To preface, I've been a member here for a long time; bought, traded, sold, made amazing friends. As a hobbyist, we learn about the brands we like, mods, TD's and very little about the factories, which is fine. I read an article yesterday about a "new" trend of stealing high value watches, mostly Rolex in the US west coast, also mostly by women around LA and southern California. The story went on to talk about how the very affluent are opting to buy super-reps in the thousands of dollars to wear instead of their real Rolex Daytona or solid gold Subs. There's probably nothing new about stealilng watches but I've been hearing of super-reps for years without any clear evidence (that I've seen). Does anyone know if these unicorns exist? We can certainly find frankens of outstanding quality here, all above $1000 but are there factories producing significantly better reps than what is seen here at RWI? It's a question that has puzzled me for years, maybe the seasoned experts can offer their thoughts. Thanks in advance.
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Rolex Super-Reps, Real or Hype?
- Thread starter jakeslatneksy
- Start date
I’m in no way a seasoned expert but from my experience, the factory reps that are coming out being labeled ‘super clones’ are pretty close to perfect from a ‘walking past you on the street’ perspective.
You can’t tell the difference out and about in the real world. They are as good as it gets.
Obviously there are people in this group that can spot every minor flaw and decide to franken their watch to make it perfect, but anyone outside of these walls will never know.
So I think the super reps you’re talking about are in fact the factory clones we see here
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muiramas
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The best reps are the $400-$600 ones we buy from TD’s.
There are some sellers that sell the same thing to stupid rich people for up to $2,000 - these are the ones you read about.
There are some sellers that sell the same thing to stupid rich people for up to $2,000 - these are the ones you read about.
Thank you to Pezzie1 for a very sobering answer and a wake-up call that we in this forum are likely trading and buying from the top-shelf TD's. This quote above from muiramas is both brilliant in it's street-awareness and of course, there are rubes out there willing to pay $2000, as long as there's a story about how amazing it is. It's like buying cannabis in the 1970's and 80's. Everything was always the best of the best, (it was crap) so people would fork over the money. I have a friend in Switzerland, knows absolutely nothing about the business of high-end replicas but swears to me that Turkey is making the finest replicas in the world. I believe this not to be accurate at all. It's ZF or HF and we know where these are located. Thanks to those who have replied. I'm very grateful and I love that people are actually kind to each other here (unless we forget to tag our picture or profiteer, then all bets are off.)
LOL! You should press your Swiss friend for more details, so we can all find out what we're missing out on and get access to this secret source of Turkish Super Reps.
Rocket14
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Might be entertaining to tell your pal you’ve heard on the grape vine that North Korea is making the best chocolate in the world:thumbsup:
The funny thing (apart from the fact that my friend in Zurich, ground zero for the finest watch brands in the universe) is that he buys comparatively mediocre replicas (Panerai, Tag Heuer) and they're all second rate. But for someone who has no clue, apart from going to places like Bali and Thailand where you can buy replicas by the kilo, his believes his watches are superb. So sure, I'll tell him there's an inside track for really good chocolate, and even cheese coming from North Korea. Oh, and the other thing is you can't tell some people that you know a little bit more on a subject than they do, even tactfully. For him, Turkey is the great rep-watch country. So, I'm thinking he knows a guy who sells him Chinese reps, tells him they're from Turkey and he's all about Turkey reps. It's silly. And finally, most people who really appreciate reps, have them modded, really get into the hobby don't talk a lot about the subject. There's judgement out there.
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muiramas
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The Swiss regard watches in the same way as Italians regard food;
The further away you get from Italy, the worse the food becomes. For an Italian, food becomes inedible as you get to northern Germany. By the time you get to Asia, it's actually poisonous.
This should be written in the bible, and translated in all languages :indeed:
If anything, and this is a stretch, would possibly be the "Super Duper Rep" would be of real gold. I highly doubt it though, and our reps are near 1:1 is it just crazy, there is no further improvement needed.
BlueLineFarmer
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Actually there were some real gold reps in the 'Old Days" like 10-15 years ago I'd say. I never bought one, but i think even then they were $5k and up.
AFAIK they are not available anymore. The price of gold makes them too expensive.
AFAIK they are not available anymore. The price of gold makes them too expensive.
StreetFighter
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I was offered one in Egypt 2004, a 18k GMT, may have been a Yacht. I was sceptical of course, but he put it on a scale and it was 178g so it must have been gold.. it had a zero date mag which I thought was crap, I was wearing a TW Best 16613 Blue Sub at the time.
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The TWB were the best at that time. I still have a WG DD, TT Daytona, and TTYM from 2007-2008,all working! The YM never was serviced and keeps excellent time. I'm sure they had Gen ETA movements back then, except the Daytona. That still works well too.
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typevii
Horology Curious
Pretty sure the very affluent are not hanging about on RWI following the latest thread on VSF availability or CF bezel speed bumps.
They will be paying someone, who pays someone to order a rep, who pays someone else to service the rep (hopefully good reps from the TD's and not bad ones from DHgate) but everyone in the chain needs to make a little so the affluent customer pays 2k+ for the end product.
They will be paying someone, who pays someone to order a rep, who pays someone else to service the rep (hopefully good reps from the TD's and not bad ones from DHgate) but everyone in the chain needs to make a little so the affluent customer pays 2k+ for the end product.
Maaaaam just pick you up a VSF 114060LN for less then $600 and make anyone else who paid above $1k for anything look stooopid! Lol
I know there will be nitpickers who say otherwise but you don’t need much better than this! Put a Gen serial number on these puppies and no one can tell without opening up the back. In fact… for most of us who are not trying to pass Reps as Gens… why even get any closer?
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I know there will be nitpickers who say otherwise but you don’t need much better than this! Put a Gen serial number on these puppies and no one can tell without opening up the back. In fact… for most of us who are not trying to pass Reps as Gens… why even get any closer?
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Italian food is incredible, skip Germany, Czeck, Austria, all of Eastern Europe, and Russia, but if you think that when you get to Japan, Thailand, and India that the food is terrible, you’ve got problems
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The one area on these reps that are consistently substandard is the water proofing. How is it that $89 homage's from aliexpress can get 200M water resistance but the reps can't? They're not just lying, there are a number of youtubers that have tested them. I would assume the cases and seals would be at least as good or better on reps as $100 homage's..... What am I not seeing?