Replica Watch Market is a reality to accept

Replica watches are a part of the reality of today's watch and replica watch market.  If you are a collector of high-end watches surely you've heard something about the influx of replica watches into the secondary market of replica watch market.  While buying a watch from an authorized dealer is safe, many watch collectors also buy watches through online sites such as eBay or Timezone.com.  It's through this channel that the threat of watches and replica watches in unscrupulous hands is the greatest.  Some shady sellers will misrepresent their counterfeit watches as genuine, and in so doing dupe some innocent buyer into spending thousands of dollars on a inexpensive copy.

While some people use replica watches as a way to illegally commit fraud there is a growing community of people who knowingly purchase replica watches for the purpose of collecting.  These people love the thrill of ownership of luxury watches but may not have the means to spend thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars on the genuine thing.  A variety of very active and thriving replica watch forums exist on the Internet, with their users trading watches amongst each other.  Also, several specialty replica watch dealers that cater to this type of demanding buyer have cropped up, all selling the best of the best in the watches and replica watches market.

The hobby of collecting replica watches probably started in the late 1990s.  It was in 2000 or early 2001 that the first online replica watches community, Replica Watch Collector Club (RWCC), first began accepting members from among people who accept the coexistence of watches and replica watch market.  The original purpose of the forum was to allow early replica sellers (really hobbyists with access to merchandise rather than any commercial enterprise) the ability to display their wares.  Three or four watches would be available at one time, and the potential buyers would contact the seller if they were interested in purchasing the watch.  Quantities were limited, unlike the replica watch market today, and prices were high.  This community continued for over a year until it was finally shut down not by law enforcement or brand owners, but a consortium of replica watch dealers who did not like competition.

The members of the RWCC moved on to another forum, The Replica Collector (TRC), which just recently shut down.  The Replica Collector took the concept of the community and grew it to the stature of many other watch forums.  Moderators and administrators ran the board and kept the members to a strict standard of behaviour and posting.  To TRC came the first crop of quality dedicated replica watch dealers.

Other replica watch forums have grown over the years, each catering to a particular style of community.  Some are quite formal and reserved while others are much more free-form.  All are hubs for information on replica watches and the dealers who sell them.