The main movements used in high-end replica watches at present
I wanted to write this blog a long time ago, because the movements in the replica watch market are too chaotic! For any consumer who wants to buy a watch, the movement is what they consider the most and is the most critical. Indeed, no matter how well-made a watch is, if the movement is poor, it will be crazy to wear it! So how to choose a replica watch with a better movement? First of all, let’s understand what movements are currently used in replica watches?
1. Swiss movement
Many consumers have very little knowledge about watch movements. When they talk about watches, they think that Swiss movements are indispensable. They think that if a mechanical watch wants to be accurate, other movements except Swiss movements will not work! In fact, this understanding is very wrong. For example, most of the movements of big brands such as Cartier, Panerai, and Lange are also produced domestically, and they do not use Swiss movements. Swiss movements are divided into two categories: self-produced and basic movements.
1. Brand-made movement
A self-made movement refers to a movement that a watch brand produces for its own use, such as Omega 8500, Rolex 3135, Hublot 4100, etc. This type of movement is usually only available in genuine products. The reason is simple. If you are the boss of a watch brand, would you let your own movement be exiled for others to make imitation watches? Of course not. Think about it in another way. If someone can get a brand-made movement, then getting the original case should not be a problem. Since there is an original movement and an original case, can it still be called an imitation? In addition, the cost of this kind of self-made movement is very high. For example, the Rolex 3135 movement, which is only second-hand on the market, costs 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per piece. The cost of a new Omega 2500 movement is also around 10,000 yuan. Many customers think I am bragging, but in fact, you can understand it as long as you think about it a little. If you buy a watch for 50,000 or 60,000 yuan, it is not too much to spend 10,000 to 20,000 yuan on the movement. Now you should have figured it out!
(II) Basic movement
Basic movement refers to the general movement produced by movement factories such as ETA and SW. Basic movement includes semi-finished products and finished products. Semi-finished products are mainly movement parts. Then watch companies take the semi-finished products of the movement factory and process them into their own movements. For example, Longines’ CAL.L619 is actually based on ETA2892-A2, which is also a self-produced movement; finished movement is ETA2824, ETA2836, ETA2892, SW200 and other Swiss movements we are familiar with. Many watches are also directly equipped with basic movements, such as Tissot, Mido, Hamilton, Longines, Tudor, and even some models of Omega, IWC and Panerai also use ETA finished movements. This kind of movement is not expensive. Generally, the Swiss price ranges from 120 to 500 US dollars. However, since Switzerland banned the supply of movements to mainland China, it can only be imported through Hong Kong in many cases, and the quantity is much less. Naturally, the price is copied by the movement merchants! Moreover, 7750 and 6497 are strictly controlled by ETA, and they are almost out of print in mainland China, and the price is ridiculously high!
It is not difficult to understand that if a replica watch is to be equipped with a Swiss movement, it can only use a basic movement. If the authentic watch itself uses a basic movement, you can choose to install a Swiss movement; if it is a sealed bottom watch, it is good, and any movement can be installed; but if a watch with a transparent bottom is equipped with a basic movement, the back of the watch will be fake at a glance because the movement structure is different from the authentic self-produced movement!
For replica watches, is it necessary to install a Swiss movement? I think it is not necessary, for five reasons.
First, Switzerland currently bans the supply of movements to the mainland. The amount of Swiss movements that can flow into Guangzhou through Hong Kong every year is very small, while the amount of watches produced in Guangzhou is very large. The probability that you can buy a Swiss movement is very low! Many merchants always say that their movements are ETA movements. In fact, 99% of them are replica Swiss movements from Seagull, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Pearl, etc. The price is not high, but it is easy to sell with the sign of Swiss movement!
Second, most of the Swiss movements from Hong Kong are rough movements, not polished. Even if you install a Swiss movement, it will be far from the original finely polished movement, unless you buy a sealed bottom!
Third, the Swiss movement is not as accurate as imagined. The error standard of the Swiss movement is within 30 seconds/day. Many customers say that my Omega is only within 5 seconds. That’s because yours is a Swiss Observatory certified movement. Can the error of a watch worth tens of thousands be the same as that of a watch worth thousands? You get what you pay for. In addition, I want to say that the error of the movement is mainly determined by debugging, and it has little to do with the brand of the movement. In other words, the Seagull movement can also be debugged more accurately than the Swiss movement.
Fourth, the domestic Seagull, Shanghai and Japanese Citizen movements are not as bad as you think! Many consumers have bought some domestic watches for two or three hundred yuan, and found that the movement is very rubbish, the time is not accurate, and even the watch breaks down after a few days, and then they think that domestic movements are not good. In fact, this understanding is wrong. First of all, the price of the watch you want to buy is very low, so the movement of the watch at this price will naturally not be good. This kind of movement has poor materials, poor stability, and large errors. But think about it from another perspective. How good can you expect the movement at this price to be? The movements of Seagull, Shanghai and Japan Citizen are very good in terms of timekeeping and stability, especially Seagull and Citizen. I think they are similar to basic Swiss movements! Baidu “Seagull movement”, you will find that it is full of good reviews! If the Seagull movement is not good, why do so many professional players on the Internet still recognize it? The Seagull movement is exported overseas and recognized internationally, but it is denied by most watch novices, which is a very ridiculous thing in itself! But these movements cost hundreds or thousands of dollars each, and the price of watches is not low. Many merchants on the market sell these high-quality domestic movements as Swiss movements, fooling consumers. After receiving the watch, consumers find that the workmanship is good and the movement is accurate. Naturally, they think they have bought a real Swiss movement, and they are secretly happy and keep thanking the merchants!
Fifth, the main considerations for replica watches are good workmanship, true imitation, and accurate movement. There is no need to spend more money to get a Swiss movement. Good workmanship, big factory goods generally have good workmanship; accurate movement, whether Seagull, Shanghai or Citizen, they are accurate. Here we mainly talk about the imitation of the real thing. We know that some watches are self-produced movements. For this kind of movement, directly installing any movement will cause the movement structure to be different from the original. What should I do? Only by using modified movements. Most of the current modified movements are to add a layer of baffles to the Seagull, Shanghai and Citizen movements to make the movement look like the original movement, but the original movement structure is not changed, so it will not affect the movement’s travel time and stability. Some customers want to install Swiss movements in all watches. In fact, sealed bottoms are OK, but transparent bottoms are better equipped with this kind of modified movement. First of all, the performance of the movement is not much different. Secondly, the simulation is higher, so it will not look fake at first glance like directly installing a Swiss basic movement!
In addition, replica watches must be bought from large factories. Don’t buy goods from small workshops for the sake of cheapness. Large factory goods are not only good workmanship and imitation of the real problem, but also the assembly environment of large factories is better, which greatly reduces the movement inaccuracy caused by impurities during assembly.
2. Japanese movement
At present, high-end replica watches will also use movements imported from Japan, mainly Citizen and Seiko’s mechanical movements are very accurate, similar to Swiss movements, but the price is similar to Seagull movements. In fact, Japanese movements are far better than most Chinese consumers think. The daily error standard of Japanese movements is within 35 seconds, and that of Swiss movements is within 30 seconds. The actual movement error is mostly more than ten seconds. Sometimes even your Swiss movement has an error of more than 20 seconds, while others’ Japanese movements have an error of a few seconds! Many top replica watches use Japanese movements to replicate genuine movements, which is what we called modified movements. For example, the Omega 8500 movement is replicated with the Citizen 9015, and the Audemars Piguet 3120 movement is also replicated with the 9015 movement. This movement has good performance, and the main simulation is very high, and the price is much cheaper than ordinary Swiss movements! Chinese consumers care about reputation and lack thinking. For example, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are always good cars. Why? Because they entered the Chinese market first, they are famous in China, and everyone knows them when they drive them out. The movement is the same. We think Swiss movements are the best because we only know that Swiss movements are the most famous! There is a very interesting question, that is, most consumers want Swiss movements when buying quartz watches. If you ask them whether they want Swiss quartz or Japanese quartz, they would rather spend a high price to buy Swiss quartz! In fact, they don’t know that the quartz movement was invented by the Japanese!
3. Domestic movements
The better domestic movements are Seagull, Beijing, Shanghai, etc., and the worse ones are Pearl, Hangzhou, Dandong, etc. Among them, the basic movements such as 2824 and 2836 produced by Seagull have very good performance, stable travel time and small error. The 7750 movement of Shanghai is the best 7750 movement in China. These movements are not cheap. The movements of Hangzhou and Mingzhu are very cheap, but the quality is very poor! Replica watches from large factories such as NOOBKWZF either use Japanese movements or mostly use Seagull and Shanghai! There are also replicas of Panerai P. series movements with Seagull movements, and replicas of Omega 9300 movements with Shanghai movements, which can basically retain all the functions of the originals. At the same time, they are relatively stable and have a high degree of simulation, which is much better than directly installing Swiss basic movements!
4. What is an imitation Swiss movement?
Imitation Swiss movement is just a name, such as Seagull ST2130 and Hangzhou 6300 are actually imitations of Swiss ETA2824-2 movements; even Swiss SW200 is an imitation of ETA2824-2 movements. Because the patent period of ETA2824 movement has expired, other movement factories can also produce 2824 movement. Usually we call the 2824 movement produced by domestic movement factories “imitation Swiss” movement. There are similar “imitation Swiss” movements such as 2836, 2671, 2892, 3135, etc. At present, most merchants say that their watches are Swiss ETA movements, and some of them cost only a few hundred to more than 1,000 yuan. This price cannot even buy a real Swiss movement, let alone a top-level replica watch; in fact, these movements are imitation Swiss movements, but this selling method cannot be completely blamed on the merchants, because it conforms to the concept of consumers. Many consumers think that Swiss movements are about the same price.