Rick Ross’s AP watch: where custom ends and fake begins

A watch collector says he called out Rick Ross for wearing a green watch made to replicate a one-off AP piece. The original belonged to a set of 10 watches costing 12 or 14 million dollars and could not be bought individually; Ross’s apparent 20 million dollar house in Florida did not change that. The collector distinguishes a genuinely new custom design from a direct replica. He also rejects the idea that an AP movement alone makes a watch authentic when its case, bracelet and dial are not AP-made: to him, calling a watch a Frankenstein requires a more balanced mix than 90/10.

He argues against wearing counterfeits even though he wore a fake watch at 16 out of insecurity. In his view, an adult of 35 wearing one is misrepresenting themselves and supporting copyright infringement; he also alleges links between parts of the counterfeit trade, poor working conditions and drug trafficking. The host disagrees when someone simply likes a design but not its retail price. Their dispute extends to replica cars: the host’s ‘dollar to fund ratio’ favors 90% of the fun for 50% of the price, while the collector would rather buy the real car and drive it than preserve its resale value. He cites a Ferrari 355 at about $150,000, another car at about $800,000, Ferrari building 14,000 cars, and a rarer model with only 55 made to explain why uniqueness and use matter to him.

In a hands-on identification challenge [inferred from the watch demonstration], he correctly separates three real watches from three fakes, but says some copies are nearly impossible to verify externally without opening them. The watches discussed include a Panayai Luminor Marina, Rolex Datejust and Aquanaut 5167; a convincing date display and case can outweigh unreliable clues such as movement sound. Afterward, Graham says he paid four hundred and sixty five dollars for a fake and does not mind that others know. The collector contrasts it with his insured personal watches, including a Daytona bought for a hundred and eighty thousand euros, and estimates the traveling collection’s value at around a million.