How old is the rep market?

[Alfalover]

Ok guys. I know I've already opened another thread, I swear I tried hard to resist but I just couldn't. I MUST ask another question 

 

 

How old is the rep market?? Could I have found a rep watch, lets say, in 1992? And was the quality this high? (like nowadays I mean)

[Guest rg21044]

I don't know if this helps but I had a very bad Rolex President in 1987.

[docthor]

I had a bad Cartier rep in 1990 and a not so bad sub date rep in 1993 or 1994. Guess there where some good reps out there (swiss movement, real gold) but very hard to come by.

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[alt.watch.obsessive]

Second oldest profession!

[bcar473]

I bought some solid, but not great Sub reps from a street vendor on Venice Beach in Southern California back in 1997, but it wasnt until 1999 that I got my first Swiss Movement Omega Seamaster from the Original River that I still wear to this day!  I even had the bracelet replaced by an Omega Dealer and they never guessed it wasnt the real deal!!!  The bracelet cost almost double what I paid for the watch!

[freddy333]

I recall seeing ads for replica Rolex watches in magazines as far back as the 70s & I purchased my 1st rep in the mid-80s (there is a thread containing an early rep catalog I received floating around here that you may be able to find via the Search).

[KB]

My father who is 87 has stories of guys picking up cheap replica watches in China when he worked on the Merchant ships in his 40's.

Ken

[gasebah]

I bought my first reps in Taiwan and Hongkong 20 years ago. Most of them where more an approximation than a replica. But some of them were not that bad. I still have a IWC Mark ? that is running like a champ.

[Nightwatch]

Very old. From around 1750 to the 18seventies for 120 years the Swiss became proficient in replicating first English (Graham/ Norton) later French (Breguet) and American (Waltham) pocketwatches. It was only with industralization and mass-production (IWC amongst others) that this Swiss counterfeiting practice stopped and they started concentrating on high end watch manufacture with the knowledge and machinery formerly aquired. 

Nowadays its the Swiss FH that hits hardest on the counterfeit market (produced in China) while trying to re-write history themselves by simply omitting the dark chapters of swiss horological history. Brand registration, copyright protection etc. (disregarding some exceptions like Rolex and Panerai) are more of a "modern" practice which only started around 1993 when the Richemont group lawyers started to implement it harshly for every new brand aquired. Times do change....

[panerai153]

Back in the mid 1980's there were reps being sold through ads in the back of magazines. I think the first one I saw was a Rolex DayDate with a Quartz movement! This was around 1984-85.

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[swdivad]

I bought a rep sub at a popular flea market in Lynn Ma around 1980-83 that seemed very good at the time... Was waterproof and had an automatic movement.

Not sure what happened to it, but I do remember that I couldn't keep staring at it from every angle... Not much has changed for watches for me since then, gen or rep

[hambone]

I remember guys in Waikiki selling knock offs in the 1970's I bought a horrific Rolex rep that had the quartz mvmt. Ticking second hand. It was really gross. The beginning of the rep market goes back to 42 BC when Caesar had rep sundials made in India. No wonder he got assassinated .

[kernow]

My very first counterfeit watch was purchased in Turkey in 1990. I wouldn't call it a rep as it was a generic POS Quartz crap with Cartier poorly applied to the dial. I'd been drinking and it seemed a good idea at the time. When I returned home I couldn't face wearing it so I gave it to my father who, as parents do, cherished it as a gift from his son. 

On my travels I never found any good reps that I'd actually wear so I became disillusioned with reps until I discovered RWG. 

[UmpaHimself]

I bought some solid, but not great Sub reps from a street vendor on Venice Beach in Southern California back in 1997, but it wasnt until 1999 that I got my first Swiss Movement Omega Seamaster from the Original River that I still wear to this day!  I even had the bracelet replaced by an Omega Dealer and they never guessed it wasnt the real deal!!!  The bracelet cost almost double what I paid for the watch!

Hey! I got my first Tag Heuer rep on Santee Alley in Downtown Los Angeles back in the late 90's when I was about 10-12. Was yours a Tag by chance?

I would have to get a new one every few months since the gold plating would bubble up on the underside of the case and bracelet.  

Edited December 22, 2015 by UmpaHimself

[andreww]

Crappy watches with Rolex or Omega stamped on them for many decades, however I wouldn't consider those to be replicas. My guess, based on the amount of info I was able to find when I started in to this hobby, is that true replicas started in the late 90s. Just a guess, but probably fairly accurate.

[panerai153]

Crappy watches with Rolex or Omega stamped on them for many decades, however I wouldn't consider those to be replicas. My guess, based on the amount of info I was able to find when I started in to this hobby, is that true replicas started in the late 90s. Just a guess, but probably fairly accurate.

Have to agree, the early ones were pretty bad!! I remember seeing a few Rolex Day Dates that were superficially correct until you noticed the "jumping" seconds hand. Quartz movements didn't fool anyone who had any knowledge of genuine Rolex watches.

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[swdivad]

 

Have to agree, the early ones were pretty bad!! I remember seeing a few Rolex Day Dates that were superficially correct until you noticed the "jumping" seconds hand. Quartz movements didn't fool anyone who had any knowledge of genuine Rolex watches.

 

 

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I have to disagree here... as I wrote before, I had a very good rendition of an auto-movement Rolex sub back in early-mid eighties. I'm surely not as anal as reps as I am now, but I could tell cheap from quality. I think I paid about $80-100 back then, which was on par with rep prices nowadays I suppose.

No idea where it was made, wish I still had it for comparison though!

[freddy333]

See post 12.

[GenTLe]

Ok guys. I know I've already opened another thread, I swear I tried hard to resist but I just couldn't. I MUST ask another question 

 

 

How old is the rep market?? Could I have found a rep watch, lets say, in 1992? And was the quality this high? (like nowadays I mean)

The 1st watch replicators were the Swiss people copying UK and French ones centuries ago.

[JoeyB]

My first rep was a stainless Day-Date President a friend bought in Taiwan in 1983.  My friend told me that the shopkeeper had many reps, but kept the 'good ones' in the back. It was very nice, visually accurate, but it did have a Seiko quartz movement. It gained two seconds every 6 months. I wore it for more than 10 years.

[automatico]

I was aware of 'swiss fakes' of American pocket watches back in the 1960s because there were still a lot of them around back then and started seeing fake wristwatches for sale in the late 1960s/early 1970s when fake Bulovas started showing up with the name 'Bolivia' on the dials. They came in signed boxes with a 'warranty' card and had one jewel pin lever movements. The peddlers asked around $25 but if you offered $12 or $15 you would usually end up with one. From talking to guys at NAWCC watch shows it seems that fake wristwatches have been around about as long as the wristwatch itself. The oldest fake I have is a 'Seiko' in a 1970s style case with a 1 jewel pin lever movement. I have owned it probably 25 years and it still runs.

The first fake rolex watches I saw were in the early 1980s...quartz DD in a plated case was about $12 and a submariner was $15. An Eta 2846 in a steel case was $75. Call a pager in NYC, tell 'Andy' what you wanted and they showed up in about a week COD. Still have one or two from back then. The bezels were pressed down into the case and sealed with an O ring, the MG crystal was in a regular plastic gasket. Still have a few Exp II with DG type movements with 24 hour hands from the early 1990s and they also have the pressed in bezels.

Recently looked at a few swisseta 2836 SD and Exp II from River 15+ years ago, both with lug holes...the SD is not too bad and the Exp II is very good except the wrong hand stack and both have solid mid links. Still have a few 36mm swisseta 'AK'  from 'Paul' back then and planned to make Exp I out of them but never did...the Exp I, Exp II, 1680, and 5514 COMEX dials were $10 each from Paul. Don't know why I kept this stuff...put them in a 'fake museum' maybe?      The movements will probably be worth more than I paid for the watches...all new goldtone swissetas, not 'put togethers' like today. 

[martijnp]

I was aware of 'swiss fakes' of American pocket watches back in the 1960s because there were still a lot of them around back then and started seeing fake wristwatches for sale in the late 1960s/early 1970s when fake Bulovas started showing up with the name 'Bolivia' on the dials. They came in signed boxes with a 'warranty' card and had one jewel pin lever movements. The peddlers asked around $25 but if you offered $12 or $15 you would usually end up with one. From talking to guys at NAWCC watch shows it seems that fake wristwatches have been around about as long as the wristwatch itself. The oldest fake I have is a 'Seiko' in a 1970s style case with a 1 jewel pin lever movement. I have owned it probably 25 years and it still runs.

The first fake rolex watches I saw were in the early 1980s...quartz DD in a plated case was about $12 and a submariner was $15. An Eta 2846 in a steel case was $75. Call a pager in NYC, tell 'Andy' what you wanted and they showed up in about a week COD. Still have one or two from back then. The bezels were pressed down into the case and sealed with an O ring, the MG crystal was in a regular plastic gasket. Still have a few Exp II with DG type movements with 24 hour hands from the early 1990s and they also have the pressed in bezels.

Recently looked at a few swisseta 2836 SD and Exp II from River 15+ years ago, both with lug holes...the SD is not too bad and the Exp II is very good except the wrong hand stack and both have solid mid links. Still have a few 36mm swisseta 'AK'  from 'Paul' back then and planned to make Exp I out of them but never did...the Exp I, Exp II, 1680, and 5514 COMEX dials were $10 each from Paul. Don't know why I kept this stuff...put them in a 'fake museum' maybe?      The movements will probably be worth more than I paid for the watches...all new goldtone swissetas, not 'put togethers' like today. 

Interesting, thanks for sharing this
From the few you've still got, I would love to see some pics.