REAL VS FAKE

We’ve shown you tutorials on how to make sure you’re getting your wrists on the real deal when you’re buying online in the past, and now one of most knowledgeable G-Street community members, Terry Soo, has popped up to further help you navigate this treacherous territory. He’s prepared an exhaustive annotated guide to a few of the most popular counterfeited models, providing some handy tips so you can separate legit Gs from the poseurs. Without furter ado, let’s throw it over to Mr Soo…

Terry Soo’s guide to identifying fake G-Shocks
Familiarise yourself with the the Australian G-Shock distributor home page, as well as the international site, bookmark them and keep them handy for comparing with models you’re thinking of purchasing.

Always analyse these elements…

The quality and shape of the mould and the resin
– Fake moulds are usually too sharp or too round in places and less detailed
– Fake resin is usually glossy and cheap looking, like a toy from the $2 shop

Functions or specifics that aren’t related to the model
– eg; Tough Solar functionality with no solar panels on the face, titanium casing on models that don’t have a titanium version

Colours
– Fakes have colour combinations that don’t exist or the colour/finish isn’t the same hue as the original

LCD layout
– Fakes can have slightly different digits/characters and they can be (mis)aligned differently

Finer details
– Printed text: spelling mistakes in text, quality of the lettering – every letter, word, symbol should be sharp, symmetrical and perfectly placed
– Intricate pointers/’hands’ on the face should be precise and look like they’re separate pieces of mechanics, not all moulded as one piece
– Special functions like tide graph and moon phase should function, and not just always be on or off
– Find the exact model number, found on the backing plate. All the most recent models have ‘model number’ dash ‘colour code’ eg. GD120CM-8 match the colour code to the model from the Casio sites.

Best advice
– Buy from a reputable dealer. If the seller has every colour and then some of a bunch of the latest models all for the same low price, forget it.