Sowing the Seeds of Misinformation

The replica watch industry is driven by a lot of misinformation.  Many of the large commercial web sites try to entice you into spending hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on a piece of counterfeit goods.  They try to make this purchase attractive by convincing you that the watch is of the highest quality; "99% accurate."  In reality this is not the case.

One of the primary methods replica watch vendors use to convince you of the quality and accuracy of their watches is by providing an arbitrary "grading scale."  There are a number of variations on this grading system, but most boil down to the following:

Replica Watch Grades

Grade 5 – Cheap crap from Asia that wouldn't fool your grandma.  Plastic parts, chrome-plating that's shiny, even quartz movements in Rolex replicas.

Grade 4 – Better quality Asian pieces.  Uses movements made in China with quality control that's basically non-existent.  Better than the lower quality junk, but still easy to spot as fake.  There's little or no effort made to eliminate a majority of the flaws.  The bulk of the "tourist" fakes probably fall here.

Grade 3 – "Japanese" replicas.  This typically refers to the movement used in the watch; they're usually Miyota or Citizen.  Decent quality pieces, meaning they won't fall apart in your hands, and the quality of the movement is much higher.  These watches suffer from a number of common flaws, but they make up the bulk of the fakes sold through most of the larger Internet sites.  Some of the newer Chinese Panerai watches fall in this category.

Grade 2 – "Swiss" replicas.  Uses Swiss-made ETA movements which ironically are now also replicated out of Asia.  These are watches of a much better quality, but still end up exhibiting a variety of flaws such as poor bands or incorrect markings.

Grade 1, "Grade A", "Grade A+++" – "High-end Swiss" replicas.  These are the "best" and most expensive replicas on the market.  They use the best materials and even have a modicum of quality control.  While these still have flaws and issues in their replication they are usually the most accurate fakes on the market.

Now to some degree this system is accurate.  Low-end replicas are cheap inaccurate pieces of junk that wouldn't fool anyone beside the most ignorant tourist.  But after that "bottom feeder" level things get a bit murky.

Most of the replicas are made in Asia, usually China or Thailand.  They use a variety of movements and CNC machined parts of varying quality and accuracy.  Since there aren't any real quality levels of manufacturing each replica watch is unique in that the next piece off the line may be made out of completely different parts.  The first watch may be "Swiss" in that it uses an ETA movement.  The very next piece may use an ETA copy because the factory ran out of the factory ETA pieces.

Honestly, all that most people know about Rolex watches are that they're expensive.

When you get to the very high end it's even more difficult to judge quality.  When you spend several hundred dollars on an item you expect your extra money goes into making sure your watch is the best piece possible.  It doesn't.  It goes into the pockets of people who inflate the price by using marketing to give you that sense of quality.  In reality the "Grade A++++" watches are made on the same line as the average "Swiss" watch.

A More Realistic Replica Watch Scale

My rating scale is a bit different than the one used by replica dealers:

Crap – pieces that wouldn't fool a blind caveman.  This could be any watch made with any movement.  Accuracy of the replication is the measuring stick here.

Better Crap – Ok, these are pieces that might fool you at 20 foot in a thunderstorm.  They LOOK similar to what they're emulating, but any examination at wrist-distance will give them away.

Passable – The bulk of the "high end" "Grade 1" watches fall here.  They'll fool most people, mainly because most people don't know what to look for.   Honestly, all that most people know about Rolex watches are that they're expensive.   They couldn't tell you the different between a crown guard and a bezel.  Anyway, these watches are flawed in such a way that any "watch person" could spot them as fake.

Decent – This is the best of the best.  These are accurate enough that you'd need to find a person who's familiar with that brand to spot them.  This category includes many of the new Panerai fakes.  Some Rolex fakes fall into this category, but to be honest not many are this accurate.

Be Informed

Ignore the grades replica dealers try to associate with their watches.  Some "information sites", such as Replicacenter, try to add legitimacy to the rating scale by posting a formal article on the subject.  They try to make you think that just because they can assign a rating to a watch that it will inherit a certain level of quality. 

The dealer sites that are associated with them then turn around and use this legitimacy to justify outrageous prices for so called "Grade 1" watches.  Folks no replica is worth $1,500, I don't care what hocus pocus people try to add to their web sites.  These are fake goods mass produced in some illegal shop in China.  The people who make the watch don't give a rat's ass about quality other than making sure the watch runs until it's out of their hands.