A few years ago I landed a job with an agency which required me to wear a tie every day. Eventually it dawned on me that it would be appropriate to wear a dress watch to match my more formal attire, and - knowing nothing at all about watches and not wanting to spend a lot - I purchased a nice looking piece from Overstock.com. I really liked it a lot - it was my first mechanical watch and happened to be Chinese.

As I began to do some research online about watches, I realized that my watch represented a huge bargain in comparison to the Swiss watches I was reading about, and was very intrigued. I eventually found a forum of like-minded watch fans and started a web site to collect our shared knowledge. It humors me to see info I've written for that site quote here and on other watch forums around the net, but hey - that's why it's out there.

I quickly learned too that you cannot chronicle the progress of Chinese watchmaking without talking about replicas. Particularly in recent years, almost every advance in production, design, materials and movement has been fueled by demand from the replica market. I joined RG because, in my opinion, this is the friendlies, most active, and most knowledgeable forum out there for open discussion about replica watches. Thanks to all of you for making this forum an informative and entertaining place to lurk!