Fake Tissot Watch?
I bought quite some inexpensive quartz watches from Amazon in the past, as I wanted to build a collection of watches of many different styles. I particularly like this Tissot dress watch. I found it on Amazon at a price of around C$250, if I recall this correctly. But I always suspect that it is a fake Tissot, as after I bought it, I tried to find it from official Tissot websites from different countries but was not able to find it. It was funny that I might have bought a "Tissot" watch that Tissot may have never made!
Given that all these watches were inexpensive, I didn't want to spend too much with a watch repair shop for a simple battery replacement service. So, I bought a tool kit trying to do this myself. I found that opening the back of a watch is not as easy as I thought and in the process scratched a few of my watches. When I tried to replace the battery for this Tissot watch a second time, it stopped working even I tried many new batteries. I took a closer look of the movement and found that it was made by "Ronda", reference 515. Instead of "Swiss made", it is marked as "Swiss Parts", which many said means made in China. I believe Tissot uses Swiss movements in all its quartz watches. I am now convinced that this is a fake Tissot. Will not buy any watches from Amazon anymore.
But I am still in love with the brand Tissot. I checked out their official website again recently trying to learn more about its history and the watches they are making these days and found something interesting. In the "history" section, they retain some important advertisements they made over the years. The earliest ones go back to the 1940's. Those are like short films with some kind of story! Those days are really of a different era than ours today! And the advertisement style seems to become more modern during the 1960's, as the advertisements became much shorter and were more similar to those we see today. I am just fascinated by these historical materials and want to share these findings with other Tissot fans. I have just bought the model "Gentleman" from its official online shop and will post some pictures of the watch when I receive it.
I love watches and have been collecting inexpensive watches for over 20 years. Most are quartz watches but a few are automatic. None cost me more than C$300. Since two years ago, I started collecting...
That sucks man... Hope your new one is both authentic and awesome!
I’m afraid to say that a few Swiss brands do use Chinese parts. I can’t remember the ratio but they only need something like 45% of the parts from Switzerland and made in Switzerland to carry the Swiss made logo.
I’m not saying this is a fake but it’s not uncommon to find cheap Chinese parts in Swiss watches
The pictures of the movement do look like a Ronda 515. That being said, you would be able to pick up a very similar-looking movement for a few USD online. There is also a decent amount of fake Tissot components available online, from hands and dials, all the way up to fake Tissot-branded mechanical movements that look fairly convincing.
So yes, getting your Tissot from their online store or an AD is probably the safest way to go.
Thanks all!
I did more research and found that there was indeed this model Tissot made in the past. It is an old Classic Dream model. The reference is T033410B. However, the movement for this watch is ETA 805.112, not Ronda 515. Don't know which movement is better, but seeing a wrong movement in this watch, I am pretty confirmed that it is a fake.