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Concept
Counterfeit watch
Summary
A counterfeit watch (or replica watch) is an unauthorised copy of an authentic watch. High-end luxury watches such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille are frequently counterfeited and sold on city streets and online. With technological advancements, many non-luxury and inexpensive quartz watches are also commonly counterfeited.
According to estimates by the Swiss Customs Service, there are some 30 to 40 million counterfeit watches put into circulation each year. For example, the number and value of Customs’ seizures rose from CHF 400,000 and 18 seizures in 1995 to CHF 10,300,000 and 572 seizures in 2005. According to a 2012 Federation of Swiss Watches estimate, counterfeit Swiss watch sales generated $1 billion in sales per year.
Forgery of watches became a serious problem in the eighteenth century when Britain came to rival France as the leading producer of quality clocks and watches. 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. Other, less obvious, forgeries carried imaginary names with a vaguely English sound, such as 'Samson' or 'Simpton'. 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. J. Tobias' – a mistake for a real London maker named Michael Isaac Tobias. In the 1860s, when the American watch industry was gaining strength, the Swiss industry was responsible for many imitations of Waltham watches; these, unlike most of the earlier forgeries, often imitated the appearance of the genuine article quite closely as well as borrowing the names. 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).
Official source
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