Award-Winning Counterfeits

Which is real and which is fake? Can't tell the difference? Well, that's because the fake watch is not just any old fakery, it's an award-winning falsification!

Every year, Museum Plagiarius Solingen, a German museum dedicated to showcasing the best of fake items, awards its Plagiarius Award to the world's best knockoffs:

This past year, a counterfeiter in Thailand replicated a Swiss Fortis watch (shown here) with such precision that it garnered a special award for falsification. The fake differs in details only the sharpest eye would notice—missing glow-in-the-dark paint on the face, smaller crowns that are buffed rather than brush-finished, and temperature scales with incorrect unit symbols. “The expensive details are left out, but the first impression is the same,” says Christine Lacroix, the museum’s managing director.

http://www.plagiarius.de/e_awards_plag2011_2.html | Wired has the gallery

Oh, the fake one is the one on the right.


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"to me, the fakery one looks better then the real one. but that's just my opinion."

Yeahh...no.
Look at the knobs. They look like what you would find on any cheap watch. Look at the band, it is obviously looser and lower quality. Look at the numbers and marks around the face, they are obviously thicker and lower quality. I guess that's why you don't make the big bucks...
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I noticed several differences:

- Font on the main numerals is different
- Knobs are different size and shape
- Black triangle detail at 12-o'clock position is different (I like the fake one better)
- Second hand and red hand are thicker
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