices I was sort of getting screwed as an obvious outsider, but it was cheap enough to not argue too much.

Getting my haul back to the U.S. was not an issue, I put them in a coupel of different suit cases and walked past customs... done.

I was thinking about your post last night actually - You should definatly transfer it here. It is an AMAZING review/ story post. In fact, its a total post of the month sort of post.

my wife and i started looking at cruises last night that stop in hong kong - and some end in thailand - so, we can do Guangzhou AND visit neil - what a cruise.

or we could do a group cruise and have neil aboard as a guest lecturer

[Pugwash]

When I get back to the US, I'll post pics of my acquisition in this trip.

Excellent post. However, as one of the tricky things in a service is the expensive oils, I expect your $13 service wouldn't stand up against a $200 The Zigmeister job.

[Devedander]

Excellent post. However, as one of the tricky things in a service is the expensive oils, I expect your $13 service wouldn't stand up against a $200 The Zigmeister job.

Fitting for a rep no? Aren't we in the world of "Your $100 XXX watch is not a $10000 Gen... but good enough for the price"

[sssurfer]

Great report, thanks!

Maybe it's too late now, but to find the good stuff you might want to present this card to any taxi or seller:

It was provided some time ago from a member I can't remember now (Narikaa?)

[morgan]

I've always been curious how one gets to be a distributor of hight grade reps? Is it just having the right contacts overseas to pick and ship and then you have a pp account to broker the deal? On a $249 rep that the end user pays.. the profit has to be split between the 1. factory, 2. factory seller, 3. picker/shipper and 4. middleman/broker? Factory gets $69 for a watch they made for $25. (cogs cost of goods sold) The factory seller gets $20. The picker/shipper gets $60 and the broker gets $100 because he's got all the headaches dealing directly w/ the end user. Does that sound reasonable or am I way off?

[tvt]

In regards to prices:

It is hard for people who have not been to China to understand how cheap things can be. I don't mean how low quality, I just mean how little they cost for the exact same goods we pay MUCH more for in the west.

For example, they will sell brand new, sealed, AUTHENTIC, new release DVDs for about $2.50. Thes eare NOT pirated copies... I am talking about MAJOR U.S. stores liek Walmart selling totally legit and genuine DVDs for about one tenth what we pay in the U.S. (and in much of the world they pay even more). You can eat out at a verynice restaraunt, have four people eat and DRINK as much as they can and get a bill for $15... not the $100 plus you would expect.

Labor is incredibly cheap, materials are incredibly cheap, profit margins are much smaller, there is no (or much lower) shipping costs. The whole scale is just different. So when someone says they paid $13 for service do not assume it to be of poor quality, it is much more likely that the repairman only needs to make a few dollars to be happy.

Watches we pay $300 for can easily be had for $70 - $100 in China and that is buying from middle men, NOT from dealers.

No let me say I STILL think the prices dealers here offer are generally good. They are out to make a profit, they sell at market value, many or most of them are middle men themselves meaning they have to mark up what has already been marked up and so forth. But just like ANY item that ANY store sells these watches are of course heavily marked up.

Perhpas I will re-postmy report from last year over here as well since some people seem interested. I would highly reccomend to anyone on this board to visit the GZ watch markets if it is at all feasible because even if you buy nothing, even if you cannot find the good stuff, it is just a real eye opener to see the epicenter of the fake watch world... it is nuts.

[Goochenbrau]

Great report, thanks!

Maybe it's too late now, but to find the good stuff you might want to present this card to any taxi or seller:

It was provided some time ago from a member I can't remember now (Narikaa?)

What does that say?

[sssurfer]

What does that say?

Only the hell knows.

But it was from a reputed member/dealer (Narikaa? EL?).

He also assured that it would make beggers, pushers and bad-stuff sellers running away in screams.

[Devedander]

I've always been curious how one gets to be a distributor of hight grade reps? Is it just having the right contacts overseas to pick and ship and then you have a pp account to broker the deal? On a $249 rep that the end user pays.. the profit has to be split between the 1. factory, 2. factory seller, 3. picker/shipper and 4. middleman/broker? Factory gets $69 for a watch they made for $25. (cogs cost of goods sold) The factory seller gets $20. The picker/shipper gets $60 and the broker gets $100 because he's got all the headaches dealing directly w/ the end user. Does that sound reasonable or am I way off?

I am far from an inside man, but during my very short watch shopping in China not anywhere near Gunzhou it took me all of 3 minutes before someone opened the "special under the table" box where the good watches are. I can't garauntee these were exactly what our dealers carry but they were very nice watches, not the cheapo day date fakes. Opening price on many was around $100 to me....

There was one Breitiling TT Nav that I can't swear but was almost certainly what we get (I recall the recessed date wheel and thinking it looked bad so didn't buy it) opening price to me was also around $100...

That quickly comes down as far as $60-70 with a little haggling...

So if thats the price on the street from a booth guy (who already probably dealt with a middleman who already bought from a factory) then I can only imagine our dealers get as good or better prices.

Bear in mind thought that's after a $1000 airplane ticket, 18+ hours each way and finding a place to stay while being there then having to sweat customs on teh way back...

So the markup from our dealers is probably huge (especially since in China even in big cities it's not uncommon to have $300 a month salaries), and probably pretty justly so...

To be fair though the guy I did buy a cheap fake from gave me his business card with a phone number and assured me he would help if anything went wrong. I figured that was BS.

I called 2 days later to ask if he would resize my bracelet, he said yes, remember who I was and said come down and anytime and he would do it for free. Not exactly a free replacement or even a replacement dial kind of service, but I do believe that a level of service from those guys is surprisingly higher than we would think... near what our dealers would give. One thing to think about is that street vendors live by the sword... it doesn't take much to loose alot of business... but even more so than legit businesses a good referal goes a LONG way... if one of those street vendors pisses you off there is a good chance you will ruin a lot of business for him. If I tell you Macys is a ripoff you will probalby not put much heed into it, but if I tell you the guy at 23rd and main will try to rob you on a watch you will probably believe me right off.

Edited November 17, 2006 by Devedander

[sammalone]

May seem like silly questions....but....Do many of the booth vendors speak any English? Are there many non-Asian tourists/buyers at the GZ watch market? Thanks

[Pugwash]

The whole scale is just different. So when someone says they paid $13 for service do not assume it to be of poor quality, it is much more likely that the repairman only needs to make a few dollars to be happy.

My brother lives in Thailand and I visited him recently. It took me a while to get to grips with how cheap labour costs were. My Seiko was serviced and had parts replaced for about $20-$25, and that's in the fancy Seiko building. My concern was getting the 5 different grades of swiss oils ETA insists on.

[Devedander]

May seem like silly questions....but....Do many of the booth vendors speak any English? Are there many non-Asian tourists/buyers at the GZ watch market? Thanks

They speak enough English to do the job... they can haggle price, understand major terms (like Rolex, Panerai, Gold, Swiss etc), they know how to show you it's automatic (with a display back or by lightly hitting it in the palm of your hand) and they can point out nice features like AR or how they can run a screwdriver over the crystal and not damage it. It won't be easy like shopping at Macys but in my experience a LOT of their business is from English speaking foreigners (because Chinese people normally buy dept store watches as there is little prestige to be had from a Rolex in China... overthere probably 1 in 200 is real) and to not be able to do business would be suicide.

It's probably on par with buying things at any flea market in a big city in the states... don't try to talk about sports or weather, but you can get most business done with a surprisingly small number of words and hand genstures.

[tvt]

Well I can tell you that in the actual watch markets there is virtually ZERO English spoken and I was the only non Chinese person among hundreds and hundreds of peopel visiting. Remember, this is a true wholesale market, not something advertised to foreigners.

Still, I was never made to feel unwelcome and through the use of calculators to haggle price and basic hand gestures I was able to communicate just fine.