re: Help and advice with buying a Rolex online

quote:

---

Some dude in London got stabbed to death over a fake Patek last year

---

Europeans *love* replicas. Like legitimately TD-100,000 posts on a forum love.

Can't sleep. I did realize we could set up a quiz for me one of two ways:

1. we could decide on a time we can both be online and use either this thread or the Friday watch thread that even BigPappi has been slacking on recently. You could have 10-20 pictures of real and fake Rolex movements and post one at a time and I could refresh every 10-15 seconds and reply as quickly as possible with just F(ake) or R(real). Hopefully, it would move quick enough that it would dispel the idea I was reverse searching. I would need to be able to see the entire balance assembly and prefer the movement not running. I can do it with the picture of a running movement but it might take me a couple of extra seconds on ones where they have attempted to hide the regulator studs.

2. you can post pictures and I can just respond when I get around to it and repost the picture after circling and using arrows to point to the things that show it is real or fake. I will do this later if we do the speed round so I can teach anyone at least as smart as my Basset Hounds to definitively determine real or fake very quickly.

The method can be used on any watch where the real thing has a free-sprung balance, for example, it won't work when the authentic watch is using something like an ETA (or its clones). It will work with SOME modified ETAs like the ones Tudor put in their new watches after 2012/13.

That's a commitment

A quick Google search and here's a Rolex Daytona counterfeit movement compared with Gen. Keeping in mind these are *tiny* parts that you're going to need a loup to inspect and given the claims any given component of the movement could be swapped out for gen, which of these are the "tell" for you if you had the back open?

Obviously this is providing the cheat key by displaying the Gen but unless you're obtuse1 how would a casual person figure it out quickly?

quote:

---

That's a commitment

---

Easy to do when you know what I know. The I6 vs V6 engine analogy was not remotely hyperbole.

quote:

---

Keeping in mind these are *tiny* parts

---

You are talking to an amateur watchmaker that has taken over 100 movements apart and reassembled them. I know exactly how large the parts I am looking for are and they are not remotely what I consider tiny and I don't need a loupe to identify them. I really wish you had scrubbed the labels on that picture, it took me all of ten seconds to verify the balance assembly in the top picture was from a Rolex movement and much of that time was spent scanning the picture to find the balance.

Back to the commitment issue. I will put REAL money on this scenario:

Get a 100 watches mixed with both real and fake modern Rolexes. Remove the case backs, hack the movements and move the rotor so the full balance balance assembly is exposed. I can't touch the watches and can't get my eyes closer than 12" away and won't even use my readers, I do get a flashlight incase the lighting is poor or my head makes a shadow. I will go 100 out of 100 everytime in under 15 minutes until you are tired of losing money. I am confident I could do it in under 10 minutes but I won't bet big money on that just due to the logistics of identifying the watches to someone else to verify. I could break Musk or Bezos doing this. It ain't rocket science.


Here is the difference that is plain as day. The top picture is the real Rolex, the 4 red arrows point to the timings screws (Rolex calls them Microstella). Look at the balance on the fake in the second picture, the orange arrow points to the smooth balance wheel with no adjustment screws (easier to see with the movement stopped) and the blue arrows point to the regulator studs that control beat rate and beat error by effectively changing the length of the hairspring. A Rolex movement has an adjustable mass balance wheel (the screws work like the arms of a figure skater spinning) and does not need regulator studs because the hairspring length stays constant. Once you see it you can't unsee it. Post all the pictures you like and if I can clearly see the balance assembly I'll be right every time.

quote:

---

Back to the commitment issue. I will put REAL money on this scenario:

Get a 100 watches mixed with both real and fake Rolexes. Remove the case backs, hack the movements and move the rotor so the full balance balance assembly is exposed.

---

Gimmie a couple minutes to check the watch box in my closet.

quote:

---

A Rolex movement has an adjustable mass balance wheel (the screws work like the arms of a figure skater spinning) and does not need regulator studs because the hairspring length stays constant.

---

Are you saying thatb balance wheel is impossible to counterfeit or just this particular movement has that "tell".

Genuinely curious (no pun intended) if these replica parts reach a point where they are indistinguishable or if there is a reason the balance can't be copied.

Anyway. Great discussion. you know your shite.

Watch market is dying by the week. There's no reason to buy any watch right now from someone like Bob's or DavidSW they are for suckers and people who do not know better. I'd also put Swiss Watch Expo in that group as well.

I wonder if the IP pirates are ever going to crack the MicroStella issue? It is the easy tell. The hairspring is another issue. They also aren't going to have Nivarox hairsprings, even though you can bet the hairspring is going to have some kind of (usually) crude blued treatment. I haven't seen pics of a replica movement with a MicroStella adjustment yet. I like to say there is just that je ne sais quois when you see a rep, but people say that's gotten harder.

I had a guy I know that has reals and fakes and I held his VS Rep 126110LV (Starbucks, but I hate using some of the nicknames), and the fake cerachrome bezel didn't have the same look, couldn't put my finger on it, and it darn sure wasn't bad, just not exactly correct. And maybe it was because I knew it was ersatz, and I was wearing a 126710CHNR to have immediate comparison of bezels even though the color is not the same and one is a Sub and one a GMT.

I'm not afraid to crack the back on one and will do it in a heartbeat, and I'd feel pretty darn comfortable telling with an assembled movement.

Yes I have been slacking on the TGIF watch thread, lol. Been traveling the last few Fridays. I'm on the hunt for something vintage rn, hopefully by a couple of Fridays from now I'll have one in hand.

quote:

---

He's way overpriced. No reason to buy from Bob's or DavidSW

---

This....unless you like throwing money away.