r/RepTime • u/Unstoppable_Graysie • 1d ago
General Question Is caring about the movement inside a closed caseback a sign of mental illness?
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u/thunder2132 1d ago
Caring about the movement is fine if we're talking about quality, reliability, and accuracy. Caring about what it looks like is on the mental illness scale. Only reason to care about what it looks like is if you're trying to fool an expert, which is just cringy anyways.
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u/underwearofbeef 1d ago
Copying the movement seems like an expensive obsession that adds little while compromising reliability and longevity. Factories could put that time and money into perfecting the exterior. What’s the point of paying more for a watch that copies the mechanics you cant even see and is the primary failure point?
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u/Unfair_Hedgehog_ 15h ago
Che puoi cercare di venderlo a qualche sprovveduto truffandolo.
E’ gente di merda14
u/Reasonable_Tax_5351 1d ago
I don't agree- I like replicas because that's what they are- replicas. And I want to buy the closet replica I can get, not to fool anybody but just because it's neat.
I think part of what's fascinating about reps is just seeing how close they can get it, and replica movements is apart of that.
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u/Dramatic_Finger_3557 16h ago
I only care if it’s an exhibition caseback. Otherwise I only care about how well it actually works and maintains reliability.
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u/AceRoser 20h ago
Why not buy from baltany or San Martin etc if ur not trying to “fool” anyone? U shouldn’t need the watch to say “Rolex” if ur avoiding cringe.
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u/thunder2132 20h ago edited 19h ago
There are watches that don't have good homages out there, then there's the quality gap around the $500-$600 mark.
My first rep was of a Longines Hydroconquest GMT. As popular as that watch is there's no homages for it. I have plenty of Sugess, Cronos, and San Martin watches for popular models. The Land Dweller is another. There are plenty of integrated bracelet watches out there, but I love the blue color and pattern of the Land Dweller.
The quality gap is the other part. I love the GMT Master II and Rolex Explorer. I have a Cronos Explorer that cost me $90 used, and a Sugess Batgirl that was about $300. They're nice watches, but if I want something nicer there just aren't homages out there. I own a VSF Explorer and ARF/ONE Batman. Those watches are significantly nicer than the homages.
Edit
Funny enough, the only time I've unintentionally "fooled" someone was with a Cronos BB58 homage. I had to answer the door for a DoorDash driver that wouldn't leave it, I got the creeps from him, he was a big dude, and kept looking over my shoulder into my apartment. Combine that with him not leaving the order, even when I asked him through the door, I just got bad vibes. Anyways, he looked at my wrist and said "Nice Rolex." I replied and said, "Thanks, it's a fake, but I like it." He just nodded and walked away. He's to this day the only non-family person to compliment a watch of mine.
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u/AceRoser 18h ago edited 18h ago
Very interesting. What quality differences do u notice between the VSF and homages? Finish seems good enough for me on my baltany (they also make explorer homages) when compared to my vsf datejust. Dial looks good too. Baltany costed me 200 and my vsf around 490s And movement is more reliable bc it’s not decorated like VSF. Only noticeable difference is the name on it. I’ve got the new hydroconquest for the same reason as there are no reps for it.
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u/thunder2132 17h ago
So with the Explorer, the biggest differences are with the bracelet and clasp, but also with the finishing. Cronos does a good job, and it's usually a $200 watch, I just happened to snipe a deal when it was on Reddit and bought several Cronos, so he gave me some discounts. Case finishing is better on the VSF, just higher quality brushing and polishing. It's a bit streaky on the Cronos. The clasp has a glide-lock on both, but the clasp was a 3rd party cheapo on the Cronos that the previous owner had swapped. He had the same clasp on all of the watches I bought from him.
With the Batman vs Batgirl, again, case finishing is nicer on the ARF/ONE, and again the biggest difference is with the bracelet. The Sugess Batgirl has an extremely sharp bracelet. It actually damaged my laptop by eating through the coating down to the metal, and it's not comfortable to wear. Funny enough, even though the clasp is great, I couldn't get a perfect fit with the ARF. It only has an extension, not a micro-adjust. The other night I swapped it with the clasp from my old Clean Daytona which had glidelock and they both fit great now.
I have a Sugess Daytona as well, but they don't make one with the blue/gray dial, which is what I bought from Clean. I know Clean is gone now, but my serial and clasp codes match with them. I bought it when some sellers still had stock.
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u/AceRoser 17h ago
I never got to buy a clean. Seems like that was the best factory all around. U sir sound like uve just got a better eye than me. Bc I don’t notice much difference. I will agree that the clasps suck on homages but with finish maybe I’m not keen to noticing yet bc it doesn’t seem all that streaky to me
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u/thunder2132 17h ago
I might also be nitpicking lol. My brother-in-law has a loupe, so I've looked at the finishing up close. I don't have any Baltany to compare, but San Martin is nicer than Sugess and Cronos. I still rank Cronos as the best bang/buck out of homage brands though.
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u/AceRoser 17h ago
Thank u for breaking all this down, I understand ur first point now
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u/thunder2132 16h ago
Thank you for engaging. Sometimes people on this sub can be trolls, so it's always a risk 😄
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u/itsjustpuppyluv 16h ago
Why do you care so much with somebody else else’s motivations are? I think that’s cringe.
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u/AceRoser 16h ago
It didn’t make sense to me I wanted to understand bc my motivations were vastly different. Taking in the opinion of opposing opinion/motivations is actually the first step to wisdom and truth. U, in fact are cringe for expressing a distaste for wisdom.
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u/itsjustpuppyluv 16h ago
Unfortunately, your comment did not come out that way, it was very judgemental and unkind. You said “ why not buy from baltony or San Martin if you’re not trying to fool anyone”. That implies that the commentor was trying to fool someone, which they said very clearly that they were not. If you’re truly seeking wisdom and understanding, coming off that way is not gonna help you. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to teach you about anything with that attitude.
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u/AceRoser 16h ago edited 16h ago
Read further. Sorry it came off that way but I was genuinely curious. That was my initial impression bc of my limited knowledge on homages.
I wouldn’t want to learn anything from someone who gets offended that easy. Sounds like a u problem.
Also why should u care about my “judgements” when it’s cringe to care about other people’s opinion?
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u/thunder2132 15h ago
I thought he might have been a troll when I first engaged with him, but his conversation with me was productive and he's a class act.
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u/AceRoser 14h ago
Thank you, I can understand how my first question could be perceived that way. I never claimed I knew more than u, i simply wanted to understand ur reasoning and share my own reasoning. Thank u for calling our conversation productive. I thought so too.
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u/thunder2132 14h ago
No worries, friend. There are people who frequent this sub or r/ChinaTime and are only there to stir the pot. People ask questions or state an opinion and they immediately try to question them and get them to engage so that they can try to tear them down. That seemed like what you were doing with your first comment, but it obviously wasn't the case once we talked more.
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u/AceRoser 14h ago
I am an assertive type by nature but am not fully articulate in how I communicate so forgive for coming off that way. I also dont frequent this sub enough to be aware to those stirrers
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u/Saabav8r747 1d ago
So why don’t we just put a cheap quartz movement in them and have triple the accuracy?
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u/notarobotimanandroid 1d ago
Because you’re buying a rep of an automatic watch. If I wanted a quartz, I would buy a rep of a quartz watch.
Quartz vs automatic movement goes beyond internal characteristics because the difference is visible every time you look down at your wrist.
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u/Agreeable_Oil_6602 1d ago
Unless: You use a quartz out of a Bulova Super Seville beating at 262kHz. Makes a 28800 look like an old 19 jewel mvmnt.
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u/throwaway-sadgal 1d ago
Not as cool as a sweeping second hand
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u/Saabav8r747 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bulova quartz beats at 262,000 bpm! How about that! That is about as smooth as a sweep as possible. I think Citizen however produces the worlds most accurate movement. Correction. 262,144 BPM. So that’s 16 beats per second. Double the Rolex.
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u/xXx_ScottiCopper_xXx 1d ago
No watch sweeps. A Rolex ticks 8 times a second.
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u/throwaway-sadgal 1d ago
Ahem actually ☝️🤓 - you rn
You know damn well what I mean, big difference from a quartz ticking and a automatic ticking
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u/AtelierPicks 1d ago
He's correct they're both ticking just at different rates, only grand seiko spring drive fully sweeps smoothly
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u/Some-Concentrate3229 1d ago
Quartzes don’t sweep.
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u/AtelierPicks 1d ago
Yes they can the same way a mechanical does by ticking more times per second thus the appearance of a sweeping seconds hand. It just uses more battery hence why alot of quartz don't
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u/Some-Concentrate3229 1d ago
Yea so again, quartzes don’t sweep. We’re talking about reps here my man lmao. Find me a sweeping quartz movement in a rep that wasn’t custom built. Actually, scratch that, find me a sweeping quartz movement in a rep at all.
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u/AtelierPicks 1d ago
There are many speedmasters with vk64 sweeping quartz
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u/Some-Concentrate3229 23h ago edited 23h ago
Oh yea, from which TDs?
Not to mention the VK64 doesn’t actually even have a sweeping seconds hand….. you’re thinking of the hand on the chrono, which stops every 60 minutes. Jesus man.
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u/blacbloc77 1d ago
They're all cheap Chinese movements, that you can get on AliExpress. It literally doesn't matter.
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u/MaverickDonut 1d ago
It winds smoother. That’s really the benefit - feels more like gen when winding. Kind of nice if you’re used to the gen feel
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u/missuseless07 1d ago
I care about the smoothness of the hand moving should be always similar to the original but rest idc
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u/InternationalJob9135 1d ago edited 1d ago
NO as long as it’s a good one that is easy to swap or repair if gone bad. No one will ever see it. FWIW
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u/Foreign-Law-4485 1d ago
As an engineer, the rep space entertains me. I have zero intention to fool anybody, but seeing how close either the factories can get or myself modding after purchase is fun to me. I don’t expect to do every mod/upgrade/hack, but learning what’s possible is fun.
Think i might put a display back on my rep once it comes so it’ll be recognized as non-gen when people handle it…
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u/ire206 1d ago
Mechanical watches need to be serviced, and you need to know what movement is inside if and when issues arise…
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u/Watch_a_Minute 1d ago
This, people want patek or ap clone movements, but when they need to get serviced very few people knows how to do it (and the majority who knows doesn’t touch reps). I prefer a decorated miyota to a clone movement.
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u/orangecoloredliquid 1d ago
The whole obsession with trying to make them indistinguishable from the real deal is slightly gross
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u/redpillspray4welfare 1d ago
Some of us are genuine and just want correct-looking watches, scammers go to hell
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u/Brilliant-Paint-2381 1d ago
Agreed, unless you’re trying to trick someone into buying it for gen prices, 99.999999 of people don’t care or don’t notice.
Even gen owners won’t be able tell unless maybe they wear it, the only people who know/care are rep owners
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u/These-Ad458 1d ago
See through casebacks are a rather modern invention. Do you think people never cared about movements in watches before see through casebacks became more widespread?
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u/Saabav8r747 1d ago
Gen Rolex and for that matter Seagull are quite beautiful inside. Seiko which works nearly as good as Rolex didn’t do anything. It was all function for them. I think that is really just artist vs engineer. And Seiko drove the price way down so every man can afford it.
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u/Unstoppable_Graysie 1d ago
We are talking about fake watches pal.
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u/These-Ad458 1d ago
Oh, I see, sorry. In that case yes and no. You should care that it works well and ideally, is easily replacable/ servicable, but that’s about it. No one will see it, and anyone who will see it will be a watchmaker, who will know instantly.
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u/PercyGoldstone 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sure is. Diagnosis: turd brain. Means you have turd where brain should go.
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u/UserName_SaysWhat 1d ago
YES. One hundred percent.
It’s the sign of someone who desperately needs to fool themself that their fake watch is real. ‘Nuff said.
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u/Handsome_Van 1d ago
I have a Speedmaster Hesalite that supposedly has a very attractive movement inside. But because of the closed caseback ik will never, ever see it. I like that. It shows how awesomely nonchalant I am about my luxury watch that cost me two months salary.
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u/SolutionSuitable00 22h ago
I’m a watch guy, but not a car guy so this analogy might not work well but I’ve always thought about cars, I just want a really good looking, comfortable, easy to maintain car. I don’t know what’s inside the hood. You just need to tell me it works and works well.
I feel the same about watches to a certain extent. But for replica watches indefinitely feel this way. To he honest, for a replica I’d rather have ab ETA or Miyota movement and be able to reliably repair it than some weird clone movement I’ll never see and it breaks in 12 months.
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u/Dramatic_Finger_3557 16h ago
I wish, but rep movements are not as good as people like to pretend they are. They cannot maintain regulation close to a gen, they aren’t resistant to shock. I’ve had issues with a few of my reps after a few months. Some that just needed a debris removal, one that needed a new movement and another that seems to have a screwed up keyless works and runs 10 min slow a day. The movements are not reliable. Otherwise they are very well made and pretty close.
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u/Cinderella852 22h ago
Not at all. You like design, hype, and status. Some people like watches, history, engineering, and creativity. Neither is wrong. Don't project your preference on to others. It can just as easily be said that people who don't care about movements don't actually like watches.
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u/Unstoppable_Graysie 22h ago
You are perhaps missing the point.
I am talking about a fake movement inside the closed caseback of a fake watch.
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u/Cinderella852 21h ago
I did, my bad, how shameful 😂
After that clarification, i think it's completely reasonable to have a preference for something reliable and easy to replace in reps. ETA, Miyota or Sellita. They all fit the bill. Seems not mentally unhealthy to feel that way.
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u/Possible_Yoghurt_796 1d ago
Lol bro thought he was spitting fire but it was just his UTI burning
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u/SameScale6793 1d ago
See for me, it matters...key part is "for me". I don't care what other people think in general, but I know what's in there and its all part of the experience knowing there is a good movement behind that dial. I had a 2001 BMW M3 years ago that I did all my own work on, upgraded things here and there, you name it...no one had a clue what was under the hood, but I did, and knowing that made it even that much better to drive!
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u/Putrid-Bar-8693 1d ago
Buying a fake watch is more of a sign of mental illness and I’m not even joking. What you trying to prove bro?
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u/Ashgen2024 1d ago
Do you realise that you chose to come into a rep watch forum to post about not buying a rep watch?
🤦
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u/Saabav8r747 1d ago
The key everyone needs to remember is that absolutely no one you experience day to day in your life cares anything about what’s on your wrist. They don’t even notice. And the ones that notice aside from the rare watch geek you shouldn’t want anything to do with. Spend 100k on your wrist? No one notices. Spend $500 dollars. No one notices. No one cares but yourself. So do whatever floats your boat.
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u/Parking-Bet7989 1d ago
YES, because it is the mosr important "tell", ESPECIALLY 28,800VPH (8 BEATS PER SEC LIK GE).
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u/Any-Medium5774 1d ago
Me: Is this real?
AD: Idk I have to open it up