Of course no one can spend under $100 and expect to get a genuine Rolex. When I received the watch from Rolex2u, I was delighted, it was obvious that genuine Rolex parts had been used in its construction; however the "bargain" stopped there. At first I overlooked the fact that the reserve energy gave out after a period of six hours, so if I did not waken during the night and give it movement it had to be reset; no big deal, after all it was just a cheap watch. However after a month, it started losing two minutes in a twelve hour period, then it would stop completely and start only when held in hand and wound by the twisting of the wrist for a minute or so and it was off and running again, however only for a short period.
I'm convinced that the Rolex Company is giving parts to back alley shops in China and giving them the okay to churn out many thousands of these watches, and in return get a volume profit. After all, if millions of parts which cost very little after the initial tooling is made were to be farmed out, and the slave labor of China was used, then a very sizeable profit could be turned.
I am very familiar with precision tooling and manufacturing, and I believe that the parts of these watches were made with VERY sophisticated equipment. Take for instance the area of the body of the watch where the band is attached, to get those dimensions and sharp corners, a shave die would have to be used. The fine screws holding the links were made on high precision screw machines made in Switzerland. Where the wrist band is connected to the watch two small holes on each side have been bored with a milling machine especially constructed for that purpose. The body of the watch has been machined from solid stainless steel and not cast, as is the case of very good watches such as Seiko
The parts of a great watch are all there, however the assembly is not, and nor should it be expected, after all, when a watch is assembled in Switzerland the pay scale is much higher than that of the United States, and the unfortunates in China are extremely fortunate if they get a dollar an hour, and no doubt they will have to complete so many watches in a day to meet their quota or they will be replaced. The People's Republic of China is no benevolent society.
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