Vendôme lugs. Search it up and you might not find too much information—it’s one of those oddities of the cheap UK replica watches world that has commingled over time with the vagaries of rising and falling popularity. But here are the facts. This style of lugs, the part of 1:1 Swiss fake watches that secures the strap or bracelet to the case, was first patented in Paris in 1934 by one Louis Cartier. The design was simple, innovative and elegant: a metal T-bar is attached to the top and bottom of the case, to which notched leather straps are attached. The effect is a subtle and graceful separation of leather from metal, which emphasises the silhouette of the (usually) round case.
To make things easier, though, here is an edit of elegant online replica watches that feature Vendôme-style lugs.
Replica Pasha de Cartier 30MM Watches in rose gold, $17,500
Cartier revamped its Pasha de Cartier collection copy watches for sale in 2020, reintroducing and setting the style up for complications and novel details such as moonphases, chronographs, skeletonised dials and grids. The core model of the collection, though, has the loveliest vintage affect and features an elaborated version of a Vendôme-style lug in which the ends are shaped like sugarloaf-cut cabochons. Modernity has its advantages too: the high quality Cartier replica watches has a “QuickSwitch” system that allows you to easily pop the straps off and replace it. It’s offered with two alligator leather options in navy blue and grey.
Fake Omega De Ville Ladymatic 34MM Watches in stainless steel with diamonds, $12,000
Luxury replica Omega’s Ladymatic watches had its heyday in the 1960s, but its classic simplicity looks perfectly right once more for today. This steel best super clone watches with a Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial and date window at 3 o’clock features white gold hands and diamond-set indices. The links that connect the strap to the case are also subtly decorated with a house signature wave motif.
There are the big leaguers – chronometers that changed the game for maritime travel; field replica watches for sale that synchronised soldiers across two World Wars; space age watches that got astronauts safely back to Earth. There are the record breakers – best UK fake watches that have gone deeper, higher or were more ‘complicated’ than ever before.
Replica Omega Speedmaster Professional Watches (1957)
In the age of orbiting space stations, communications satellites and Mars rovers, there is something quaintly old-school about a mechanical watch being used in space. Computers may crash but, the thinking goes, a mechanical watch will continue to work in all conditions: high temperatures, below zero, low gravity and when all tech has shut down, in darkness. Cheap fake Omega’s Speedmaster line watches was made with racing-car drivers, not astronauts in mind. It was the first chronograph with a tachymeter scale on the bezel, to measure speed over distance. But the design caught the eye of Nasa astronauts Walter Schirra and Leroy Cooper.
The story goes that the pair then lobbied Nasa operations director Deke Slayton to make the perfect Omega Speedmaster copy watches the official watch for use during training, and, ultimately, flying. In 1964 Slayton issued an internal memo stating the need for a “highly durable and accurate chronograph to be used by Gemini and Apollo flight crews”. Proposals were sent to 10 brands: Benrus, Elgin, Gruen Hamilton, Longines Wittnauer, Lucien Piccard, Mido, Omega and Rolex. Only four answered the call: Rolex, Longines Wittnauer, Hamilton and Omega — with Hamilton disqualifying itself by submitting a pocket watch. The remainder underwent extreme trials: 48 hours at 71°C, four hours at –18°C, 250 hours at 95 per cent humidity, temperature cycling in a vacuum, and so on.
Nasa declared Speedmaster “Flight Qualified for All Manned Space Missions” in March 1965. It went on to become the first watch worn on the Moon — by Buzz Aldrin, in 1969 — and to play a crucial role in the Apollo 13’s re-entry to Earth in 1970, when it was used to time a crucial 14-second burn of fuel. (As seen in Tom Hanks’s 1995 film, Apollo 13.)
It would be remiss of any company not to dine out on marketing gold like this, and high quality Omega replica watches has certainly done so, issuing endless Moonwatch variants ever since. Happily, its product backs up the hype. “Speedmasters have it all: great chronograph movements, an amazing case design, fantastic dial and hand aesthetics and an unbelievable history,” says vintage-watch expert Eric Wind.
Fake Cartier Santos-Dumont Watches (1904)
The Swiss made replica Cartier Santos-Dumont watches, launched in 1904, claims not one but two places on the watch history books: the first pilot’s watch and the first wristwatch designed specifically for men. Created to get around the impracticality of flying with a pocket watch, it was born after Brazilian pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont raised the issue with Louis Cartier. Given Cartier’s red-carpet-reputation today the watch boasts a decidedly non-showy design. Characterised by eight screws, its case seems to have been influenced by a contemporaneous square pocket watch, with curved lugs and a leather strap designed to make it comfortable to wear on the wrist. Meanwhile, the instantly readable dial design foreshadowed the Art Deco movement of the 20s and 30s and remains a look that defines Cartier watch designs to this day.
With headlines declaring “Mr Santos-Dumont’s First Success with a Flying Machine” still fresh in people’s minds, by 1911 Cartier was marketing “the Santos-Dumont watch” in platinum and gold, its daring-do aviation connection piquing the interest of a new demographic: men. The super clone watches wholesale would be relaunched by Cartier twice after. In 1998, to celebrate the Santos-Dumont’s 90th anniversary, and in 2005 as part of the Collection Privée Cartier Paris.
In 2018 Cartier made it available in steel, the first time the watch had appeared in a non-precious metal, putting it within reach of a new consumer. Its timing was prescient — with interest in men’s AAA replica watches exploding, there was a newly design-literate customer on the market. Cartier may not use the fanciest movements or the trendiest materials. Instead, it outpaces the competition with 100 years of rock-solid designs, and watches that look unique.
Breitling Navitimer Replica Watches (1954)
Technically, you could land a plane using just this 1:1 China fake watches’ info-packed bezel, but it would be a brave man who’d try. Still, the development of the Navitimer (“navigation” + “timer”) offered something no other watch manufacturer had ever proposed: a chronograph combined with a slide rule, enabling pilots to perform vital calculations like average rate of speed, fuel consumption and converting miles to kilometres. Originally only available to accredited aircraft owners and pilots, the Navitimer was also the luxury replica watches world’s first automatic chronograph.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The watch that got me into perfect replica watches was the Omega Seamaster Diver worn by Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in 1995’s Goldeneye. The quintessential ’90s watch, with its blue wave dial, skeletonized hands, scalloped bezel and other oddities, is arguably the model most responsible for getting millennials like me hooked on UK luxury fake watches. Still referred to today as “the Bond Watch,” Brosnan’s Seamaster in Goldeneye was a quartz-powered 41mm Seamaster 300M, ref. 2541.80. For Brosnan’s three subsequent 007 films, Bond upgraded to the automatic version of the watch, the immortal ref. 2531.80.
When it came time for me to purchase my first luxury watch several years back, there was never any doubt in my mind about which watch I was going to get. It had to be the Bond Watch. But there was just one problem with the ref. 2531.80: its 41mm case was simply too big for me to wear comfortably. My wrists are on the smaller side at 6.25 inches around, and after trying on the full-sized high quality Omega replica watches, I just didn’t like the feeling of wearing such a large watch. But luckily, there was an alternative. During the entire run of the 2531.80, Omega also produced a smaller version of the Bond watch in the 36.25mm reference 2551.80.
The 2551.80, better known as the Omega Seamaster Midsize, was exactly the same as the larger diver, just scaled down. It had the same materials and design as the Bond watch, the same 300m depth rating and was powered by the same COSC-certified ETA 2892-derived automatic movement. The only differences were its smaller case size of 36.25mm and a slight visual change due to its lack of a half-index at 3 o’clock, which in my opinion actually makes the dial more balanced. So more than five years ago, I bought used Omega Seamaster 300M ref. 2551.80 copy watches for sale from around 2004, and it’s been my favorite watch ever since.
Do I ever get FOMO because I didn’t opt for the big dive watch? Not even a little bit. The smaller Seamaster is incredibly comfortable. It’s by far the most comfortable watch I own, and I often forget I’m wearing it. It’s barely thicker than a dress watch, meaning it easily slides under any shirt cuff, and its small case size just works.
It’s very legible and isn’t tiny by any stretch — 36mm is a classic size for a men’s watch, just think of the Rolex Datejust or Explorer — and the watch looks proportionally the same on my wrist as the larger Seamaster does on someone with bigger wrists like, say, James Bond. I’m pretty rough on my best replica watches, too, and I’ve found that my more diminutive Seamaster — while still bearing plenty of battle scars from years of frequent, inconsiderate wear — takes less of a beating from obtrusive obstacles like doorknobs than larger, bulkier watches I’ve worn, simply because it makes for a smaller target
There’s also the value proposition of it all. When I purchased my Omega Seamaster super clone watches wholesale in 2018, I picked it up from a known dealer on eBay for $1,350. Poke around eBay or the forums today and you’ll find examples still aren’t going for much more than that. Its smaller size is less desirable in the market due to the erroneous belief that it’s a kid’s watch (fine examples can often be found coming out of Japan, where the watch is almost always labeled as a “boy’s” model), meaning the Seamaster Midsize has been somewhat immune to watch inflation.
The full-size iteration of this neo-vintage classic, meanwhile, has seen prices steadily climb over the years and are pretty much impossible to find under two grand. Hodinkee will sell you a ref. 2531.80 for a whopping $3,500, and there’s a whole lot of competition from more capable modern top replica watches at that price point.
Anyone who has followed the story of the Bond Seamaster knows that AAA Omega fake watches discontinued the classic wave dial in 2011, releasing a new version of the Seamaster Diver 300M with a flat, lacquered dial and a ceramic bezel. Dubbed the SMPC (Seamaster Professional Ceramic) by fans, this version never quite caught on like the classic Bond watch — perhaps due in part because Bond never wore one — but it did continue the tradition of offering both a full-size 41mm version and a midsize 36.25 alternative. But in 2018, Omega updated the Seamaster Diver 300M again, and this is where I believe the brand made a mistake that still isn’t too late to correct.
That year, Omega released what is objectively the best version of the Seamaster yet. The brand brought back the wave dial, this time with larger waves laser-cut on a ceramic dial. The ceramic bezel was carried over and aesthetically improved, the date window was moved to 6 o’clock and color-matched to the dial, the bracelet was streamlined and a new state-of-the-art co-axial METAS-certified Master Chronometer movement was now visible behind a sapphire caseback.
I was a fan of all of these changes, as was most of the watch world. But one aspect of the new Seamaster of which I was not a fan was its size. The watch’s case increased in diameter from 41mm to 42mm. OK, fine, not the end of the world, lots of people like larger 1:1 online replica watches. But in addition to this upsizing, Omega also axed the Seamaster Midsize from the lineup, leaving people like me without an appropriately sized Omega diver option.
At the time of the revamped Seamaster’s 2018 release, enthusiasts assumed the Midsize would return eventually. While discussing the watch’s larger size in his review of the new Seamaster in March of 2018, Ariel Adams of A Blog to Watch said, “I also fully anticipate Omega producing a smaller version in the future to expand its marketability.” More than five years on, that hasn’t happened yet, and the smallest new Seamaster you can buy today is 42mm.
I’m not really in the market for new Swiss made fake Omega Seamaster watches, but I probably will be in the future — and I’m sure there are many small-wristed enthusiasts who would buy a modern Seamaster now if one existed in a smaller version. With midsize divers now coming back into vogue — just look at the buzz created by Tudor’s 37mm Black Bay 54 release at Watches and Wonders earlier this year — it seems like the perfect time for Omega to resurrect the Seamaster Midsize. I’m hoping they will, but until that day comes, there are always the classics on eBay.
