I know there have been attempts to address the massive amount of legit check questions in the past, but most of them have had either no photos or less than ideal photos. I have tried to capture the differences as obviously as possible in these photos. I decided to use imgur so I can add more detailed text.
Note: The crowns were pulled out in many of these images to maintain consistency with the hand locations so direct comparisons can be made.
Genuine lugs: The lugs have a noticeably sharp ridge on them. Virtually no subsurface light visible through the bioceramic.
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Genuine MoonSwatch is easy to spot when directly compared. The text on the tachymeter is a nice bold white color. The Swatch copyright text is clearly visible around the 6:00 marker. There is a slight gap between the outer edge of the tachymeter and the edge of the bezel.
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Replica MoonSwatch‘s tachymeter is less pronounced. The chrono second hand lume pip is not in the correct location for the latest models. The Swatch copyright text is barely visible. Overall, the colors are a little more washed out than the gen, but this can be difficult to see without a side-by-side comparison. The most obvious tell that this is a fake watch is the 2:00 subdial. It is a 1/10 of a second chrono dial on the gen, but is a 24-hour clock on the rep. If the chrono is reset and the 2:00 subdial is not at 12:00, it’s fake. The gap between the outer edge of the tachymeter and the bezel is smaller and less consistent.
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Genuine caseback: The letters on the caseback are nice and wide allowing you to see the plastic shine within the letters. Caseback is not removable–only the battery cover is made to come off.
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Replica caseback: The letters are much more narrow. Caseback can arrive misaligned since it is removable. Battery cover is removable like the gen, but the printed coloring of the planet is usually incorrect. You can also see that the crown sticks out much further on the rep when pulled out.
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Genuine crown: The imprint on the crown has a nice embossed look to it. The logos are raised, but the surfaces are flat. The ridges around the crown are nice and sharp. The texturing of the bioceramic is consistent between case, crown, and pushers.
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Replica crown: The imprint on the crown is much fatter and juts out further than on the gen. The surfaces of the logos are rounded and the Swatch logo is incorrectly shaped. The crown and the pushers seem to be different kinds of plastic.
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Genuine subdials: As stated previously, the 2:00 subdial on the gen is a 1/10 of a second chrono. Notice the textures of the various surfaces on the dial and subdials. The concentric ring patterns on the subdials are very tightly packed in and just barely visible. You can also see the sharp ridges on the crown in this photo.
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Replica subdials: As stated previously, the 2:00 subdial on the rep is a 24-hour clock instead of part of the chrono like on the gen. The concentric ring pattern is far more pronounced and the quality of the painted on markers/numerals is poorer. You can see the rounded ridges on the crown in this photo. The hands on the subdials are slightly wider than on the gen (Note: some fakes have correctly sized subdial hands.)
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Genuine lugs: The lugs have a noticeably sharp ridge on them. Virtually no subsurface light visible through the bioceramic.
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Replica lugs: The rep has a much weaker ridge. Lots of light shining through the plastic material causing it to have a slightly lighter gray color.
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Genuine crystal: If you look at the edge of the crystal at the right angle, you will see a mesh-like material all the way around.
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Replica crystal: The fake watch does not have any mesh-like material at all.
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Genuine crystal detail: The crystals on both are plastic. The gen has a little “s” etched into the center of the crystal, but it is just barely visible under close scrutiny. The shape of the crystals are also completely different with the gen crystal rising perpendicular to the bezel for a few millimeters before rounding off to the dome shape.
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Replica crystal detail: The rep also has the etched “s” detail, but the orientation is incorrect, and it is far more visible than on the gen. The crystal is a much lower dome shape, affecting visibility angles. (Note: There are some fakes out there that have a crystal that is more accurately shaped and with a subtler “s” similar to the gen)
There are, of course, many other small differences–the Swatch logo is printed larger on the replica, the weights are different, lume is lower quality on the rep, and the straps they come with have their own set of differences–but these are some of the more obvious differences that one can use to ensure they are getting a real, genuine MoonSwatch. In this instance I used the Mercury as the example, but there are other things to look out for on others, mostly related to the colors being off.
