[tony20009]

Originally Posted by Z K

The cheap fakes are crap. Usually quartz or some low beat automatic movement. The people who buy those are just looking for something cheap to show off.

I guess knowing something about the authentic watches and owning them, those people have a higher standard when looking for fakes. As Tony mentioned, in Asia people generally don't care if you have a fake or not. As long as it isn't a glaringly obvious fake, people rarely care. Friends openly talk about their fake watches, which merchants have the good ones and compare fake to real models. Lots of people will own a few real ones or upgrade to a real one later because of peer pressure or the desire to own the real article.

It is totally dependent on the circles you are in though. A female friend of mine is a lawyer. She has a law degree in China and the USA and so she works a lot of international cases. Generally she wears a lot of brand name items.. Gucci, Chanel, Prada, LV etc. It's all authentic and costs quite a bit. But as she says it, it is the price of doing business.

She has to see clients and well off Chinese clients like to work with people who look like they are doing well. It is a sign of power and people have respect for others who look like they are doing well. The thinking is if they are doing well, then working with them, they will do well together from a financial standpoint.

I think this thinking is why the pursuit of luxury products is very important to a lot of Chinese customers. The image of success it provides opens doors to those looking to network and increase their business opportunities. I can see people who can't afford the authentic items try to do the same by obtaining the fake ones.

Crappy watches are crap. Inexpensive fakes can be crappy, but they don't have to be, and quite a lot of them are not.

For example, since you cited beat rate as a measure, the fakes I've bought as "door prizes" and "stocking stuffers" all have 21K or 28K beat rates. I haven't paid more than $30 for any of them, and more often, I pay about $15 each these days. Back in 2008, I was paying about $25 each for them, but I didn't know the seller then. The pricing has gotten better as the years have gone by.

What is cheap is the way they are delivered. They come in a plastic bag/wrapper that's not unlike a cigarette pack's clear plastic wrapper. No instructions, no warranty card, no nothing. Just the watch.

Red:
I wonder how much that feeling is constrained to Asia?

Blue:
I can't speak to the legal profession or to how such things apply to women. I can speak to how they apply to me and my management consulting clients. I am pretty sure that it's important for me to look well put together and well groomed. I am hard pressed to assert that whether I carry/use expensive personal effects is a factor in my clients' minds. I am certain that given the firm in which I'm a principal and the billing rates they pay, I'm sure they are well aware that I'm plenty successful, both personally and professionally. If they had any doubts some decade or more ago, the results I've delivered have long since shown they need not have any.

Therein lies a crux of things. In a professional situation, I don't know how or that a watch can possibly make any difference at all. One either has a string of professional accomplishments or one does not. Those accomplishments, or the lack thereof, will speak for themselves no matter what watch -- fake or not -- one wears. I think that when two principals from two companies are conducting business, one's fake watch doesn't even come up on the radar of things either considers.

In a social setting (non business), again, one either is or isn't known to the other folks in that setting. One's deeds will speak volumes more than will one's watch, fake or not. I'm sure most folks care to some extent what their cohorts think of them, but one is known to those people. What is a watch going to do either way? Among the random strangers who enter and exist one's life, however briefly/quickly, does one really even give so much as the time of day's worth of concern to what those strangers, people whom one doesn't actually know before or after the interaction, think? I find it hard to think one would, but I suppose there are people who do. Tsk, tsk, tsk is all I have to say about them.

Other:
Not to pick on you, per se, but only because yours is the first post I came by here -- http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1154407 -- that does what I fully expected lots of folks will do, I've quoted you.

Originally Posted by Z K

...

No matter the price, I like something that looks clean. Easy to read and more simple vs complex/gaudy. I don't like odd proportions and sub dials.

But looking to branch out. Maybe something dressier but still sporty. IWC seems pretty appealing to me - I like that they tend to be more classical styles but still modern looking.

If one's expectations are clean looks, good legibility and simplicity, I think one really needs to have a "heart to heart" with oneself before spending a lot of money on a watch, and before deriding fake watches and/or consumers of them.

• Why even buy a mechanical watch? That'd the fist question I'd ask myself because the noted expectations don't militate at all for, much less require, a mechanical watch.
• What's the point of spending $500+, to say nothing of IWC-money, on a watch when If all one expects are the noted traits? Those characteristics just don't cost that much and there are plenty of nice looking watches that have those traits.

Now you tell me given what folks are writing as their expectations in the above referenced thread, what about them suggests that there is any rational reason (aside from the legal one) for buying an expensive authentic watch, or an authentic inexpensive mechanical watch over an inexpensive fake mechanical watch? Does it look to you like most members care at all about features that are uniquely available only in pricey watches? It sure doesn't look like that to me.

All the best.