[MiddleAgedAl]

Interesting thread about people's motivations, and how others may judge them on those.

Another situation not mentioned actually applies to me; accidentally/unknowingly purchasing a fake.

Let me explain, it's not what you probably think !

I'm no watch expert, I can't identify models or brands based on appearance. Much like art, I do know what I like, or what I think "looks nice to me".
If you like it too, great, and if not, well I can live with that. I dont judge others based on their watch, so I dont lose sleep over someone judging me on mine.

I was at a car show and saw a vendor selling an assortment of nice looking watches. Keeping in mind my ignorance, I thought at the time, these look more expensive than they are. I saw one that caught my eye, and had a BMW roundel logo on it. I'm a car guy, I like my car, I own other stuff with BMW on it, I thought hey, this is interesting.

I picked up the watch, examined it, and without really know what to look for, it seemed a reasonably good quality watch with some heft to it, and a nice genuine leather strap, and neat chronograph functions.

Vendor told me it had a japanese quartz movement; very reliable, no need to be serviced, just replace the battery every few years.
Looks nice to me, low maintenance, good price (<100), SOLD!

So, I'm wearing the watch, not trying to pass it off as anything but a nice looking (IMHO) watch I found with the logo of my favorite car on it.

One day a guy says to me, "Nice Navitimer". I'm like, Huh, WTF are you talking about. I honestly had no idea he was referring to the watch at first, as I'd not heard that name before. He pointed at the watch, and then he paused, and said wait a minute. Below the 12, there was a roundel instead of the winged logo he was expecting.

He explained how it looked almost identical to a much more expensive watch, but you couldnt really call it a replica or counterfeit because the logo was "wrong".

I googled and realized for the first time it was VERY close in appearance to a Breitling Navitimer, except for the obvious logo.
I also discovered how expensive a real one is. I've damaged watches before, but since they were cheap, I didnt care. My wealth would have to be much higher than it is now for me to be comfortable wearing the real thing, knowing I could cause many thousands in damage in the blink of an eye, so I'd never buy a real one.

Had I known it was a quasi-replica, would that have changed my buying decision ? Nope, watch still looks nice, still works great, and since it has the "wrong" logo, nobody can accuse me of trying to deceive others with a fake.