Counterfeit watch

High-end luxury watches such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille are frequently counterfeited and sold on city streets and online.

By the middle of the century, watchmakers in Augsburg (Germany) and in various small towns in French-speaking Switzerland were producing watches falsely signed with the names of well-known English makers such as George Graham and Eardley Norton.

In the following century Breguet became a frequent target for forgers; at the same time British makers continued to suffer, many forgeries bearing the name 'M.

This practice died out in the early 1870s, as the Swiss could not compete, so surrendered the mass-market field to U.S. firms and focused on branding high end status symbols.

Replica watches are frequently sold from street stands in districts catering to tourists or Internet websites (mostly Asian).

For instance there has been an "open market" for counterfeit watches along Canal Street in Manhattan, New York City for over 20 years.

[12] A common myth states that a genuine watch can be discerned from a fake by the fluid movement of the sweep hand.

[13] According to the Swiss Customs Service, counterfeit watches can be made in such a manner as to require special equipment to confirm near authenticity.

Previously, replica watches could be distinguished by "sloppy printing, soft metal and cheap quartz movements that made the second hand clunk its way round the dial" while recent "fakes feel substantial, keep decent time and have the patina of high quality.

[14][15] High quality replicas are sometimes modified by collectors and amateur horologists with genuine parts, such as movements, dials, hands, and bracelets, and are known as "frankenwatches".

These are timepieces designed to be as similar as possible to iconic watches, and usually of high quality, while avoiding the use of trademarked names, logos or movements.