Gen Breilting forum found the new replica Skyland and SA... rep

[veyron]

I was looking for gen Skyland pics when I found this topic at the Breitling source:

Breitling source

Not good I think...

By the way it's funny that not everyone believed it's a rep, and some think it's modded..

Edited August 10, 2008 by veyron

[rogerthat]

Just like many of us members go there, many of there members come here or to RG,RWI and read the posts and images.

We are not as hidden as we would like, but if we were I would have never found the forums.

Cheers,

M

[Dani]

i hope we can find the person and ban him

[By-Tor]

I think the admins of the gen forums should remove these kind of discussions too. The guy who posted the pics might just browse the rep forums out of curiosity. I'm sure there are lots of gen people "spying" on these forums... probably people from the major watch brand managements too.

The more this information spreads to the gen forums, the more it will affect on the gen sales. This, of course, isn't good for us. But sometimes there's simply nothing we can do.

[Dani]

do you think they off centered the lume on purpose? That is hard to believe they made that whole watch that good but screwed up the lume job.

[UB7]

The guy who posted the pictures is definitely not a member on any of these forum's, he has 6 real breitling's. Doubt he has any reason to buy a rep..Probably just an occasional browser

This is a good opportunity to tell everyone to make their photobucket accounts PRIVATE

[By-Tor]

This is a good opportunity to tell everyone to make their photobucket accounts PRIVATE

How does making it private change anything? You can grab any picture from the Net when you right-click over a pic, go to the properties and copy the address string. This applies to Photobucket pictures too.

[UB7]

If you make it private it won't show up in google, nor will it show up in a photobucket search. Goto photobucket > find stuff > recent images .. I've seen a ton of replica pictures show up there. Sure if they have access to this site it's quite easy but might aswel take all the precautions we can for people who don't know about these forums

It's not hard...

http://photobucket.com/images/skyland/

@BT- I agree but this is a close knit community..Chances are if someone had 6 gen breitling's we would know about it and we could easily pin-pint the culprit..But who knows, we might not. Hopefully most of the members here respect the secrecy and recognize that it would not be in the forum's best interest to make a post like that on the gen forums

Edited August 10, 2008 by UB7

[By-Tor]

Ah... didn't know that.

Anyway, as I said... sometimes we can't help the rep pictures "leaking" to the gen forums. This is not good, but the gen forum admins make a mistake if they allow these kind of discussions there... unless their purpose is to promote the rep sales. I mean, the reps ARE that good these days. These kind of posts will only create curiosity and interest.

And as already mentioned, lots of gen owners are closet rep buyers. Owning 6 genuine Breitlings doesn't mean that this person doesn't buy reps. Lots of RWG members own way more than 6 expensive gens. Richard Lawton's gen collection, for example, wipes the floor with almost anyone.

[blade007]

the fact that rwg thread show up in the google results for common replica searches makes it damn easy for anyone to arrive at the forums. great for SEO, but not so great if the intention is to keep the forum a secret.

[rogerthat]

This site has a subforum called Replica Watches, were people ask whether certain watches are fake and target and pull listings from Ebay of reps. Mostly very bad Bentley Canal Street crap.

They don't allow to post sources or prices, but how hard is it foranyone interested to find these forums?

I go to this site once a weekor so but don'tpost there, I imagine many of their members do the same with our forums.

Cheers,

M

[robertk]

Do you guys actually think you can keep these forums safe from "outsiders"? LOL, I know many gen forums that have spoken about these forums in the past. By-Tor you're right. Everybody in the Gen watch business is aware of these forums.........and have been for several years. The only thing that saves us is the offshore status....and the fact that the Chinese don't give a sh*t about complaints from them.

I know that many managers at Tourneau visit occasionally, to see the new stuff.

[jeff g]

After falling in love with the Heritage, and purchasing the rep, I spent quite a bit of time in the local AD looking at their ONLY Heritage in the shop.

To me the placement of the indices and shape and color of the dial and case size and bracelet, etc., etc, and blah blah, were 1.1.

Now probably the engraving on the back was'nt perfect, but as far as I was concerned I was blown away with the accuracy of the rep to gen.

If these guys on the gen Breitling forum are still under the impression that NO rep will ever compare to the gen...they are sadly mistaken.

[Guest carlsbadrolex]

Im sure we have never flown under the radar... But its got to be a kick in the nuts to see one of "their own" telling them that the rep they are looking at only costs $200-$300. And yet half of them can hardly believe its a rep.

There are those of us who collect because of our love for the mechanics... and the name on the watch is really not THAT important. And then there are those purists who feel that any duplication, replication or hommage is a mortal sin.

In any event, if these guys JUST NOW realized that good replicas are out there... I would guess we will see another member increase very soon!

[Pugwash]

This is a good opportunity to tell everyone to make their photobucket accounts PRIVATE

If you post them anywhere on the internet, they stop being private. Your private images that you post here will be indexed by google possibly using keywords from the text in the posts.

You're on the internet, you have no real privacy.

[fotoman]

i'm glad they call it a rep and not a fake or knock off

[andreww]

Come on guys, Breitling source has reviewed in detail pretty much every breit rep available. Probably they have one in transit from Josh as we speak! The Chinese have been repping every brand name piece of merchandise for years, including Rolex, and nobody has come even remotely close to stopping them. Do you actually think that Breitling will launch some kind of massive effort to stop them?

[By-Tor]

Come on guys, Breitling source has reviewed in detail pretty much every breit rep available. Probably they have one in transit from Josh as we speak! The Chinese have been repping every brand name piece of merchandise for years, including Rolex, and nobody has come even remotely close to stopping them. Do you actually think that Breitling will launch some kind of massive effort to stop them?

Stop who? The Chinese rep industry?

I don't think anyone's particularly concerned about them... or even talking about the rep industry. People are more concerned about these forums, this hobby... and this community.

Maybe they can't shut us down, but there's still plenty of things that they can do to make our lives more difficult.

Why they haven't "attacked" us, I don't know. RepGeeks and RWI are both US-based forums, and they can still continue without any hassle. Let's hope it stays that way, but this kind of publicity is never good for us.

[fotoman]

Stop who? The Chinese rep industry?

I don't think anyone's particularly concerned about them... or even talking about the rep industry. People are more concerned about these forums, this hobby... and this community.

Maybe they can't shut us down, but there's still plenty of things that they can do to make our lives more difficult.

Why they haven't "attacked" us, I don't know. RepGeeks and RWI are both US-based forums, and they can still continue without any hassle. Let's hope it stays that way, but this kind of publicity is never good for us.

like complain to a particular funding source?

we "may" be bad here - but the real problem is selling reps as GEN

thats the people they should be concerned about - people being ripped off in their name. - thats a legit customer that they won't get cause thats someone who is willing to pay the premium pricing

we are small potatos and if they know anything about our forum, they know that we report scamers!

[andreww]

Stop who? The Chinese rep industry?

I don't think anyone's particularly concerned about them... or even talking about the rep industry. People are more concerned about these forums, this hobby... and this community.

Maybe they can't shut us down, but there's still plenty of things that they can do to make our lives more difficult.

Why they haven't "attacked" us, I don't know. RepGeeks and RWI are both US-based forums, and they can still continue without any hassle. Let's hope it stays that way, but this kind of publicity is never good for us.

Shutting us down would do nothing. we all know where to look for these watches. I have said many times in the past that as these reps get more accurate, the manufacturers will start paying more attention, its inevitable. But, as the second or third poster in that thread indicated, "all the more reason to buy from an AD. That plays right in to Breitlings philosophy, the first thing you see on their web page, ONLY BUY FROM A BREITLING AD. I don't necessarily see perfect reps as a bad thing. High profile automatic watches are making a comeback, largely in part to the rep industry. For the most part, those that can afford a Breit, will buy a Breit. It really doesn't hurt them to have these reps floating about, it only increases their profile IMO.

[Dani]

If you make it private it won't show up in google, nor will it show up in a photobucket search. Goto photobucket > find stuff > recent images .. I've seen a ton of replica pictures show up there. Sure if they have access to this site it's quite easy but might aswel take all the precautions we can for people who don't know about these forums

It's not hard...

http://photobucket.com/images/skyland/

@BT- I agree but this is a close knit community..Chances are if someone had 6 gen breitling's we would know about it and we could easily pin-pint the culprit..But who knows, we might not. Hopefully most of the members here respect the secrecy and recognize that it would not be in the forum's best interest to make a post like that on the gen forums

just to ask do you have any reps?

As to this subject, i dont realy cear what is funny is that they asked if the flaws where put their

[By-Tor]

@phoband:

I agree that we're small time, but let's take Ioffer for example. The place is FULL of reps.

All luxury brand replicas are well presented there... PAM, Ebel, TAG, Breitling, etc... you name it. But no Rolex reps anymore. Rolex reps suddenly disappeared from Ioffer overnight, like someone waved his magic wand. I'm 99,9% sure that the Rolex lawyers had something to do with it.

I believe they COULD harm this community somehow, if these places get more and more exposure. Yes, I agree that they probably don't really care about us hobbyists... people who don't make any money out of this hobby... but there are Europe and US-based dealers, for example.

@Andreww: I disagree. I believe the high-end reps DO hurt Breitling sales. Maybe not significantly yet, as the rep hobby has been kind of a "cult" and "underground" thing for a long time. Yes, it IS underground... despite thousands of members. Rolex alone sells over a million watches a year. And even if the high end reps didn't hurt their sales, I seriously doubt they'd take similar approach to the reps as we do. They see them simply as trademark infringements... and that's exactly what they are. ILLEGAL, counterfeit trademark infringements. Sometimes we seem to forget this little fact... people who manufacture and sell replicas are THIEFS, at least in legal terms.

There are many models that have been repped so well, that buying the gen doesn't really make sense. Most of them are A7750-based. This new Skyland for example.

This kind of publicity isn't good.

[andreww]

I find it interesting that one comment alludes to the 4:00 lume dot being off on every on that he has seen. That guy obviously is a member on one of our boards.

Another member comments on the statement that the Skyland has been heavily modded... "it comes that way out of the box".

As for the pics, they belong to member Condemore ot RG.

[By-Tor]

I find it interesting that one comment alludes to the 4:00 lume dot being off on every on that he has seen. That guy obviously is a member on one of our boards.

Another member comments on the statement that the Skyland has been heavily modded... "it comes that way out of the box".

Probably just another bozo who wants to impress and educate people in the gen forums with his "rep knowledge".

God I hate those guys.

PS: this is OT, but I once went lurking to the rolexforums.com... they have a "spot a fake" (or whatever it was called) section over there. I swear, those guys are completely and utterly CLUELESS. They absolutely don't have an idea what they're talking about, most of the time. I saw them reporting at least 2 perfectly legit vintage Submariners as "fakes"... during one day.

[andreww]

@Andreww:

This kind of publicity isn't good.

I see your point BT, but IMO the average person isn't going around bragging that they are wearing a rep. When someone comments on how nice my watch is, I say thank you, and smile. That is good publicity. What I am saying is that a lot more people are being exposed to luxury watches because of us, and these are people that may never have walked into an AD previously.

I work in the mutual fund business, and since I started wearing reps to the office several of my colleagues have taken interest in what I am wearing, and have gone on to purchase genuine watches.

I'm not saying that our reps are good or bad for a company like Breitling, all I am saying is that the answer isn't as simple as it might appear.