No more Chinese super reps for me! AKA, how I learned to stop worrying and love Pagani Design

[Begin aside]

PSA:  Do yourself a big favor right this very moment, and go to

https://theescapementroom.com/

There you will find many articles written by fan favorites @Deeperblue @Porthole and @Aurelian.  My god, I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard.  Their posts are eff'ing brilliant.

[End aside]

Behold, my Pagani Design 1766 and Seestern S434!!!

Well, these aren't fakes, but they're close enough.  I mean, they're Chinese homages that ape the real watches down to every last detail, except for the logo!  

The Pagani Design Speedmaster ’57 ripoff has a really funky cool domed crystal that’s a lot of fun, but other than that, it’s…  well, it’s just a watch.  

For a while, I had thought about getting an actual Speedy ’57 in green, but this Pagani Design has scratched that itch.  It’s not a remarkable watch by any stretch of the imagination, but if all it’s done is to help prevent me from wasting $9,500 on a real Speedy ’57, then it’s more than served its purpose!

 The Seestern, meanwhile, is a whole other story.  If I didn’t know what Seestern was, and you’d handed me the watch and told me that you’d paid $1,000 for it, I would believe you in a heartbeat.  Check out the obligatory lume shot…

And the @Max (TM) shot...

It is a truly magnificent watch!  This watch I will wear with pride.  Seestern charged me $189 for this watch, and they've saved me from spending an additional $10k on a Glashuette Original SeaQ.  In fact, it’s done more than that.  It’s prevented me from feeling any guilt over eventually selling the GO SeaQ I'd have impulsively bought.  Because every single time I buy a watch for its cool design, the watch inevitably loses its “shiny new bauble” charm after a very short honeymoon period, and I end up thinking, “Gosh, if I sold this, I could deploy the thousands of dollars towards acquiring such-and-such Grand Seiko instead."

From now on, anytime I want to experience a cool Swiss or German design, I’m ordering the Chinese homage instead.  In fact, now that I’ve discovered Seestern and Pagani Design and San Martin, no more Chinese fakes for me.

My former love affair with Chinese fakes

@Deeperblue sent out a very thought-provoking newsletter some time ago:

https://www.watchcrunch.com/Deeperblue/posts/bites-what-is-the-watch-enthusiasts-responsibility-when-it-comes-to-fakes-43317

And she doubled down with this post:

https://www.watchcrunch.com/Deeperblue/posts/is-china-actually-winning-the-authenticity-battle-against-the-swiss-186139

I had lots to say, but didn't want to create a firestorm.  So, here we are!  If this thread gets nuked, at least I'm getting my own thread nuked as opposed to causing collateral damage.

So, I am on record as saying that I love Chinese fakes.  I mean, take a look at how well they can replicate the real thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y

There are all manner of arguments against buying Chinese fakes, but none of them have ever swayed me.  I get that other folks have other values, and that my values are not universal, yet hear me out as to why I believe Chinese fakes aren't harming anyone...

• As a Libertarian nut job, I believe that producers have an absolute, ironclad right to their own intellectual property and brands, and that it should be illegal, without question, to violate those rights

• However, you will note that, traditionally, Swiss manufacturers have not aggressively pursued legal action against manufacturers of counterfeit watches, nor consumers of counterfeit watches.  That's counterintuitive, is it not?  If black market counterfeits are destroying Swiss watchmakers' brand images and costing these companies billions of dollars in revenue, we should expect them to come down on counterfeiters with the fury of a thousand exploding suns, no?  Take Disney, for example.  The House of Mouse is infamous for going after any person or entity for trademark violations and / or copyright infringement.  Why hasn't Rolex pursued the same strategy, when some estimates say that more counterfeit Rolexes are produced and purchased each year than genuine Rolexes?

• Counter-intuitively, it may be that fake luxury goods do not hurt the actual luxury goods manufacturers to the extent that the conventional wisdom would have us believe.  For the most part, folks who purchase replicas know they're purchasing replicas, and are doing so because a) they cannot afford the real deal and never will be able to afford the real deal, b) they have no intention of ever buying the real deal, and just like having a facsimile for fun, or c) can't afford the real deal...  yet, like having a placeholder for the time being, and then will eventually buy the real deal when they have saved up enough.  You will note that in all 3 examples above, the real manufacturer is not losing out on a single dime of revenue.  In many cases, (for example, if you delve into the replica community on Reddit) you will find that most folks there fall into camp (c)

• As a producer of goods and services, you only go after a copycat / counterfeiter if they are depriving you of real revenue.  In most cases, counterfeits neither serve as adequate substitutes, nor do they harm the branding of the Swiss manufacturers - in fact, in many cases fakes may help to bolster future sales, in that they help to keep the genuine article top of mind for folks aspiring to own the real deal one day

• If you look at what happened to the Noob factory, the highest quality Rolex counterfeiter in China, the authorities only ended up coming down on them when they finally produced a set of super-rep movements that nearly rivaled the movements in the genuine articles, and had the temerity to then display these replica movements at some industry trade show!!!  They'd created fake movements that were so "genuine" that these movements would actually trick buyers, sellers, and experienced watchmakers and thus enable fraud - THAT'S when the Swiss prompted the Chinese authorities to crack down, and crack down the Chinese authorities did.  But, in the absence of that, the equilibrium seems to be that the Swiss recognize that counterfeits aren't harming them, and thus they don't pursue action

So long as a buyer is knowingly buying a fake, and the seller is very clear that the watch being offered is a fake, and given all the arguments above, a voluntary transaction of this sort is Pareto efficient, which just means it creates both consumer and producer surplus so both parties end up better off, and no one is harmed in the process.

Over the years, I've purchased probably over 50 high-quality fakes from China to hand out as gag gifts to friends and family.  Not a single one of the folks I've given a watch to regularly wears a watch - other than Apple Watches, and those, as we all know, aren't real watches.  😜

My friends and family LOVE their fake watches, know they're fake, tell everyone immediately that they're fake, and they get to feel the frisson of excitement of having an illicit, black market good sitting on their wrists.  For people like us - the old and boring - it's a form of hipsterism and a callback to our former youthful rebelliousness.

Q:  But, @Mr.Dee.Bater, what about supporting evil?  Don't you know that you're helping to fund criminal enterprises that traffic drugs and children, support terrorism, and murder puppy dogs in their sleep?

Well, it'll come as quite a surprise to some folks, but "illegal enterprise" in China is not quite the same as "illegal enterprise" in the U.S.  See, I've done business in China for much of my professional life.  In fact, I opened up a chain of Internet Cafes in the early 2000's in Beijing with venture capital backing.  And, well, they were "illegal" Internet Cafes!!!  Perhaps right now you're imagining that this is the hardened criminal that I am, as seen here in the mirror in the background...

No, I look more like this, except less suave and svelte...

See, the regulatory environment is such that all laws and regulations are incredibly vague and inscrutable.  They're designed this way to ensure that nearly EVERY individual and / or business is violating some regulation at least 100 times a day.  This gives the State and bureaucrats incredible discretionary authority.  If they like you, then who cares if you're violating 100 regulations a day?  But, the moment the political winds change, they can then come and cart you away to prison.  Moreover, this sort of discretionary authority enables vested interests to force out new entrants.  If you're an established company, you use the regulatory authorities to regulate your existing competitors out of business, and prevent any new entrants from even entertaining the thought of getting off the ground to compete with you - it's called "regulatory capture"!  

The regulatory environment that I just described above is what it’s like here in America.  Now, for China, take what I wrote and multiply it 10x, and there you have it.  For example, one time, in Beijing, we had to sign a bunch of contracts and get it all squared away before 12pm.  We completed it all, had the docs certified by 11:30, and handed them over to an official in his office.  He looked them over, and then said, "Oh, gosh, you signed everything in blue ink.  I'm so sorry, but we require contracts to be signed in black ink."  

That's it!  It's the end of our business!  Millions down the drain!

My business partner had grown up in Beijing, and simply said, "Isn't there anything we can do?" while taking out his brand new iPhone and placing it on the official's desk.  The official looked up in surprise.

"Oh, is that the new iPhone?"

My buddy said, "Why, yes, it is!  I just got this from the Apple Store in New York."  (Now, keep in mind, this was 2008, relatively soon after the iPhone had just launched, at the height of the iPhone craze, and way before iPhones were available for sale in Beijing.)

The official put his phone on the desk.  It was some 5 year-old flip phone.

My buddy said, "Oh, gosh, is that the [Chinese gobbly-goop] phone?  My sister has been looking for precisely that model.  She said it was always her favorite, and she hasn't been able to find it.  Wanna trade?"

Wanna trade???  My $1,000 brand new iPhone for your $22 flip phone?  And, again, this was back in 2008, when $1,000 was a lot of money to a Chinese citizen in Beijing!

Miraculously, after the trade, the official allowed our blue-ink-signed documents through!  How kind of him, right???

Anyway, all Internet Cafes were, according to the letter of the law, illegal in Beijing.  And, yet, they were as ubiquitous as Starbucks are here - one on every corner.  

"Illegal enterprise" is not "illegal" in China in the same way "illegal enterprise" is "illegal" here in the U.S.  You have incredibly clean, efficient, and well-run operations that are, by the letter of the law, "illegal" in China.  "Illegal" and "black market" are simply ways for Chinese government officials to extract / confiscate from the citizenry - much in the same way Civil Asset Forfeiture is a way for the American State to steal from under-privileged Americans here.  Civil Asset Forfeiture notwithstanding, here in the U.S., corruption is a lot more genteel.  We bribe officials here by implicitly promising them lucrative "consulting" contracts once they've retired from their public service.  We aren't so crass as to actually hand over cash or electronics!  That's so low-brow!  The Chinese simply haven't yet learned how to be as refined and sophisticated about corruption as we are - that's all.

Although our Beijing Internet Cafes were illegal and black market, I don't remember engaging in any of these sorts of activities while we ran them...

Mostly, we just sold this...

[The entirety of the margin in Internet Cafes comes from selling food and drinks to patrons - charging folks to use the PCs was just a breakeven proposition]

Q:  Ah, but @Mr.Dee.Bater, what about child labor???  What about sweatshops???  What about exploiting hapless victims for low-cost labor???

Well, here's the funny thing...  I'm Chinese.  My family comes from Mainland China.  I have relatives who still live in Mainland China.  

Let me tell you a story...

My mother was a child during Mao’s Great Leap Forward.  Right now, you might be imagining this...

No, it was much worse than that.  Mao starved 10% of the Chinese population to death - some 30 million human beings lost their lives because we human beings love to hear heart-warming slogans like, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  When I talk to her about her experience, she tells me about absolutely dire conditions.  Education was out of the question.  I asked if she’d worked in a sweatshop.

“There were no sweatshops!  I wish I could have worked in a sweatshop.  No.  There was nothing.  Most days we sifted through trash and ashes to find bones that hadn’t been completely burnt up and could be used like charcoal in a fire.  We could sell it to people for a little money, enough to get maybe one bowl of rice a day for each of us.  I wish there were sweatshops.  Having a sweatshop would mean you could have real work and make real money.  No, sweatshops were later, when we escaped to Hong Kong.  In Hong Kong, thank god, there were sweatshops, and we worked in the sweatshops to make enough money to get to America."

"Wait a minute!  But, @Mr.Dee.Bater, that doesn't make sense!  I mean, we all know that sweatshops chain workers up to metal poles and whip them as slave labor, no?"  No.  She willingly went to work every day, because the sweatshop paid her money, and she (and her sister) were able to give the money to her mom, who also worked in a sweatshop, so that the family could not only eat and survive, but now actually thrive!  Here in the West, we see conditions like those in which my mother lived in Hong Kong - 10 people in a 10’ x 15’ room that served as sleeping area, bathroom, kitchen, and living area separated only with hanging sheets, and those of us in the West think to ourselves, “This is horrible!  We should outlaw sweatshops and child labor, because THIS is what happens when there are sweatshops and child labor!”  Well, no.  The alternative is not clean, sanitary, fun working conditions like we have here in America...

The alternative is dying of starvation.  

“Well, something should be done about that!  I dream of a world in which no child has to sacrifice their education, just to work to stay alive!”  That’s something I hear all the time, whenever I bring up the inconvenient fact to folks that my mom worked as a child laborer in order to earn enough to help her family survive the Great Leap Forward, escape to Hong Kong, and then make it to America.  I mean, yes, let’s all dream!  Let’s dream big!  And while we’re at it, let’s all also sing along to the official moving anthem of virtue signalers everywhere the world over…

While “concerned people” all over the world are busy virtue signaling, people like my mom have to make unpalatable choices to not starve to death.  And, based on her hard work, survive she did and survive her family did!  And when the time came, they used what little money they’d managed to save to get to America!  And, now, she and my aunt are living the American Dream!

My mom hated EVERY SINGLE MOMENT of working in sweatshops.  She greatly regrets never having had a formal education.  But, she feels, rightfully, proud of her incredible accomplishments.  If not for her and her sister's hard work, they never could have had enough money to pay the human smugglers / traffickers to get themselves to Hong Kong, and then to get to America.  (Human traffickers!!!  Think about that the next time you read a news story about evil human traffickers…  Their supposed “victims” are paying them for an incredibly valuable service - getting them out of a hellhole and into a place of peace and prosperity!)  And, today, she loves telling the story of how she helped make it possible for our entire family to live such wonderful lives here.  And, rightfully, I admire her for her hard work and her courage, and recognize that if not for her sacrifice, my children otherwise would be stuck in that horrible, horrible place called China.

If you ask my mom, "Were you exploited as a child laborer?" she would and does say...

Being a child laborer helped pave the way for her to now spend every day showering her little dog, Chanel, with love and treats, secure in the knowledge that she gave her two precious granddaughters amazing, spoiled-rotten lives in this wondrous place called America.

Q:  So, if you love Chinese fakes so much, why have you switched to Pagani Design?

Well, because...

1. You can get Pagani Design watches from Amazon Prime, and they ship overnight!!!  Meanwhile Seestern and San Martin will ship to you within 10 days, if you opt to pay the $15 or whatever it is for DHL!

2. They have real water resistance!

3. And, because they're perfectly legal, even under draconian Chinese law, these guys have massive economies of scale, such that their watches are like 1/4th the price of the fakes!

Finally, I think these watches will give me something that even the fakes couldn't - more opportunity to talk random people's ears off about watches.

"Is that a Rolex on your wrist?" someone will ask.  And, now, I'll be able to dive into a 15-minute disquisition about Pagani Design, how they're like Zara and they simply use "fast fashion" techniques to replicate over-priced luxury manufacturers' wares, and I'll say, "Guess what?  Chinese watches are getting so good that their build quality is just as good as Swiss.  And, did you know that the Swiss originally faked and homaged French and British watches?  The Swiss stole all their IP, because real watchmaking came from France and Britain!  But, then the French Revolution..."

God, I can't wait!

Anyway, this is my next homage watch, the San Martin SN0129-G-GMT...

It’s gonna scratch the itch I have for the GS SBGE285 Mistfalke!  

Or maybe I'll get this one, to scratch the Milgauss Z-Blue itch...

What about you?  Anyone else out there in love with Chinese homages?  Anyone else learn to stop buying the genuine articles and go instead for the homages?