Hey Tim,
Thank you for the email for Andrew - got a response asap haha.
Just a question regarding your cartier 35mm. I've seen someone talk about their new BVF saying the following "they haven't fixed the floating "R" issue in the 35mm model. For me it wasn't very noticeable so I didn't mind . What bothered me tho , was the case shape and the lugs( which for me is what makes the gen so unique )". Can you also notice these issues?
Cheers again
If im being honest I didnt go crazy inspecting it and comparing every little bit to the gen, so no I didnt notice those issues, but again I didnt look very hard or spend a lot of time on that. I was getting a new watch and the wife wanted one. I gave her a list of options I thought would be nice (her first nice watch) and she picked the Cartier. I made sure the best version available was legit and bought it...simple as that lol.
Maybe 10% of people out there even notice the watch your wearing, maybe 20% of those people even know the different watch brands (outside of Rolex) and probably less than 1% of those people (1% of the 10%) can tell the difference between a horrendous $50 rep and the gen. When you get to the level of reps we play in, I would argue its like 1/10 of 1% of people that notice your watch, could actually tell the difference between rep and gen and that would be with them having both side by side and comparing lol. There are guys here that could tell by sight alone, but theyre part of that 1/10th of 1% and they most likely can only do that for a few brands and models they know well, and only if they were holding it in their hand (not from 3ft away in a social situation).
My philosophy has always been to buy the watch because you like the way it looks, the way it feels, etc and because it puts a smile on your face, not because it is a 100% perfect clone of the gen. Chasing perfection usually just results in disappointment because nothing in life is truly perfect.
That said, if it bothers YOU then dont buy it...If youre going to stare at the issues youve mentioned, and be bothered by it everytime you see it, then I wouldnt recommend buying that one. Theres nothing worse than noticing one flaw and then thats all you see.
You can read in the below article...the rep game has gotten so strong that even the "experts" cant tell the difference rep vs gen. "Watchfinder used to be able to identify about
80% of bogus time pieces by sight alone but now that's just 20%". Watchfinder is owned by the same company that owns Cartier, Panerai, IWC, etc etc (they own basically half of the big watch brands, the rest are owned by Swatch group and only a couple are still independent). So they are literally the experts and they cant tell when theyre on their workbench that its a rep, until they open them up...no one is going to be able to tell tiny differences in the case shape of that Cartier.
The number of sophisticated fake watches uncovered by pre-owned dealer Watchfinder & Co is rising, with Rolex replicas accounting for about half of the knockoffs.
www.bloomberg.com
