I always find it interesting that people will wear a cheaply made knockoff luxury product and not be aware that its quality is pretty poor for what is supposed to be an $8,000 product. Self delusion or just not aware of quality, who knows.
Okay, having thought about this a while its cards on the table time..
This is not my watch, it belongs to a dear friend, a gifted engineer and small business owner who could comfortably afford to buy a luxury watch if necessary. But why would he need to - especially since he thought that he already owned one.
It may come as a surprise that some 'people’ (yes, the withering smack-down of condescension has been noted) can’t tell the difference between real and fake, however isn’t that the whole idea with a knockoff ?
To deceive…
And in this case, when the watch itself came as a surprise birthday present, why would the default question have to always be:
“Is it a real one” ???
A gift, especially from a loved one, carries with it emotional attachment and with that, quite understandably, confirmation bias.
I wonder, therefore, just how many nasty surprises greet unsuspecting owners when they take their beloved watch in for repair only to be greeted by the unpleasant news that what they have always believed to be genuine is, in fact, a knockoff.
I know very little about Breitling watches, my friend, knowing the story of my ‘Frankenstein’ Omega Co-Axial De Ville asked me to source a crystal because, in his part of the world, none was to be found.
So let me apologise for the duplicitousness of my OP, I simply thought that, in taking responsibility for breaking the glass myself, it might in some way ease up the path toward finding a replacement.
On a brighter note; there is a silver lining to this whole sordid affair.
My friend, who has taken the news quite well, under the circumstances, has now asked me to discretely find him a genuine 1B01 46mm.
Not wishing to cause any further family distress than he has already done by breaking the glass in the first place, he will now simply send the knockoff 'away for repairs’ only to receive a gleaming, and hopefully authentic, item in return.
The hunt is on…..
