Wearing A Fake Rolex

My automatic watch sits in an automatic watch winder and I have never had to reset anything, except on daylight saving time. With that said, an automatic needs more maintenance as it needs to be serviced and send out. Wear and tear of internal parts and lubrication mostly. A quartz is so much easier as you can easily replace the battery and gasket yourself, service is less and are overall cheaper to maintain.

Timex automatic: 




Not a fake, but Rolex inspired.  Japanese movement.  Wish that it was a bit thinner.  A quartz diver is on the right.

My automatic watch sits in an automatic watch winder and I have never had to reset anything, except on daylight saving time. With that said, an automatic needs more maintenance as it needs to be serviced and send out. Wear and tear of internal parts and lubrication mostly. A quartz is so much easier as you can easily replace the battery and gasket yourself, service is less and are overall cheaper to maintain.

I can't replace the battery on my quartz dive watch myself. It requires a watchmaker's press to open. The replacement battery with service costs about $12.00. When the watch was new 20 years ago, the battery lasted maybe 5 years. Now that the watch is older, maybe one year. My watch maker confirmed that as these movements age, they get less efficient and require more battery power. Also, the feature where the second hand skipped two seconds at a time to indicate that the battery needed replacement is no longer working. You can not afford to have a dive watch fail while you are under water, so now I replace it every year whether it needs it or not. That means that every ten years maintaining that watch is going to cost something like $140.00. My Timex automatic can be had for about $175.00 new when Timex offers their deals. It will pay for itself in about 15 years. It may need to be cleaned and adjusted every 20 years. Now, I could replace the movement in the quartz watch every ten years but that gets expensive too.

So, a low cost decent quality automatic may make a lot of sense.

I know it's been a while, but I get the appeal of wearing a watch that looks good without breaking the bank, but a fake Rolex might not be the best route. Sure, they can look nice, but there’s something about authenticity that matters.

It depends on a lot of factors. One is where you live and where you go. Nobody is going to rob you over a $175.00 Timex. You will definitely get robbed in some places if you are wearing a $4k Rolex.

A while ago, I saw an article that talked about celebrities appearing in events like the Oscars often show up decked out in fake jewelry. They might own real jewels stored in a safe somewhere, but the insurance cost of wearing such jewelry in public is prohibitive. Thus, the real jewels stay in the safe and cheap knockoffs featuring gold plating and cubic zirconia stones rather than diamonds, rubies and emeralds. The TV audience thinks they are real, but they only cost a fraction of the real thing. A jeweler can spot the imposters, but from a distance, no one is the wiser. Thus, if you want to sport a fake Rolex or other inexpensive piece of jewelry, go ahead and do so.

A while ago, I saw an article that talked about celebrities appearing in events like the Oscars often show up decked out in fake jewelry. They might own real jewels stored in a safe somewhere, but the insurance cost of wearing such jewelry in public is prohibitive. Thus, the real jewels stay in the safe and cheap knockoffs featuring gold plating and cubic zirconia stones rather than diamonds, rubies and emeralds. The TV audience thinks they are real, but they only cost a fraction of the real thing. A jeweler can spot the imposters, but from a distance, no one is the wiser. Thus, if you want to sport a fake Rolex or other inexpensive piece of jewelry, go ahead and do so.

I think we forget that back in the 50's and 60's Rolex and Tudor were relatively affordable if you were a professional man. Also, petty crime was not rampant the way it is today. So, it might be a reasonable gamble to take. Today, I think is is unwise to have anything of value in public, unless your travels are limited to very exclusive places where you will not come into contact with the general public. Society is in general collapse in a lot of places, especially in the U.S. OTOH, I think that expensive watches are probably better investments today than back in the 50's and 60's.

I can totally relate to your point about automatic watches requiring more maintenance. I’ve been a fan of the GMT-Master clone for a while now, and while I love the design, I’ve found that even the replica watches need a bit of care. I recently had to send my gmt master clone for servicing because the winding mechanism wasn’t functioning smoothly. It’s not a huge issue, but it's something to keep in mind with these pieces. I do agree that quartz watches are so much easier to handle – just pop in a new battery, and you're good to go! I'm still figuring out all the ins and outs of watch maintenance, but it’s been fun learning.