Guys tend to start complaining about how this or that isn’t “1:1” or “gen like” but nobody ever remembers how the price isn’t such as well.
If I have to be very blunt about it, reps are not some magical discounted ticket for anyone to own and enjoy a genuine Swiss made luxury watch. That’s a different world entirely.
This world is one whereby you pay a few hundred of dollars to enjoy a Chinese made lookalike (which by the way gets better and better over the years) which ISN’T actually an AP or Rolex or whatever it happens to resemble. Having said that, I am hard pressed to tell apart the gens from the reps in real life for some models, they have gotten that good. We should appreciate how much this hobby has evolved. Guys buy and wear replica watches for different reasons but I am sure there are many moments when you look at the replicas and forget that they Chinese made. They have gotten really good, which has allowed us to pick on subtleties like the color tone or dial finish instead of the wrong case shape and size or a completely wrong date magnification. Just take time to compare the modern rep to the same one 10 years back (if it exists) and see how far the hobby has come. The gen has a price to it, just pay it and all the “but this is not accurate!” problems will magically go away. To pay what one pays for the replica watch and to keep complaining about it being crap etc is actually just plain cheap, like buying a coach class ticket and then complaining about the service and perks being different from the first class passenger.
Conversely, if you can pay $500 and get a 1:1 watch, then the watch which is being replicated is in fact worth $500 and available to the masses. Where is the worth in it without the relative exclusiveness and rarity?
I’ve put my money where my words are and spent millions to buy the gens because I could not live with the flaws in the reps and even frankens. I’ve paid the price to enjoy what I wanted in my watches and learnt that the only way to get a 1:1 watch is to pay a 1:1 price. Even if you put together a rare genstein, such a watch may not be recognized by the brand due to a serial/case/movement numbers mismatch. Yes no tells in the watch per se but it is still illegitimate where the brand stands.
So enjoy the hobby for what it is. Forget about the 1:1 and whatnots and let your confidence and attitude do the talking where the watch falls short. The watches being churned out by the makers are nothing short of respectable. Yes they are flawed a little here and there but remember the price and what it actually is, no matter what it looks like.
. my wrist size is 21cm
