re: Help and advice with buying a Rolex online

r/reptime or r/chinatime

quote:

---

The reality is people that wear fake watches (or any fake luxury goods) don't care about the watch itself, they only care about what other people think of them.

---

Agree.... but I'd say most Rolex wearers care more about the brand image than than the intricacies of the movement/ watch as well. Many pay over retail despite the ability to purchase a better made/ higher end brand not named Rolex.

quote:

---

DavidSW is priced way over current market value. I don't see how he sells a single watch as there are sellers out there that have been in business just as long as him who are literally $2k cheaper on the same watch BNIB.

---

Which sellers are you recommending? You keep saying there are sellers out there and have not listed any. I am interested. The market on Rolex watches is going down and they are becoming more “available” from ADs but it will be nice to know more reputable grey market sellers, so I appreciate your response in advance.

quote:

---

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.

---

A free sprung balance could 100% be faked but it wouldn't be easy or cheap. The hairspring is the hardest movement part to produce and hairsprings for free-sprung balances have to be made to much higher tolerances. There is a reason that even haute horology companies that build 100% or near 100% in-house movements very very slow to move hairsprings in-house and many still use a third party supplier like Nivorox.

Free-sprung balance assemblies also take a lot more skill to assemble. They are also require much more skill and time to poise and regulate. I a just a hack but it takes me more time to poise and regulate a freesprung balance than it does to assemble and regulate an entire ETA/Sellita/Seagull/one of the many Chinese clones movement. I usually have to walk away from the bench multiple times before I snap and throw the movement against the wall.

If I had to guess moving to a free sprung balance would double the BOM cost of a fake and increase total assembly time by 40-50%. There are also only 2 types of people that would buy them. 1. people that are incredibly OCD about a movement's aesthetics inside a close back Rolex 2. people that have the intent on trying to sell a fake as real.

I mentioned Frankens several times before and since their are fake movements that purport to allow swaps with all real movement parts is it possible to replace the balance assembly... I assume. The problem with the current Rolex movements is they have locked down the parts supply chain so if you get one out of the normal stream of commerce I would imagine they would be a couple of grand. Something a little older like a 3135 and you could probably find a used balance assembly in the $600 to $700 range. Then you would have to be able to install, poise and regulate it or know a "professional" watchmaker that would do the deed. I assume they exist but I have no idea how to find one.

The biggest Franken issue I am aware of were the 4 digit Daytonas coming out of Vietnam. They were 100% Rolex parts but they washed the dials and reprinted them to portend to be a more desirable watch. Rooting them out really fell to provenance since it was near impossible otherwise. Rolex kept really crappy records in that time period. Unlike say Patek there is nobody in the world that can or will verify a particular serial number vintage Rolex came from the factory with a particular dial. This is further complicated by the fact this was in the era when Rolex used thrid party dial makers and the dials often varied by lot. So just seeing a distinct difference from a "known" original and a questionable example means nothing, it could just by typical dial variations from the period. There are a lot of various known dial variations that are limited to certain serial ranges often you can verify a redial because it is outside the known range but sometimes you have various variations within the same serial range so while you might be able to say 100% this is an incorrect dial saying it is 100% the correct dial is more or less impossible in that situation.

Rolex is a minefield for fakes, the modern ones are easy, again following my rubric*, but the older they are the more difficult it becomes for various reasons. The only positive is they are less likely to be faked at a high level on a mass scale and although not impossible wabi sabi is hard to accurately fake. There is a softness to a vintage watch that is hard to describe and even harder to fake.

Since I am rambling I should note that even modern Rolex is not immune to variations. An example of that is the color of the ceramic Pepsi bezels. There are at least 4 (maybe more) hue variations. Red and blue bezels are hard to make consistently perfect in hue. Orange gave Omega fits, sooner or later my second rarest watch will pop up on a Friday and I can illuminate the story of the first commercially available Omegas with a ceramic orange bezel.


* there are a lot more tells for a modern Rolex but they require more knowledge that I can't teach easily over the web and do indeed often require a loupe.

i dont even know how to process everything you just wrote

sounds like you've pretty much done it all with taking watch movements apart and servicing them.

i've watched a few videos..including one where the guy meticulously took every last microscopic part off a rolex and laid it out on his work mat only to snag it when he stood up and everything tumbled into the carpet

it literally hurt my OCD to see that. it was like watching a train wreck in real time.

eta i have a loup (loupe?) and its still hard to see shite and mostly all i'm doing is simple stuff like adjusting the links on a bracelet. i am too old to handle microscopic movement screws that require a surgeon's hands or as you pointed out, reloading a movement spring using tweezers and the patience of Job.

quote:

---

Many pay over retail despite the ability to purchase a better made/ higher end brand not named Rolex.

---

This quote is interesting to me when people trot this out - and Dragula, I'm not trying to drag you through the mud. But it is hard to argue "better made" with Rolex. And I suppose that statement can be so subjective that it vaires widely from the definition of one person to another, so please don't preceive this as an attack on your taste and choice in watches.

If you look at old watches - and I do a lot, it is hard to match the robustness of Rolex simply if one uses the ability of the movements to run with very nice precision with only a modicum of servicing, and even without servicing for many years (provided intact case). Its hard to argue also that in terms of longevity that the oyster case in general can be surpassed by almost anything, and definitely not on the scale with which Rolex has done it. I mean, take a DayDate for example, you can dress it up with most anything and it will fit, but you can also dive with it and it will preserve the innards, provide you don't go below 100m (thats pretty darn deep). Not many dress watches you can say that about and that's just the starting standard across the Rolex range.

As far as design, most of what Rolex has put out there since its inception remains germane to the design gestalt of almost any periord in which it has existed. That is they have undergone mostly small evolutionary changes whille continually improving quality in ways that are not always readily apparent.

I'll grant you there are plenty more subjectively elegant watches available from brands with remarkable heritage, but one would be remiss to not include Rolex at the top tier when making lists of the best watchmaking firms. When I buy a watch, I buy it either because it was great 40 years ago, or I expect it to still be great another 40 (and more) years from now.

But damn here I am again being a Rolex apologist, lol. I dabble in other brands, but always seem to come back, and its as much as anything because they beautifully stand the test of time.

quote:

---

Many pay over retail despite the ability to purchase a better made/ higher end brand not named Rolex.

---

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the consumer isn't at risk in terms of legal peril when purchasing, other than the fact that the goods may be confiscated coming in to the country. Not sure what kind of recourse one has if the good is confiscated by CBP, or if the seller takes care of the buyer in that instance.

Obtuse prolly knows the real answer to this.

your response is spot on.

quote:

---

Sounds good. I have no desire to buy one, but was just curious. Thanks for the info.

---

i wont lie i've lurked on RWI before its a fascinating subculture and its mostly Europeans and Australians on that site but they are an angry bunch and absolute freaks that fight over inane things like the source of the crystal for some random watch to the point people end up getting banned or doxxed.

crazy shite. i wouldn't advise creating a user account over there. those bitches be crazy.

quote:

---

Who would downvote useful information.

---

because the OT ballers like to thumb their nose at idea there is a HUGE replica industry out there with rabid fans.

i agree, what's wrong with providing information? is it SCARY to think someone might read something and form their own opinions?

the web is a wonderful place filled with all kinds of stuff.