# Sinowatches - anygood?



## tenshin2002 (Sep 10, 2008)

Hello
I came across the website sinowatches dot com. They have some really nice looking watches! Does anybody have an experience of their watches?
Also I´m wondering what movement they have when they say its:
"Asian 7750b" ?


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## random (Oct 16, 2008)

I was looking around the website and saw this watch with misspelled days on the sub dial.It made me laugh so I feel I need to share. :-d









Is it me or do most of the watches on the site look like Knock offs or eerrmm homages ? :-d


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## tenshin2002 (Sep 10, 2008)

Yeah, that was funny! I had not seen that!
Anyway, of course the are "replicas". Did you not notice that they sell Omegas, IWC, Panerai and so on with ETA and Asian movements?
Of course they are fake, but they can still be good. Just look at the Alpha watches, they clearly copy well known designs. Seams like Sinowatches takes it another step and actually put the official brand names on the dial and movements.


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## jf718 (Jul 7, 2008)

what they are doing is illegal, so of course it is no good. stay away.


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

jf718 said:


> what they are doing is illegal, so of course it is no good. stay away.


Agreed.

And if the moral argument is not convincing, consider also the fact that you are buying from somebody who knows they are committing a criminal act, and who also knows that you know that you are party to a criminal act. What kind of warranty or quality control do you think you're going to get?

There is a substantial difference between what Alpha does and what a counterfeiter does, as proven by the many stories of Alpha's excellent after-sales service reported here on this forum.

I will also mention here that Watchuseek has a policy forbidding the promotion of fakes.


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## DR_Dreadlocks (Oct 12, 2008)

random said:


> I was looking around the website and saw this watch with misspelled days on the sub dial.It made me laugh so I feel I need to share. :-d
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Maybe they think that if it has typos, is not copyright infringement, LOL :-d
"see, it says Tueday, Wedday and Thuday, certainly is not the same wrist-watch design, your honor..."



tenshin2002 said:


> Hello
> I came across the website sinowatches dot com. They have some really nice looking watches! Does anybody have an experience of their watches?
> Also I´m wondering what movement they have when they say its:
> "Asian 7750b" ?


I have seem some sinowatches videos at youtube, it makes me laugh 'cause I cannot see 5 minutes of Family Guy due to copyright infringement, but you could see a whole "hands on" review of a counterfeit watch with it's very link to buy it.

Recently, I came across this replica culture on the net while looking for a B & R BR02 homage, My wife sells stuff from an European company, mainly jewelry, watches and perfume. In the catalog I discovered this very BR02 hommage, it was stunningly similar to the original, but not using any of B & R's marks on it, only the design, and it was only 100mts WR instead of 1k, so I became interested in the issue.

This search got me to subscribe into a replica forum and started reading a lot, wondering if I could know who made that homage and the replica, (suspecting it was the same dude/factory, indeed it was) zero posts until now, but definitely I'm done.

Let me tell you that after 2-3 days of reading posts, seeing photobucket accounts and "e-shops", that it is a culture of deception and pose, they try to be very "honor among thieves" but they even fail at that, some of them even say are very "honest" and "scrupulous". Even the "greatest contributor" to the "membership" it is prone to milk some cash from members, so it is all about thrill-seeking greed, lies, walt-mittiness, and paranoia.

Even after seeing some pictures, I discovered that some watches at wrist shots on this very WUS fora are replicas, and not the real McCoy. Now, that's creepy, LOL. even fooling WUS(at least me and the other WIS's in the thread )

I don't care about the modern way copyrights and trademarks are enforced by law backed up by blood-sucking sociopath corporations, next time I'll see the charts, Mickey F*king Mouse and The Instant Noodles will be copyrighted for the next million years, maybe I was a commie or a pinko in a previous existences, nobody to blame except me and my borked karma, but 100 years of copyright is f*king A1 BS, think about it.

But lies, deception and pose are not exactly my cup of tea. If you own a "homage", fine, be proud of it, give it wrist time as you want, be honest, you are not filthy rich so WTF, is the watch you could afford and it is cool as heck and gives great time. Attitude says more than any wristwatch. But while wearing/owning a replica, you are not only lying to the world, you are lying to yourself too.

Once I heard of a guy with an El Cheapo Timex submariner homage, he was very honest about it, he liked his watch a lot and used to make fun of his friend that had the original Rolex, he used to say: "mine is a 50 buck watch, and it even have backlight, what's wrong with yours?". I ROFL'd so much, indeed beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

My 2 cents.


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## Zed (Feb 24, 2008)

I think i am hearing some mis-conception here. The issue with the date marking is a typical for non-english speakers to come to conclusions about the application and meaning of english. View it as the same way we would view a foreign language. It is an issue of (1) understaning the symbols (2) understanding the meaning of the symbol. So someone working with watches will have seen e.g. 'TUE' or ''MON' on a dial and will have asked and understood that this means 'the day'. Hence they have taken the 'TUE' and added the 'DAY' as they would have in their own langauge and written it down. But what they have not understood is that the 'TUE' is a shortening of 'TUES' (in reality it should be Tyrday, but we won't go there).

As for the replica watch issue, yes i read in the WUS policy when signing up that promotion of this was not permitted. If it is the basic watch (which after all will be build by the Chinese), there are option to buy some models from within the EU in a 'sterile' configuration:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Exclusive-Watches-Inc-UK
(came across this while looking for Chinese tourbilons)these then make no pretenses to be anything other than a hommage and they look simply like unbranded versions of the replicas. Given the movement and the general look of the build quality (i have seen one up close) they should be at least as good as the Alpha homage, but without the support i suspect. That said, they are not cheap, maybe more a reflection of the cost of the movement than anything else, but maybe the addition of the sapphire also, and a hefty profit...

What is more notable about this area is, as Dr Dreadlocks noted, being able to spot what is original and what is replica. I for one do not want to be conned out of my money. But there is a far more interesting aspect to this from a horological perspective. It provides a window to understand the nature and capabilites of chinese horology. Consider:
http://www.replicawatchreport.com/articles/watchmasters-corner/new-asian-copy-of-the-eta-7750.html
Which provides an insite into a set of alternative strategies in movement design. While some of the movements are established Sea-gull or other large chinese movement manufacturers, i think some may be using this as a testing area for alternative movement design or modification. Some may be done onsite at the rep producer, but the look of some of these movements is that there must be fundemental philosophies employed to get these movements to work. That can only be done at the movement manufacturer.

Z


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## tenshin2002 (Sep 10, 2008)

First of all, I apologise! I really did not think that it was illegal. I mean the have a full webpage and youtube advertising! I should have suspected it though so a apologise. I dont want to support illegal activities. 

Having said that if thats the case then the whole Chinese Mechanical forum is balancing on a thin line. Most of the "good" chinese mechanicals use movement clones of the ETA movements. So you could then argue about piracy, am I right? :-s


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## DR_Dreadlocks (Oct 12, 2008)

Zed said:


> I think i am hearing some mis-conception here. The issue with the date marking is a typical for non-english speakers to come to conclusions about the application and meaning of english. View it as the same way we would view a foreign language. It is an issue of (1) understaning the symbols (2) understanding the meaning of the symbol. So someone working with watches will have seen e.g. 'TUE' or ''MON' on a dial and will have asked and understood that this means 'the day'. Hence they have taken the 'TUE' and added the 'DAY' as they would have in their own langauge and written it down. But what they have not understood is that the 'TUE' is a shortening of 'TUES' (in reality it should be Tyrday, but we won't go there).


No offense, but engrish is plainly funny, in a very montypythonesque way. Mis-conceptions aside, why does the replica maker failied at copying such a simple watch dial? Maybe he/them thought the original was the wrong one? :-d 
Imagine the replica dudes arguing: "Idiot, it's not Tuesday, it's TueDay! You did it wrong! You don't know sh*t about watches!"

I think the same funny situations happens vice-versa when a "western" guy gets a tattoo in chinese characters that has writen something like "yummy dog pee poo" instead of "I'm a cool MOFO". :-d



Zed said:


> As for the replica watch issue, yes i read in the WUS policy when signing up that promotion of this was not permitted. If it is the basic watch (which after all will be build by the Chinese), there are option to buy some models from within the EU in a 'sterile' configuration:
> http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Exclusive-Watches-Inc-UK
> (came across this while looking for Chinese tourbilons)these then make no pretenses to be anything other than a hommage and they look simply like unbranded versions of the replicas. Given the movement and the general look of the build quality (i have seen one up close) they should be at least as good as the Alpha homage, but without the support i suspect. That said, they are not cheap, maybe more a reflection of the cost of the movement than anything else, but maybe the addition of the sapphire also, and a hefty profit...


I like "sterile" configurations so much. 



Zed said:


> What is more notable about this area is, as Dr Dreadlocks noted, being able to spot what is original and what is replica. I for one do not want to be conned out of my money.


 Me neither, getting educated in this hobby saves me lotsa money. |>



Zed said:


> But there is a far more interesting aspect to this from a horological perspective. It provides a window to understand the nature and capabilites of chinese horology. Consider:
> http://www.replicawatchreport.com/articles/watchmasters-corner/new-asian-copy-of-the-eta-7750.html
> Which provides an insite into a set of alternative strategies in movement design. While some of the movements are established Sea-gull or other large chinese movement manufacturers, i think some may be using this as a testing area for alternative movement design or modification. Some may be done onsite at the rep producer, but the look of some of these movements is that there must be fundemental philosophies employed to get these movements to work. That can only be done at the movement manufacturer.
> 
> Z


Couldn't say it better myself Z. :-! I think that with ETA's 2010 decision plus the strategies you mention movement design really will improve, ETA and non-ETA related.

ie Seiko's spring drive, in the 90's it was like a warped ETA 2824. Now it's completely different species, a truly new horology paradigm IMO.



tenshin2002 said:


> First of all, I apologise! I really did not think that it was illegal. I mean the have a full webpage and youtube advertising! I should have suspected it though so a apologise. I dont want to support illegal activities.


No problemo, I think if you avoid replicas at all, your whole WIS experience will be better.



tenshin2002 said:


> Having said that if thats the case then the whole Chinese Mechanical forum is balancing on a thin line. Most of the "good" chinese mechanicals use movement clones of the ETA movements. So you could then argue about piracy, am I right? :-s


If thatso, then anything after the Antikythera device is just a replica/clone, and subject to law enforcement, who patented the gear and the pinion? The alloys and metalurgic processes? Who patented Numerals on a display? The Mesopotamians got the idea of the 12/24 hours, then we owe some money to them, LOL. ;-)

IMHO I don't think the whole Chinese Mechanical forum is balancing on a thin line as you said, everybody here tries to be as honest as possible. Let's get down-to-earth and avoid being over-philosophical: lying is not good, replicas are deceitful.

You know, copyright laws should be more about prohibiting deception and/or counterfeiting, but today is just all about selfishly protecting ideas to get spread, shared and improved. Ideas and information cannot be copyrighted. :-!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Scope


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## Pawl_Buster (Mar 12, 2007)

tenshin2002 said:


> First of all, I apologise! I really did not think that it was illegal. I mean the have a full webpage and youtube advertising! I should have suspected it though so a apologise. I dont want to support illegal activities.
> 
> Having said that if thats the case then the whole Chinese Mechanical forum is balancing on a thin line. Most of the "good" chinese mechanicals use movement clones of the ETA movements. So you could then argue about piracy, am I right? :-s


There is a huge difference between replica(out and out fake) and homage pieces.

The replica looks like the real thing and is copied complete with the original manufacturers name. That breaks several copyright laws, not to mention trademarks and some patents when the internals are copied exactly.

The homage is a watch that may look like something else but has it's own copyrighted and trademarked branding. That is perfectly legal...if it wasn't then all the car makers would be suing one another constantly for making homages of one another's vehicles.

There is no thin edge here...you may have noticed that even suggesting fakes might be ok brings an instant response from the moderators.

This site offers discussion on legitimate Chinese made and branded products. There is such a wealth of Chinese horology that there really isn't any need to talk about or be involved in illegal buying of fakes, no matter who made them.

As has been seen over and over, fake watches from Asia usually have the lowest grade movements that can be found. They are very seldom a good deal :roll:


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## Zed (Feb 24, 2008)

DR_Dreadlocks said:


> I think the same funny situations happens vice-versa when a "western" guy gets a tattoo in chinese characters that has writen something like "yummy dog pee poo" instead of "I'm a cool MOFO".


You really hit the nail on the head here. The mis-conceptions of how language is applied is a common feature, and i can be funny. My perrsonal opinion is that it is only funny when the person saying thinks its funny otherwise people (myself included) can become discouraged. I must say this is very much my personal opinion and i have looked foolish several times in business situations with inappropriate application of language. But i persist and you know what it gives me an appreciation of the use of my own language and clearer understanding of other 2nd language english. That said there are some rather large clangers like:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm

The thing that i really came to understand being out in china is the concept of 'copying' is very different to ours. We view it as something bad, they view it as homage. As the copies approach that of the 'master', they can then become a 'master' themselves. This is not something specific to copying from the west, but is ingrained in chinese society. What people forget is that they too aspire to produce original works, but apprenticeshipin any given trade must the learned and can only be learnt from a master. This is simply the opposite of what we would view, but if you look at all they do, you can see this is the strategy they are following. Sooner or later they will get to be 'masters' themselves and maybe that is what we are seeing right now, but there are always those that are learning.



> As has been seen over and over, fake watches from Asia usually have the lowest grade movements that can be found.


Not always the case as my link proved.

Z


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

tenshin2002 said:


> Having said that if thats the case then the whole Chinese Mechanical forum is balancing on a thin line. Most of the "good" chinese mechanicals use movement clones of the ETA movements. So you could then argue about piracy, am I right? :-s


Well there are clones of the 7750, 6497/6498, 2824-2 and 2892, However there are many other Chinese movements that are not in any way related to ETA designs e.g. there are 5 manufacturers of tourbillons turning out original designs including double tourbillons, orbital tourbillons and some with auto-winding. Not forgetting a whole lot of open-heart movements, some good some not so good; all of them engineered by their own manufacturers. And how about all those ordinary automatic movements influenced by Seiko and Miyota designs? Consider particularly the popular ST16 and ST17 from Sea-Gull that marries a Miyota-like base movement to a Seiko-style 'magic lever' auto-winding mechanism. And most of all don't forget the ubiquitous Standard movement designed in China back in the early 1970s and still being developed and modified to this day. There are also many complications designed in-house e.g. power-reserve, triple calendar, moonphase, dual-time, jump-hour, double-sided hand-train, etc, etc, etc...


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## tenshin2002 (Sep 10, 2008)

Ok, so as long as I stay away from fake branded watches I should be fine then. Thanx


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Zed said:


> But there is a far more interesting aspect to this from a horological perspective. It provides a window to understand the nature and capabilites of chinese horology. Consider:
> http://www.replicawatchreport.com/articles/watchmasters-corner/new-asian-copy-of-the-eta-7750.html
> Which provides an insite into a set of alternative strategies in movement design. While some of the movements are established Sea-gull or other large chinese movement manufacturers, i think some may be using this as a testing area for alternative movement design or modification. Some may be done onsite at the rep producer, but the look of some of these movements is that there must be fundemental philosophies employed to get these movements to work. That can only be done at the movement manufacturer.


Either a movement manufacturer or a movement parts manufacturer.

I personally don't believe that the seconds-at-6 conversion module is actually manufactured by a factory that makes 7750 clone ebauches i.e. Liaoning and Shanghai. So far as I know, neither of these companies offer such a version through legitimate channels. Also the module has been seen attached to a genuine ETA 7750, thus it is available as an aftermarket conversion. It is possible that the module was made unofficially by a major manufacturer under a private contract, but has never made it into their catalogue lines due to its notorious unreliability, or else the module was actually made by some smaller company that doesn't make the base movement. Either way, the seconds-at-6 conversion is such a fundamentally bad idea that it can only survive in the shady world of fakes.


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## Zed (Feb 24, 2008)

I am not disagreeing with you Chascomm, but all of the register at 6 versions are not the same. Who ever is doing this is trying different configurations in such a way that they are demonstration an more than average level of horological understanding. If it is a third party then it is demonstration learning their art from someone with considerable depth of knowledge, or what i believe is more likely a development configuration within one of the main manufacturers that did not pan out that is being made under contact. My reasoning for this is if you look carefullly the quality of the additional parts of the register at 6 look to be the same quality and manufactured in the same way as the those of the movement itself. So either third part with equivalent machines or the OEM. It does provide an interesting testing ground for development of these movements though, and i was just wondering if the OEM could be making use of this as we go trough multiple version till something comes out that works. I think you are correct that currently, it is a bad idea without making greater modifcation of the movement, but the basic movement does not arrear to be very bad.

Z


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