I see your point. Haywood’s original post was interesting. However I am a little unnerved that the conclusions being made afterwards are that only a handful of experts are now in a position to tell a real luxury watch from a fake. This applying to all brands. Is there enough evidence in the OP to make this conclusion? If yes, then the SC is in for a quiet year and Haywood a busy one!Originally Posted by JGJG
And the reason why Rolex aren't worried by the fake market. It pushes the customers through their dealers doors due to concern about authenticity. Those who buy fakes wouldn't buy a genuine Rolex in the first place so they aren't losing customers.
Believe me when I say that this thread has gone to places I never intended.
H
This thread has been a bit of a wake-up call for me - thanks for starting it, H.
And it hasn't finished yet.
There is a life cycle of threads and this isn't the end by a long chalk. It's not even the beginning of the end. It might be the end of the beginning though.
We've had no mention of Nazis.
Or hyenas in congress.
Give it time.
But when an expert says what you did, people will naturally be worried. They'd be daft not to be concerned.Because these fakes will presumably continue to improve. Most of us aren't remotely expert, and never can be, if only because we don't handle enough watches. The potential for fraud seems so high.....
Just a thought here, assuming you can't drive every single person who's ever been involved in fake watches off this forum, would it be better if we knew who the likes of Bonesey were, so if they offer a watch for sale we can make up our minds about whether to deal with them or not, or would it be better if they stayed silent? I wonder if it wouldn't be better to ask Eddie for a sticky at the top of SC containing the names (and links) to people who've admitted to or been caught out having an involvement with fakes? IIRC the replica/fake forum did some sterling work on Zsayub (spelling?). We don't have to agree with or like fakes/replicas and the people involved in that kind of thing but it might be worth accepting it happens and doing as much as possible to make people aware and protected against being scammed.
"A man of little significance"
Always be close to the enemy. It is better to befriend them and learn from them. You don't have to like them but never isolate them.
Mick, why don't you come over for a chat and a cup of tea one of these days?
Someone who lies about the little things will lie about the big things too.
Subscribed in anticipation.
You would probably urinate in it.
But at least you would still have your Daytona, which you claim not to like.
Agreed - Haywood's post was interesting and informative and yes I think most of us know that fakes are getting better. However to then come to the conclusion that only a handful of experts are now in a position to tell a real Rolex from a fake and that we should therefore all buy from ADs or specialists like Haywood is IMHO taking things very much to the extreme. I am quite comfortable buying from known sellers with a history (buy the seller) and reasonably confident I could spot a fake Rolex. If the seller does not inspire confidence or the watch looks wrong in some way then I would not proceed.
I agree with some of what you have said but most of the sales on TZ are not face to face, and very few chances are there to inspect the watch. Haywood has also intimated that genuine parts are added to watches to make them franken. A few years ago we were buying and selling watches at tops £3K the same watches now go for nearly treble that amount. The second hand market is obviously compromised, I would be very dubious of buying second hand with this knowledge. I think what Haywood has warned is to be vigilant and get a trusted second opinion if your not 100% we put far to much trust in photographs on SC. Maybe more get together's and more knowledge as to what to look for when buying a high end watch is needed?
As they used to say on Hill Street Blues 'Be careful out there'
Last edited by wildheart; 16th January 2018 at 16:24.
That doesn't help you if the seller is genuine and is selling a very good fake unknowingly.
We all have our own tolerances and experience - as I said I am comfortable in being able to spot a fake Rolex even if it comes from a genuine seller.
My conclusion, based on Haywood's comments, is that most people won`t be able to tell a fake from inspecting the outside of the watch. Taking the back off is still a reliable method because the fakes don`t have the free-sprung balance. A carefully taken photograph, with the rotor covering the balance, will look authentic and that's something people need to bear in mind.
Some of us, myself included, have taken a downbeat view of how the 'super-fakes' could affect the market, but having had time to think about it I`m less convinced. Whilst the fakers are clearly upping the bar in terms of quality/replication skills the folks who know what to look for won't be caught out.
The difficulty is for many is the onus now placed on opening the caseback. Most sellers won`t want to do that, even I`m wary of opening them because it's all too easy to mark the back if you haven`t got a good quality opening tool (my own Rolex openers aren't brilliant).
If the fakes start turning up with a free-sprung balance, complete with the screws on the rim for rate adjustment, it really will be a minefield!
Paul
A lot of flippers will be hit because if they find it difficult to sell privately due to people being more cautious, then they are going to have to sell via a dealer and that is going to cost them. The advantage of buying and selling privately is that you can often avoid making a loss. However if you are buying from a dealer and then selling back to them, it will be difficult not to make a loss. That will curtail a lot of activity and reduce demand.
Another reason not to want a modern Rolex...
I think you're scaremongering.
The engraved rehaut, lasered coronet (and, perhaps, increased quality of finishing in recent times) etc. suggest otherwise.
Christ Mick this is panic station stuff.
I wouldn't want you beside me in the trenches if you duck for cover at any slight danger.
SC will survive and there will be plenty of Rolex sales I'm sure.
FWIW I tend to agree with Mick.
I do think that SC will probably be hit less hard than other places. People will still be more cautious though.
Yep. And they'll be cheaper. Less demand means price drop. (That's less demand caused by lack of confidence in the second hand market).
As well as a new UV torch I appear to have a genuine warranty card!
Nope.
Yeah. You're probably right. Wishful thinking.
Well I hope you are all proud of yourselves, the Vintage market has just gone through the roof!
Because you don’t believe they’re faking vintage?
Of course not, they are too busy faking modern ones for the look at me I have a Rolex brigade! lol.
Yeah. There's no reason to fake some all blue inserts that increase a watches value by $40,000.
I hope you're joking.
Obviously, it’s called humour.
This is the internet. Honestly, it's hard to tell what's humor and what is a ridiculously stupid opinion in this thread.
You know what, I think they are. Many many years back, 1999 to be exact me and a mate went to Thailand. We stayed in Phuket. There were hundreds and hundreds of obvious fakes. But, hidden in old boxes on some stalls were what looked like antique stuff. Way back then even though I was interested in watches, I didn't have an expensive piece or pieces like I do now. Anyways, I recall really old, bashed up stuff, no straps, glass, bent hands etc, you get the picture. But they were marked Patek, Audemars and the like!!. I knew the names but nowt else. Now they may have actually been gen although I doubt it. The sellers wanted just a few quid, and I was tempted until my mate said 'if they can fake the new stuff, why cant they do the same and make it look old'.
To this day I honestly don't know if I missed out on some very vintage gems, or dodged a bullet.
Stuart
Good luck with that bob!
You can but try C, you can but try!
. It's not a Rolex solution to stop fakes. It's a reason to only buy from a Rolex main dealer.
The most recent Vacheron Constantin 222 sold at auction went for over £30,OOO. Does anyone think that a 70s watch is challenging to reproduce in the year 2018? Quite an incentive there. Surely you could make an almost perfect copy. And that’s an obscure one, what about a red Sub? Frankly a Bitcoin is way harder to reproduce than an expensive vintage watch, and that’s why it’s worth money. And what about a Nautilus? A 70s watch with a 70s movement, think about it, how hard will that be to replicate with technology from the year Twenty Eighteen? Blade Runner was set a few years earlier than that. Things are really going to change, for better or worse.
Last edited by Itsguy; 17th January 2018 at 02:29.
It does make me wonder how annoying they (Rolex) must find this.
One the one hand i don't believe that people who are looking for a real Rolex would particularly look at fakes, but equally i do know people who've been put off buying a real Rolex because they or others they know were constantly being asked "is it real".
I have no dog in this race because i don't own one, nothing against those who do, so it's just idle curiosity really. I suspect (with no evidence) that the massive faking of Rolex in particular has had some but a rather limited effect on their sales overall.
Certainly perhaps more than it has had on the sale of, say, PP?
No concrete facts to back any of this up, just speculation.
I think it's an issue for pretty much every large brand.
Even Casio f91w are faked to the point that Casio built a verification feature into it and they're a 15 quid watch. So if you consider that and work up the chain to "high end luxury" watches you can convince yourself not to sleep at night.
The End is Nigh
Ten years ago when I first started playing golf, I bought second hand equipment to get me going. There was a chap who had a stall in Chelmsford market where I bought everything golf related. One day he had a set of Callaway clubs come in as I was looking in his shop. I bought them for what I thought was a very good price. A few months later a friend asked me where I bought my clubs? I told him he said they may be fake, you can test them by using a magnet. It turned out that some of the clubs were fake and some not, you could not tell the difference. In the South East of England a gang had flooded the second hand market with fakes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...onal-ring.html I think it is still ebay's biggest scam, literally thousands of golf clubs ended up in the system.
The shop in the market is not there anymore and the second hand market has taken time to recover, though I buy very little golf equipment second had. I passed the fake clubs onto to a friend who knew they were fake but did not care. Lets hope watches aren't facing the same infiltration.
Are the latest fake Rolex made from 904L stainless steel?.........my guess is they’re not.
How much does a hand- held xrf spectrometer cost?........no idea, but it would provide a non- invasive method of determining what the watch is made of and thus confirm it’s genuine.
What’s to stop the fakers using 904 stainless? It’s more expensive and supposedly harder to machine but these factors aren’t insurmountable. If the aim is to produce watches that’ll deceive the well- informed (if not the experts) they’ll do it.
At the risk if raising the blood pressure of some of our more excitable members, as the quality of the fakes improves, the argument for owning one becomes stronger. Like it or not, that’s a fact.
Paul
All the influx will do is convince more people to deal through ADs and well respected watch shops because you can trust them to supply verified watches, albeit at higher prices. What this will also do is to dissuade people from trade with unqualified private sellers who themselves would not know a real fake from a genuine one.
Basically this will be a boost for ADs and specialist shops and will make life more difficult for private sellers. Overall sales will continue as in a strange way this has done Rolex a favour by encouraging us lot to deal with their ADs.
Yes there's a new factory using 904 steel. You can see the difference in the two alloys. Not exactly a rare metal. They've been using good quality 316l for a long time
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Wow, what an intriguing thread, as a non Rolex person even I believed they were the most faked watches but also believed I'd be able to spot one, I've got more chance of winning the lottery, some fantastic info in here for potential buyers, private or trade.
What is this "us lot" Mick? You've said before that you're not a buyer and yet you're still trying to stir people into AD only purchases.
For private sales, if you have concerns, ask the seller to drop the watch to Rolex for a service quote.
Watch is checked and returned (if service refused) for 70-80 quid split between 2 parties for peace of mind.
If the seller refuses - red flag and walk.
If the watch is fake it won't be seeing the light of day again.
Or spend hundreds more as advised above at an AD or specialised shop.
I see this as an opportunity for further identification and valuation services, not the end of private party sales.
Of course, I actually know something about this hobby... unlike some.
I'm still fascinated by this. Assuming the fakes will get better and better will there come a point where it's virtually impossible to tell a fake from a real watch with everything made to the same standard and QC and accuracy as good? And at that point how many people will spend £1k on one of those rather than the £8k a genuine Sub will surely cost by then? If dealers and collectors are already being hoodwinked how will anyone else be able to tell? I would imagine Rolex are going to have to come up with a way of authenticating watches without having to look at them, and make it possible for ADs to check.
"A man of little significance"
Let us be clear: these watches are nowhere near getting past an experienced, careful specialist yet.
They have got past many in the trade because there are many in it who fall short of that description. Nice websites and / or posh shops should be seen as no measure of same.
Haywood
Last edited by Haywood_Milton; 17th January 2018 at 14:45.
First of all what I said is that an influx of HQ fakes will encourage people to use ADs. You seem to be implying that I am stirring people into buying from ADs only. I am not, what I said was that private sellers will be under more pressure and as such they can expect their ratio of sales to drop and the ADs will take an extra lump of business. It is still a free market and anyone can chose who them buy from.
On a personal level I will now be more inclined to buy from a bricks and mortar shop but if the right watch came up from a private seller at the right place, I would expect a F2F in the sellers house or place or work and if they said no, then it's a deal breaker. Also your suggested precautions makes sense but I would want to be with you when you go in for the service quote. If that is too awkward to arrange, then again it would be a deal breaker.
I would not expect you to trust my judgement and likewise I won't trust a private sellers judgement. Please note I am talking about the ability to verify a watch, not anyones integrity, this is two different things.
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