It’s interesting to see how good quality the latest replica watches are. For example, in a recent survey, not one person out of over a hundred tested could tell the difference between a replica Breitling Bentley and a real one. It was a surprise for everybody except the industry outsiders who know just how high the quality is on the latest batch of replica watches to be sold on the internet. The replica Breitling watches tested cost between $100 and $300 compared to $3500 to $7000 for the real things. Yet in exhaustive tests, there was found to be no difference in quality or accuracy.

Again, for insiders, this wasn’t exactly surprising. Both the replicas and the real watches are made from exactly the same materials and both use highly skilled watch makers and engineers to assemble them. One reason for the difference is of course that the labor rates for watch makers in Switzerland is astronomically high compared to Japan.

Another reason of course is the desire of many of the Swiss watch makers to achieve exclusivity. They no longer make watches that are more accurate than the Quartz watches, so they went down the road of aiming for prestige. The way they did this was to price their watches so high that only the exclusive few could buy them. That’s why you can buy ten replica Omega watches for the price of one real Omega watch. The whole point is to maintain as much prestige as possible by ensuring that only the richest among us could buy them. So those of us with less money are either given the option of going without, or, if we’re smart, of buying a great replica watch for a fraction of the cost.