{"id":37564,"date":"2026-08-29T11:45:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37564"},"modified":"2026-08-29T11:45:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:45:39","slug":"reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37564","title":{"rendered":"Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every watch enthusiast has a grail or two. I had just one, the Seiko Alpinist, a sports\/adventure watch with an inner rotating compass bezel. I loved everything about it: the green dial, the gold indices and numbers, the cyclops lens over the date window, the elegant cathedral hands. the spot of red at north. This year Donna finally broke down and said I could buy one for my birthday. Trouble is, the Alpinist is every<\/em> watch enthusiast’s grail, and not only does Seiko know it, so does every pawn shop and eBay flipper. My grail, which a year ago sold new for $600, is now over $1,100 and climbing, and even used ones are suddenly hitting four digits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Turns out there’s an alternative. The watch in the second photo is my newest acquisition, a Chinese Milifortic Alpinist homage. It had been on the market for less than a year, but the specifications looked good and the reviews said it was the Seiko’s equal. I thought long and hard about it, and finally decided to buy one. It was listed on AliExpress (the Temu of wristwatches) for $220 but two weeks ago was marked it down to $193. I kept an eye on the “__ items remaining in stock” countdown and when it reached “1 remaining” thumbed the pickle button, That was on the 17th of August. As with anything shipped from China I had to to wait a few days: it arrived on the 27th. Yeah, it’s a little early … my birthday isn’t until Halloween, and Donna wants me to wait to wear it. As if!<\/p>\n

I love it. It has Seiko innards, the external dimensions are the same as the original, and the quality is up there with the best watches in my collection. It even has a sapphire crystal, an upgrade from the Seiko. It came with a crocodile-patterned black leather strap, which I immediately replaced with real crocodile in brown. As you can see, I went with a cream-colored dial, because now that every watch collector and his brother has the green OG, I’m feeling the need to be different. I think it’s beautiful.<\/p>\n

The days when yours truly could play James Bond and drop a few grand on a watch are a distant memory. I still have a couple of high-dollar pieces from those glory years, but becoming a fixed-income retiree has been a reality check. I’m careful, though, and apart from a couple of early mistakes (live & learn, right?), my budget watches are as good as any of my Seikos, the brand I’ve always compared other watches to. This one’s no exception. Will it scratch the itch for a Seiko Alpinist? It will. It has.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s a homage watch. It’s meant to look, feel, and work like a more expensive watch. To me, there’s a bright red line between homages and fakes. I’ll happily wear one but not the other. Watch snobs love to debate the ins and outs<\/a><\/strong> of affordable alternatives to well-known luxury watches, and feelings run strong. But to my way of thinking there are only so many design choices available in a round-dial, three-handed watch, and every watch to some degree pays homage to watches that came before. All respect to Seiko, which will always be my go-to brand, but you’ve gone and priced yourself out of my reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All respect to Seiko, which will always be my go-to brand, but you’ve gone and priced yourself out of my reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4432,18],"tags":[4929,4601,4928,4930],"class_list":["post-37564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-seiko","category-consumerism","tag-alpinist","tag-bigseiko","tag-grailwatch","tag-homagesvrsfakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37564"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37579,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37564\/revisions\/37579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}