Unlike records for technical achievements (world’s thinnest tourbillon, for instance,) record results at fake watch auctions are considerably more elastic, and lots that would have been passed over in previous years as also-rans, can today go for amounts so large as to seemingly preclude any discussion of a rational connection between objective attributes, and price. The Paul Newman luxury replica Rolex Daytona may be the poster child for a trending watch blowing up auction results, but there have been many others since Paul Newman’s own PND hammered for $17,752,500 back in 2017.
And though stainless steel luxury sports replica watches have been top-of-mind for many investment-minded collectors over the past few years, the latest model to trend, and trend hard, towards higher and higher prices, is the Swiss fake Cartier Crash. Yesterday, the online auction site Loupe This hammered a 1967 London Cartier Crash for $1,503,888 (minus buyer’s premium) which considerably surpasses the previous record – until now, held by Sotheby’s, which hammered a 1970 London 1:1 replica Cartier Crash for CHF 806,500.f
Such an extreme result has led, naturally, to quite a lot of back-and-forth on social media – especially on Instagram where there is a large, vocal, and very knowledgeable community of AAA quality replica Cartier enthusiasts. There were some questions about provenance – Crash collector and well-known vintage watch dealer Eric Ku vouched for the bona fides of the lot, saying to us, via Instagram DM, “Yes, it’s legit … tremendous interest from both collectors and non-collectors. In the end, it was a battle to the death between two collectors – even I was surprised by the result.”
The larger question of “is it worth it” is clouded by a few factors. The first is that the super clone watch is part of a very small number of first-year London Crash watches from 1967 – a generous estimate is that no more than a couple dozen were made, and so the supply of first-year Cartier London Crash replica watches online is very low. (It’s also worth remembering that extraordinary results don’t necessarily translate into across the board increases, although they can be bellwethers.
Paul Newman’s PND result certainly would not have happened without the larger context of the explosion in PND collecting but it doesn’t mean every PND is suddenly a $17 million dollar watch, either.) And then there’s the larger context of increasingly high results for vintage high end fake Cartier at auction – after all, we live in a world where a Cartier Pebble is a half-million-dollar watch.
There is an observation to be made about the effect of increased money supply on the pricing of an asset class with a fixed, and in the case of 1967 London Cartier Crash fake watches for sale, very low supply. And then there’s the fact that supply and demand rule the roost when it comes to pricing collectibles. As this result seems to show, all it takes to break a record is for a lot to be perceived as a trophy – it doesn’t matter whether it’s wine, stamps, or fine art – and for there to be two collectors with very deep pockets, used to getting what they want. In such a case, the sky’s the limit. Is seven figure pricing for cheap copy Cartier Crash watches here to stay? We might find out on May 9th, when a 1990 London Crash goes under the hammer at Christie’s.
For those of us without anything close to the necessary war chest, philosophical resignation seems the only option. Collector and 2016 Talking Watches alum Roni Madhvani struck a mournful note on Instagram, remarking, ” … the downside is that such pricing makes it impossible for non-cheque book genuine and passionate collectors to collect any top fake watches that start reaching such stratospheric price levels like in this instance or for vintage Cartier replica Paypal UK as they simply become unaffordable and that’s sad … Yes I know that’s the reality but it’s still sad I think.”