Feature: £1,000 Fake Rolex vs £1,000 Real Swiss Watch

It’s not a secret anymore that fake watches are getting harder and harder to spot. But let’s face it, the vast majority of fake watches aren’t being bought by people about to receive a nasty surprise—they’re actively purchased by those looking to get an expensive watch on their wrist for way less than they’d be charged at the boutique. Question is, is it worth it?

We start with a question: what is a watch to you? There’s no right or wrong answer, but there’s plenty of them. For some, it’s just simply a matter of having quick and easy access to the time. For others, it’s a technological device that opens up a world of communication. When it comes to luxury watches, however, especially at the very highest end, there’s a lot more emotion at play.

That sounds like a load of old fluff, so what exactly do I mean by that? Well, when you buy a toaster, you buy it because you need it. Sure, you might look for one that matches the colour scheme of your kitchen, but ultimately, it’s an emotionless purchase. An engagement ring, however—that’s emotional. It has meaning, sentiment. It’s as much about what the object stands for as it is about the object itself.

A luxury watch can be that as well, and for many, it is. It’s a connection to their fathers, a commemoration of a significant event, a celebration of achievement. It’s also—and remember, there’s no right or wrong—a badge of honour, a mark of status, a social ranking. This can have negative connotations for some, but it’s undeserved. Cars, fashion, houses—they all reflect who we are and what we’ve achieved, and it’s a great feeling to have that achievement recognised. A watch can do that too. People see it, see you, and know you’ve done well, used your time wisely and effectively.

But how did a watch ever come to be such a significant weapon in the societal arsenal? How did it earn such weight to be this pillar of recognition? A person buys a watch at the birth of their son to hand down, but why not a clock? Or a car? Or a suit? Or a toaster?

Tissot was found in 1853 by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot

There are several reasons for this. One is the passage of time. All these instances are notches in the belt of the passing seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. They aren’t static, stationary things; they measure the very time that has passed since that significant moment, keep track of everything that has gone on since. Time is fleeting, and a watch—ironically—can freeze a moment of it for posterity.

Another reason is what it represents. Cars have existed for just over a century, a creation that withdrew a significant dependence on animals—live ones, anyway—and marked a clear step into the industrialisation of the modern era. Watches, however, trace back a lineage for the fascination of time that goes back millennia. A car can be crude, loud, uncomfortable; a watch must be precise, delicate, intricate. It’s served as the backbone of the sciences for as long as science has been practised; it was the gateway to new worlds both on Earth and beyond; a watch is, after all a companion for humanity.

There’s something so innate about our relationship with time, and our watches represent thousands of years of discovering, understanding and coming to terms with the immediacy of our existence on this mortal coil. Every tick and every tock are precious and unrepeating, and a watch reminds you to appreciate every single one. Let’s see a toaster do that. So, if a watch can be so many things, is so emotionally connected to its owner, then how can the market for fake watches even exist? Well, think about it: all the situations where a person might reward themselves with a watch are, let’s face it, pretty strenuous, sometimes even inaccessible. Not everyone has the opportunity to succeed financially, not everyone chooses to have a child—there are multitudes of reasons why the time we’re given doesn’t get used in the way we hoped it would.

So, it comes down to this: some people would rather take the shortcut. There will be many of you for whom this makes no sense, in the way people faking their holidays on Instagram makes no sense, but that’s the diversity of the human brain for you. Some people would rather their friends think they’ve been somewhere exotic, done something glamourous, then have their friends think nothing of them at all.

Tissot was acquired by the Swatch Group in 1983

And so enters the fake watch. At £1,000 for the most accurate, buying a fake watch isn’t a poor man’s game. It takes a certain level of commitment to achieve—not as much as a real one, mind—and that poses a question: what if that £1,000 were spent on a genuine Swiss watch instead?

It’s a question that opens up more food for thought than simply being a matter of quality. There are so many things a Swiss watch company has to contend with that the fakers just aren’t bothered by. Marketing? People often ask why fakers don’t simply make their own watch brands if they’re so capable, and the answer is quite simply because they can leverage the hundreds of millions invested in marketing by the real brands without having to spend a penny.

And labour? Most of these fake watch outfits operate in places that don’t pay very much, increasing the margin and lowering the prices the watches can be sold for. There’s also the skill element; where a fake watch begins to fall down in quality, even against an equally priced Swiss watch, is in the details that require the input of a skilled human being—and those are expensive. This Tissot is no Philippe Dufour, but there’s a level of care and attention given—like chronometer certification, for example—that’s quite simply not present in the fake.

So, given that Switzerland has one of the highest average wages in the world, and given that Tissot alone spends something like £4 million a year in marketing, that gives the fakers a fair old head start. And you can see that money’s been put to good use; this fake GMT-Master II has a two-tone bezel made out of real ceramic, a movement with correct hour-setting and luminous paint bright enough to read by.

Some fakes—like this Rolex GMT-Master—can cost thousands of pounds

But what you don’t get is that connection that makes a watch special. For everything that a fake watch means to its owner, it may as well be a toaster. It fulfils a function, it may even look nice doing it, but the very essence of its existence just does not exist. Even from a more superficial point of view, if you want to feel good about wearing a symbol of your status and success, a fake watch may make people think that—but you know it’s not true. And what’s the point in that?

The reasons this conversation isn’t quite simply a matter of black and white is because we don’t think in black and white. Every person has their own perspective, their own point of view, some grounded more in logic and some more loosely held together. We’re talking about a species that’s superstitious, self-destructive even, and understanding how it works is, basically, an impossibility.

What is possible, however, is to reason with ourselves, to come to terms with what we do and why we do it. When it comes to watches, many of us are led by the deep-rooted emotional drivers that run back many hundreds of years, that form an indescribable bond with these quirky little timekeepers. For others, there’s a disconnect, one that reasons on a different plane, and that’s why these £1,000 fake watches even exist. Question is, which are you?

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