In your honest opinion, how many people out there do you think wear reps?

[If you see Kay]

i agree, it is rude to call someone out unless you are really close friends. I have no way of knowing if their watch is rep or gen. I sometimes have a hard time even complimenting them on their watches, cuz it sometimes it seems like you are intruding in on their personal space. It's like I don't compliment the guys necktie either. It's just a bit "weird"

I did compliment my colleague's Conquistador though, as we were in a one on one meeting together and we were discussing something real close and I got to within less than 2 feet of her watch to see really good detail of it. Little did I know that her watch was $14,000 at the time. Granted it could have been a rep, but by default, I assume its a gen. (plus she's got good taste to boot!! )

 

[bigdeal]

I've "shown off" my reps to virtually everyone I know, and not one person has ever had a clue about the availability of quality fakes, So I actually think the number is probably pretty small. At least for the good stuff that is, everybody has a few Canal St. junkers around somewhere though.

Then again, almost everyone I show them to ends up having me get one for them or begging me to sell them one of mine. So at this point, almost everyone I know wears one...

 

[If you see Kay]

I've "shown off" my reps to virtually everyone I know, and not one person has ever had a clue about the availability of quality fakes, So I actually think the number is probably pretty small. At least for the good stuff that is, everybody has a few Canal St. junkers around somewhere though.

Then again, almost everyone I show them to ends up having me get one for them or begging me to sell them one of mine. So at this point, almost everyone I know wears one...

I dunno if I'd "show off" my watches. It's kind of ostentatious to do so IMHO.

 

[bigdeal]

I dunno if I'd "show off" my watches. It's kind of ostentatious to do so IMHO.

I don't think showing off FAKE watches is ostentatious... I'm not talking about passing them off as gen...

 

[honeybear]

I don't think showing off FAKE watches is ostentatious... I'm not talking about passing them off as gen...

If you're telling them upfront that it is a replica, and merely showing off the kind of quality replicas one can get for a small fraction of the gen, I don't see any harm in that. I would almost say it was refreshingly honest.

 

[Keith_Jagger]

In my line of work, I deal with mostly upper-middle class. These guys drive BMW 5 series or Mercedes E350's ect. Almost ALL of them have Rolex, Breitling, or Tag's. Every time I see one, I wonder if it's real, or if they just got a rep from somewhere.

Do you think a lot of them are actually reps, or do you think these people spend thousands on a watch?

......with all do respect, get a life....

 

[aksingh]

I think Bigdeal has a point that almost no one knows about these great reps and thinks of fakes as only the crap on Canal St, Oxford st etc, so I think our rep's great quality will almost always pass for a gen unless you do a side by side with the gen and give the gen owner five minutes to work out the tells which he won't know instantly to look for.

 

[frankt8242]

My guess is : >>>>>

47

 

[Darthmemnoch]

I have a very bad and broken canal street quality rep which I will bring to show people when they ask me about reps. I will then say that I bought it for fun and that I will never buy these reps again as they never last.

Once I do that, everyone automatically assumes that my nicer watches are Gens.

 

[notreallyreplica]

I live in a town where it is actually difficult to NOT find a male wearing a rep watch. This is because of the major asian influence and population. I was paying for my parking meter and noticed the guy next to me had a milgauss GV with the horrible AR. I attended a birthday dinner where a group of strangers were comparing the reps they bought online. I see many kids going around with Rollies that I am 100% sure are fake, but definitely not canal street fake.

The other day I complimented a client of mine on his panerai daylight and he said its a rep...

I think sooner or later, having vintage watches or vintage reps will be the only way to differentiate the real watch lovers from the crowd lol.

The funniest offender has to be a family friend who flew in from Hong Kong. He had a 4th gen PO, fake LV bag, fake burberry coat, fake dg jeans, fake MJ shoes all being worn at once. The worst part is he said it is all real.

My theory is rich people will buy reps. Wealthy people will collect gens. There is a difference!

 

[TESLA760]

In my line of work, I deal with mostly upper-middle class. These guys drive BMW 5 series or Mercedes E350's ect. Almost ALL of them have Rolex, Breitling, or Tag's. Every time I see one, I wonder if it's real, or if they just got a rep from somewhere.

Do you think a lot of them are actually reps, or do you think these people spend thousands on a watch?

Hey, say hi next time !!

 

[WatchnScotch]

I am a fan of having a lot of different watches which I could never do if I bought Gen.

 

[fleadepot]

In my experience as long as the watch fits well into a financial profile of the wearer then chances that it's a gen are high. I really think that it's a small minority of ordinary people who are aware of these high end near gen reps so they wear what they can afford on the gen scene. Usually in the workplace i tend to wear mostly one watch and not to much of a head turner ( exp 1) and i was still surprised how many compliments i received. i think the biggest tell is if an average ( even a higher than average) earner wears several 5-10k watches. This really raises suspicion in many cases. just my 2 cents

 

[Fortey]

In my experience as long as the watch fits well into a financial profile of the wearer then chances that it's a gen are high.

This can also be tricky though. Just yesterday I was at an outdoor cafe in Brooklyn and the guy at the next table was wearing a gold IWC Portuguese chrono. I was trying to figure out if it was a rep, but in the end I have no clue if it was real. He was wearing a tshirt and jeans, but lots of people with money in NY dress like that, especially on the weekend.

Damn that watch was sexy, either way.

 

[d4m.test]

Three: My wife, my daughter, and my son

 

[tokeyx]

This can also be tricky though. Just yesterday I was at an outdoor cafe in Brooklyn and the guy at the next table was wearing a gold IWC Portuguese chrono. I was trying to figure out if it was a rep, but in the end I have no clue if it was real. He was wearing a tshirt and jeans, but lots of people with money in NY dress like that, especially on the weekend.

Damn that watch was sexy, either way.

I think 90% of the ultra high quality watches (over $10k) I see in NYC are on people are wearing jeans and a tshirt. The vast majority of the suits I see are wearing $3k-$5k watches.

 

[frigpig]

Has anyone pointed out that 95% of people have no idea what a any watch other than a rolex even is.

So we have a very small cross section of the population that would purchase, say a Panerai. Now figure out what percentage would get a rep.

Moral of the story.....not many...

 

[Time4Direct]

I think you would be shocked as to how many people wear the gen watch.
To a lot of people buying a gen is a sense of achievement in much the same way as buying their 1st Merc or BMW is.
Of course a huge amount of people buy reps but I don't think you can select a particular group that buy them
People buy them for different reasons you get the people who buy them because it's a hobby although I would guess this is a very small proportion of the market
The biggest proportion by far are the people who buy them to appear they are better off than they actually are .
Some Gen owners will buy the rep not to use their gen others to see if they like it enough to spend on a gen
I sold a ladies Patek 24 rose gold with diamonds to a pal of mine who is super rich his wife has several gen Patek and wanted to check if she liked the 24 enough to buy the gen this was a few years ago I saw them when I was in UK last and happened to ask her if she had bought the Gen 24.
She said she loved the 24 but hadn't bought the gen because in the 3 years she had the rep she had only had occasion to wear it a half dozen times and buying the gen would be a waste.
Now these people are proper wealthy they have the $5 million house holiday homes have 5-6 high end cars etc and just couldn't justify buying the gen of this particular watch

So there are a million reason why people wear reps and a complete range of people that wear them so there must be an amazing amount of people who wear reps.

There are also a lot who are wearing reps and don't know they are but thats another story!!

 

[notreallyreplica]

Haha well I would like to think a lot of "proper" rich people didn't get wealthy by wasting money!

 

[TESLA760]

I think you would be shocked as to how many people wear the gen watch.
To a lot of people buying a gen is a sense of achievement in much the same way as buying their 1st Merc or BMW is.
Of course a huge amount of people buy reps but I don't think you can select a particular group that buy them
People buy them for different reasons you get the people who buy them because it's a hobby although I would guess this is a very small proportion of the market
The biggest proportion by far are the people who buy them to appear they are better off than they actually are .
Some Gen owners will buy the rep not to use their gen others to see if they like it enough to spend on a gen
I sold a ladies Patek 24 rose gold with diamonds to a pal of mine who is super rich his wife has several gen Patek and wanted to check if she liked the 24 enough to buy the gen this was a few years ago I saw them when I was in UK last and happened to ask her if she had bought the Gen 24.
She said she loved the 24 but hadn't bought the gen because in the 3 years she had the rep she had only had occasion to wear it a half dozen times and buying the gen would be a waste.
Now these people are proper wealthy they have the $5 million house holiday homes have 5-6 high end cars etc and just couldn't justify buying the gen of this particular watch

So there are a million reason why people wear reps and a complete range of people that wear them so there must be an amazing amount of people who wear reps.

There are also a lot who are wearing reps and don't know they are but thats another story!!

One of the best, and most factual posts I have read here in a while.....