Really, REALLY Fake

From my father's trip to Turkey.

Thanks, Dad!

Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

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saint_al

Anyone buying a Bvlgari watch @ a Turkish flea market deserved to be cleaned out. Hell, that also applies to someone buying the genuine product in New York.
Bink Binkerson

A ‘watch’? I think I remember those, from the dark ages, before mobile phones. WTF already.
- medontlivenoprahsworld
  
  Sorry, the world is not as “hip” as you.
  - franko
    
    it’s not a “hip” thing — even phones from 15 years ago had clocks on them. that’s when i stopped wearing a watch.
    - Brainspore
      
      Some people like to be able to check the time without pulling an appliance out of their pocket. That’s why pocket watches were mostly supplanted by wristwatches.
    - Bradley Robinson
      
      A timepiece is as much a piece of jewelry or an accessory as it is a functional artifact.
      
      People didn’t stop wearing glasses just because Lasik came around. If anything, glasses re-asserted themselves as fashionable extensions of personality.
      
      Much the same could be said of timepieces.
      - Diogenes
        
        People trust Lasik, with their eyes?!
      - Bradley Robinson
        
        Apparently.
        
        I prefer my specs.
      - Diogenes
        
        Me too. It’s not like rolling the dice on a finger or a toe. I’ve very partial to all of my eyes.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I’m 55. I’ve never worn a watch. There have been clocks all over the place for a couple of centuries.
      - http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger
        
        I’m 41. I have wound my watch before putting it on almost every day of my life since 14 or 15. I also have to fill my fountain pen once a week or so, tho I must admit I’ve started using a rollerball again.
      - intheshadowofleaves
        
        Manual watch? Fountain pen?
        
        You, I like.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Actually, watches are becoming hip again.
    
    They’re not exactly necessary, but they still have utility along with the jewellery aspect.
- Bradley Robinson
  
  Us dinosaurs prefer to call them timepieces, actually.
- intheshadowofleaves
  
  My automatic watches don’t run out of power or die if they get slightly wet, can you say the same about your phone?
- SummerFang
  
  I just started wearing a watch again after many years and I love it! As silly as it sounds it does feel kind of *novel* to have a timepiece right on my wrist.
  In my line of work I have need to use a timer and/or stopwatch several times a day. I find it much more convenient to have it on my wrist than to dig my phone out of my pocket.
  
  Plus, fact that I often work in a secure area where mobile phones are not permitted.
Nick Weaver

Are they genuine Shitinerand fake watches?
Brainspore

The context makes me suspect that they’re trying to pass off genuine Rolexes as cheap knockoffs.
- http://redesigned.com redesigned
  
  no one ever sustects the reverse scam! :-)
  
  my favorites are depositing money into senior citizens bank accounts, and slipping wallets full of cash into peoples pockets.
  
  if i were a nigerian price i’d actually give random people money just to f’k with the internet. haha.
  - Diogenes
    
    There was a sentimental movie with Walter Mathau as the older father of a terminally ill kid. One great theme was they way they f’ked with their neighbor who fussed over his car. First they started adding gas to his tank until he was raving over the great gas mileage his beauty was getting. Then they started siphoning until he was down to a few miles a gallon. The spluttering stifled laugh of the kid at the neighbors dismay was just priceless.
http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait

having seen a lot of fake watches in China, I can say there really is something called ‘genuine fake watches’ that actually are automatics and have real swiss movement… the trademark logo is the only thing counterfeit on these. They are usually hundreds of dollars (instead of thousands)
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  I was thinking genuine fake is a real thing:
  
  Think of all that stuff being made in China for big names, and the dodgy production runs the same factories do after hours without so much (or any) QC.
- http://redesigned.com redesigned
  
  well…i’ll be, i never knew. thanks for the info.
carlogesualdodivenosa

My brother bought me a Rolex for about $15 in a street in Bangkok years ago, and the guy assured him it was genuine. No particular reason to doubt it, either: it kept very good time – though the gold peeled off for some reason – till the police took it off me when I was arrested on an unrelated matter. It was a pretty good value timepiece, though I used to get odd looks when I wore it in public.

I’ve just re-read this, and it makes me sound like a minor Carl Hiaasen character.
- Aditya Pandey
  
  I too bought a genuine fake Patek Phillippe for ~$20 at a night market in Bangkok. It worked for about a year before giving up the ghost, but never really deteriorated in build quality. Additionally, I did not get arrested.
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  LOL @ the Hiaasen reference : )
http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer

“Just what I’ve been looking for—
a genuine copy of a fake Dior!”
Snuffy2

Funny, I have exactly the same picture. I suppose it must be in a lot of pictures. At least they’re not trying to fool anybody who can read.
franko

+1 for honesty.
bingobangoboy

You may laugh, but they’re a LOT cheaper than the imitation fake watches.
niktemadur

I remember the Fat Albert gang inspecting somebody’s new outfit, one of the guys says: “Wow, genuine imitation leather”, gave me a chuckle for years every time I remembered it.
- Diogenes
  
  Didn’t SNL run a car ad with upholstery made from Genuine Madrid Vinyl? I think it was at the time the Ricardo Montalban was shilling Chrysler products with “fine Corinthian leather”. I wonder if it was Billy Crystal; he did a good Montalban.
  - niktemadur
    
    It may have been Eugene Levy on SCTV.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVVWF2DAeeU
    - Diogenes
      
      Wonderful! I like the lesson with Rick Moranis the best.
Gotanda

My favorite sign from Bali…

Antiques: Made to Order
nnu-16121

With the vagaries of language and translation, genuine fake might have a meaning there that is meaningful.

I looked into “replica” watches on an Asia trip, essentially looking for plug-and-play spare parts that would maintain the appearance and function of the worn-out Omega Seamaster I inherited from my grandfather. What I found was that most replica watches are not copies in any meaningful sense, but just generic wristwatches with a spurious famous logo. You can find fake Rolexes and fake Patek Phillipe watches for sale side by side that are identical except for the logo, and are unlike any genuine current or old watch from either company. But there are also some “premium” sellers where some attempt has been made to match the appearance of particular watches by particular makers — even using the correct gauge of Swiss-designed 21 jewel automatic movement.
Peggy Ireland

Is that the same place in Ephesus? They have lots of real fake stuff.
Tomgliv

It’s like this all over Turkey, I was accosted in a Bazzar;
“Hey mister, where you from?”
“Liverpool UK”
“You buy from me, I have many Liverpool (FC) shirts, all genuine copies!”
ChickieD

My husband travels frequently. One of his co-workers is obsessed with getting a bargain. When in China, this co-worker dragged my husband out to some counterfeit place the flight attendant had tipped him off to. So, they get inside the store and the co-worker asks, “Yeah, but where’s the really good stuff?” and the Chinese guys flip open a secret compartment to a room in the back where people are working on watches and purses. They have exact replicas of the logos that they are applying to boxes very similar to the real products. The purse my husband bought me was supposedly a “real” item swiped off the production line but it fell apart awfully fast.