Replicas are pieces that are supposed to be identical to their inspiration in terms of looks down to the brand.

On the other hand, homages are pieces that share an uncanny resemblance to their inspiration in terms of looks. But, they have their own brand.  Homages usually use inferior movement and have small unnoticeable differences compared to inspiration to remain affordable

Most importantly, homages are not illegal but replicas are illegal.

Here is an example of a beautiful timepiece with its homage.

Below, we have a picture of the Brietling navitimer. A beautiful pilot chronograph. As beautiful as it is, the price of this bad boy is about 7.9k USD. Clearly out of the reach of many collectors





Here comes a homage to the rescue. The Rotary Chronospeed. Using miyota quartz 0s20 movement, this piece does pretty much the same thing as the Brietling navitimer. However, its cost is a fraction of the navitimer. I can get a chronospeed right now at 50USD.



In short, homages give young collectors hope. They don't have to incur huge credit card debts just to own the look of the amazing timepiece. Homages normally are built decently. Hence, having time keeping problems with them is pretty rare.

Another iconic piece with a millions of homages flooding the market is the Rolex Submariner. Made popular by James Bond, this timeless timepiece was the holy grail for many dive watch lovers.

Since then, Orient,Invicta, MKII, Timex and ALPHA have done homages of this stunning piece. I can go on about the other brands who did homages of the submariner but the list is probably too long to put into a Blogpost.


Having mentioned the good points about homages, there are people who revile homages too! It is common for these people to say that these companies lack creativity and they are nothing more than a bunch of copy cats.

However, I choose to look at it as a way to keep the watch market under control. If Rolex was the only company that offer timepieces with the submariner look, they would practically have no competition at all.

After all, competition is what keeps us competitive and helps us improve.

I hope I've helped you shed some light on homage timepieces. Now let me go off and get that Rotary Chronospeed!