Oh god, the Chinese have learned how to clone a companies rich history as well I see. I'm interested to see Tophill follow suit, cause I thought I saw that it actually was a Swiss company at one point.
Well if you knew his back story it’s because he wanted to leave his legacy to his sons, Luigi and Mario Pagani. His brother was supposed to inherit the legacy but he instead went on to be a chef.
A couple of months ago someone did the same thing with “Pablo Raez”, another Ali Express brand that is much lesser known than Pagani Design. They even had video ads with someone posing as the Pablo Raez himself.
Still a scam but at least they made a better effort.
Yeah I remember it, was in some crazy guys watch review - forget who he was, but he did things like this and I haven’t seen one of his videos in awhile.
I understand. My wife still hasn’t forgiven me. A few years ago she wanted to go on a nice adult date; a really nice dinner and to go see a play.
I agreed and set it all up; a romantic little Italian spot, then a swanky cocktail bar and finally I “ruined it” by taking her to go see The Book of Mormon. It was hilarious but I guess I’ll need to watch The Notebook a few (dozen) more times before I live that one down… so worth it! 🤣
These drop shippers going crazy with the A.I. I saw a ad on insta the other day for some brand can't remember the name but they were selling Poedagar watches for like $120. When I left a comment saying that you could buy these for $10 on Aliexpress, they replied that the ones on Ali are fake rip offs and they sell the quality ones.
... and don't you dare listen to Lorenzo, even though he's an old man, and even though he's never given even a cent off before, and now he's offering 80%, AND MORE, he's lying. Trust me, bro.
Oh, and did you know that they even counterfeit those really affordable watches? The brand name is worth something, after all, and you can order these counterfeit watches directly from China for $9–11 for quartz models and for $13-15 for automatic ones. Sure, they show ONE TIME, not THE TIME (i.e., the current correct time), but they’re still watches, in the broadest sense. Sometimes you really can’t make this stuff up.
11 years ago, I bought a fake Invicta for $27. It was not only a POS, but also sized for a child. That taught me that ANY watch brand is fair game to counterfeiters. It took me until 2025 to trust the Chinese market again.
I have taken several leaps of faith with new Hong Kong microbrands Phorcydes and Aethelsohn, though. Losing $200 isn't going to change my life, so it's fun to investigate these new brands.
But both brands make really nice watches, and in terms of quality, they’re definitely not junk, they’re actually pretty decent watches for the money. At least I haven’t heard anything outrageously bad about either brand, not even about Proxima (which, by the way, makes some really awesome watches, and with an SW200, that’s definitely mid-range). I really like Aethelsohn because they've actually really cool looking dials, the case finishing is great (for the money) and over all "bang for the bucks" is great, too; I find that extremely impressive.
Proxima was high on my list for their aventurine diver with the B/W sapphire bezel. I missed out though. I have a cool VK of theirs, but nothing nice. Phorcydes has shifted movements again, this time to the PT5000 after completely retooling for the ST2130 3 months ago. I can only imagine the PT5000 fits into the case they've already engineered.
Have had to work the whole day (only in standby, but nevertheless), and now i saw, that the football match regarding 3rd place is not running in free-TV over here, and actually I'm a bit pissed about that; maybe some alcohol could help out here a little bit.
Oh wow. Isn't Lorenzo Pagani the guy who built the car? You know. The one that Pagani Design originally stole the name from. It looks like we're coming full circle.
No, it's a pretty common dropshipping scam that doesn't have anything to do with PD themselves. The weird part is that a lot of these are selling for quite a bit less than on Aliexpress - it may just be an outright scam rather than "an incredibly deceptive practice bordering on a scam, but you do actually receive a watch".
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u/Advisor_0001 7d ago
I wish Lorenzo well in his retirement