Ulgy fake *PIC*

Posted By: Jarl Fr. Erichsen

Date: 7/10/07 12:31 GMT

Here it is, a quartz fake re-edition Carrera. As posted on Ebay.

The first one i have seen. Let's hope it is the last one....

Jarl

Compared to a real one....

Posted By: David Alstott

Date: 7/10/07 21:14 GMT

In Response To: Ulgy fake *PIC* (Jarl Fr. Erichsen)

... it looks pretty crude.

Well, the Quartz one looks fairly crude... [I wouldn't say that about the second watch pictured though] ]at least the Quartz model appears to have all of it's sub-registers work properly, which is more than we can saw for some of the later examples pictured in this thread...

BTW Dave... That's not _exactly_ a _real_ one... It's the Re-Issue! ;-)

And is your Hour Register sick Dave? It looks like it's either suffering from Chrono Hour Creep or it's not resetting properly or you managed to snap the picture while the chronograph second hand and chrono minute hand are zeroed while the hour hand is at 2 and 3/4er's? ¿ Bucka-Wha? Is that even possible?

Here's a real one:

Undoubtedly some poor buyer will get stung.

The unobservant, the unknowing, the fellow who seeks to get a perceived bargain, the fellow who thinks he's fooling the knowing... I mean I have some sympathy, but there are enough resources on line nowadays where if folks do a little research they can avoid such pitfalls.

The bad fakes don't scare me...

Posted By: allen st. john

Date: 7/10/07 22:51 GMT

In Response To: Compared to a real one.... (David Alstott)

...but the good ones do.

Agreed. Fortunately most of the good faker's devote their nefarious talents to non-chronographs. The moment they get ambitious and target Chronographs... Well, all of our lives become ever more complex.

Somewhere within the last month or so (here, the Omega forum, wathcuseek), someone posted a pic of a $228 Chinese made Rolex Daytona.

At least in pics, the thing looked great, and it had a convincing mechanical movement and everything.

Not to the trained [or at least in my case] experienced eye.

The problem with the Chinese Knock-off movement is that it's trying very hard to look like both Valjoux 72 series and Lemania c.321 movements at the same time, with the result that while on the surface, to the casual glance is looks at least close, the closer one looks the more one says "WTF!".

Chuck Maddox pointed out that the hour register was syched to the hour hand or something, which should tell the world it's a fake.

The hour register is slaved to the hour hand. Whatever time the Main timekeeping Hour hand are showing the Hour Register Hand will show the same time. It's a limitation of the current generation of the Chinese knock-off movement. The moment the Chinese get ambitious and make a version of this movement which has an actual functioning hour register, well, our lives become ever more complex [again].

But we're not all as observant as Chuck.

Guys, this is really simple... You don't have to be terribly observant... Do the following on all watches you consider purchase of:

Note the time the watch indicates. In particular note what HOUR the watch indicates.

Look at the Hour Register hand. If they match, and the time isn't set to 12 o'clock then the chances are exceedingly likely that the watch is a fake.

In other words if the watch is set to 10:08 and the Hour Register is pointing to just after 10...

WARNING! WARNING! WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! DANGER!!!

And he added that it wouldn't be any harder for them to knock off a different ETA movement which would get rid of that particular giveaway.

Well, My thinking is that the Chinese have already knocked off the Valjoux 7750, but it's not Compax layout... But Valjoux-ETA have come out with a version of the 7750 [called the 7753] which does have a Compax layout. How long before the Chinese or Koreans or someone else disects a 7753 and clone it?

Again, when this happens all of our lives become more complex.

A very pretty Carrera, though, isn't it?

Which one?

best

Allen

For those who missed...

Posted By: David Alstott

Date: 7/11/07 02:00 GMT

In Response To: The bad fakes don't scare me... (allen st. john)

... this example of a good Rolex Daytona likeness here it is.

I disagree... That Alpha has the Hour Register flaw. Anyone who takes a close look at the timekeeping hour hand and the chronograph register hand will notice that they are slaved.

Now the Gevril LE you have posted further on, on the other hand...

Yeah, that one... Is a closer match for the original Daytona. Save for fact the minute and small second registers are swapped [due the the movement being used being an ETA/Dubois-Depraz base movement] at least this chronograph functions fully as a 12-Hour chronograph.

Were Gevril to "re-issue" this homage piece with a 7753 movement, even the hour registers would be the same as the original Rolex Daytona. Of course it would be an automatic, while the vintage Daytona was a manual wind, but there are manual-wind versions of the 7750 too. When someone gets ambition and ..., all of our lives become more complex [still again!].

To be fair though it is clearly labeled as an Alpha not Rolex. Many other watche mfgs have imitated this look also. I think Heuer may have had some of the earliest of these two tone chrono dials so perhaps even rolex is guilty of imitation.

And it's my belief that Rolex stole the idea of the "Daytona Rings" off of either Tissot:

[Tissot PR516 circa early 1970's]

and/or Longines:

[Also circa early 1970's]

PS: let's hope there is nothing in these Chinese watches that will make us sick.

Amen to that!

-- Chuck

Chuck Maddox

Chronographs, like most finer things in life, only improve with time...

Watch Article index: http://www.xnet.com/~cmaddox/cm3articles.html,

Watch Links Page: http://www.xnet.com/~cmaddox/watch.html,

Watch Blog: http://chuckmaddoxwatch.blogspot.com/.