[tony20009]

There seem to be several folks who are keen to "rag" on various brands and types of watches. The reality is that it's actually hard to find a low quality watch, even replica watches, which no matter how the compare to the watches they ape, as watches aren't in general poorly made either. Whereas many people write/talk about "quality," the fact is that the overwhelming majority of those people haven't a clue about quality as go watches or much else.

The first step in understanding quality is identifying what the maker of a given item sought to achieve. It is not, as most statements one'll encounter presuppose, knowing what are the limits of what it is possible to build. The next step is to assess how effectively (or not) the maker achieved that which it attempted to build.

There are a number of observable traits that watches can have that years ago were rightly seen as indicators of quality. In this day and age of industrial production, those traits, while they often are accompanied by high overall quality builds of a given watch, they are not guarantees of it, nor are they contributors to it.

For example, now that nearly every watch made is water resistant to some degree, beveled edges and rhodium (or other inert metal) plating doesn't do a thing to boost the quality of most watches. In contrast, those two features do boost the quality of most mechanical minute repeaters. Why? Because most minute repeater watches have movements that are unavoidably exposed to the elements. The beveling and rhodium plating reduces the chances and/or reduces the rapidity with which corrosive substances can find a place to take hold and begin having their corrosive effects. Aside from most minute repeaters and vintage watches that aren't water resistant (and other watches that have a means for the elements to enter the case), those two traits are purely decorative treatments.

It's not surprising that many folks think of quality much as one might think of being a better or worse student. We are all raised in an environment whereby the quality of our work, that is our test performance in school, is measured against the bar of "how much of 'everything' does one demonstrate mastery." Like it or not, however, outside of an academic (or similar) setting, quality becomes much more subjective. It becomes a thing that is measured in terms of what one should have done given the target one set vs. what one did. The reason the determination of quality changes is because as adults, as companies we set our own targets, unlike when we are in academic settings where the targets are defined by others and one strives to achieve them.

One the matter of replica mechanical watches:

• Will a replica, say, Rolex or Cartier perform in all situations as well as the authentic watches?
  In "all" situations, certainly not. For the situation consisting of putting on a watch, going to work, going shopping, washing one's hands, doing dishes, and such, short of chronometer level timekeeping that some non-replicas achieve, there's no meaningful difference.
• Can one buy a comparably priced non-replica mechanical watch and expect it to perform as well or better than a replica mechanical watch that apes a far more expensive watch? And is the reverse also possible?
  Yes roughly, and yes.
• How inexpensive can a "decent enough" uncomplicated replica watch be?
  It depends on from whom one buys it, one's negotiating ability, and where one buys it. "Decent enough" (i.e., it keeps time as well as any inexpensive -- less than $150 -- non-replica mechanical watch will and won't fall apart under usage patterns consistent with it's intended use) replica mechanical watches can be had for as little as $25 new. One probably needs to be in the PRC to buy them at that price, but that doesn't mean they can't be had.
• Is there a credible value proposition for buying a replica mechanical watch rather than the watch it apes?
  There is. For example, at $100, a replica Rolex costs some 60 times or more less than the watch it apes. It's not uncommon for a replica Rolex to perform "decently enough" for five years (longer is more often the case that I've observed among the ~80 people on my staff in the PRC for I've yet to learn that any fake they've bought has died/broken, but for the sake of being conservative, I'll go with five years). Assuming one buys 20 such replicas and at the end of the fifth year (no servicing occurred during the five years) it just up and dies/breaks, one has 100 years of watches having the look one desires and that performs "decently enough" at a total cost of $2000. That's still about 1/3rd the price of even the least expensive Rolex of which the replica is a copy.
  
  Now one can also buy a non-replica watch costing $2K (although even $2K isn't generally enough to buy chronometer level timekeeping in a new watch). If one does, one will still have to have it serviced at multiple times over the course of 100 years. So even then, while it may not me a lot more expensive than 20 identical replicas, it's still more expensive.
• Is there any other compelling reason to buy a replica watch?
  Well, if the styling details that one absolutely feels one must have are such that they can be found only on two watches -- an authentic watch X or a replica of that watch -- one really has only two choices: buy one or the other of those two watches. Neither I nor anyone else is in a position to say what styling details one feels one absolutely must have.
• What are the social effects of wearing a replica watch?
  That has to do with you and with other people. So long as you don't pass off the replica as being authentic, the burden rests with others, and you can't control it. You can take comfort in the fact that if others have "issues" in spite of your honesty about the thing, the issues are theirs, and caused by them and their circumstances, not yours and caused by your wearing the watch.

On buying pricey (> $2K) authentic watches:
I've bought my share of pricey watches, but I'm not "typical" in that regard. My parents are much more typical. Mother bought my dad a Rolex Datejust (DJ) in the early 1970s for ~$500. Daddy wore that watch daily until a few months ago when it literally died after his not ever having serviced it. Daddy replaced the DJ with another pricey watch and sent the DJ off to be repaired. It's since been returned in "like new" condition to the tune of ~$4K in repair costs.

I wouldn't advise never servicing a watch, but one can obviously "get by" without doing so. What are the odds one can go 40 years without doing so? I honestly don't know. I have exactly one data point on that matter and I don't even know how well the watch kept time shortly before just giving out. I know only that Daddy wasn't complaining about it, so it must have been doing so "well enough," but I can't even say if his idea of what that means is even close to what my idea of what it means. I can say that it's all but certain that he didn't in the past 20 years bother to check the watch's timekeeping performance.

Daddy is just shy now of being 100 years old, so the fact is that but for his having outlived his life expectancy, the total cost of his having worn a Rolex DJ would have been ~$500, or ~$2900 in inflation adjusted terms.

So what's the point? The point is that if one is of a mind to buy one really good watch and wear it continually for many years as Daddy did, the value proposition for doing so isn't as bad as it may have seemed from my discussion above. On the other hand, if one feels the need buy multiple pricey watches, the collective value proposition of doing so decreases with each subsequent purchase.

Buying one pricey watch is a very different thing from buying several. Short of having some interest in them that has nothing to do with actual watch performance, there's just no good value-driven case for one's doing so.

Brands and branding:
Brands are little more than the business equivalent of a surname. Prudent consumers and snobs alike use brands as a shortcut for not having to invest any energy in learning about the quality of things.

One can observe that Toyota, say, consistently make high quality cars based on how infrequently Toyotas fail to perform as expected. What exactly it is that Toyota does to make their cares infrequently fail isn't something most folks give a damn about or well understand (or want to) so long as the Toyota car they buy also doesn't fail to perform.

Now sure as some cars fail more often than others, the same isn't generally so with watches. It's rare that any modern watch will fail, especially if one follows the manufacturer's instructions re: maintaining it. What that means is from a tangible use perspective, there's not much reason to eschew any watch brand.

Above, someone advised you not buy a Fossil. Absent knowing one's requirements for a given watch, I can't think of one good reason for one not to buy a Fossil. The same goes for replica watches.
-- http://www.wristwatchreview.com/2014...-watch-review/
-- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/mosl...ake-Rolex.html
I write that as a watch collector of some 30+ years. I'm "into" watches, but I know damn well that being "into" watches and simply wanting to buy a watch as a fashion accessory or time measurement and reporting device aren't remotely the same things. All that's similar is that two such individuals may yet buy exactly the same watch.

All the best.