I bought an Apogaum watch in the Fall of 2006, knowing that for the price, it must be a Chinese knock-off company pretending to be German.  But for the advertised price of $75, I thought why not?  After shipping I think it came to $95.  Plus, heck it came with a wood box.  I surmized that if I were as good as the Alpha Watch from mainland China, I might be getting a decent watch. 

Side note:  I had bought a green Rolex-look-alike from Alpha for $50 ($70 with shipping from Hong Kong) and was surprised by the weight and shine, akin to my ... 2007 $300 Seiko Kinetic  (although the Alpha's metal band is not as substantial as the Seiko's... nor is the attention to detail in the watch face numbers and hands).  This same company, Alpha, might be the same producer of the cheapo Rolex knockoffs available behind closed curtains at Chinatowns across the U.S.  

I know about the cheapo Rolexes as a friend bought a fake Rolex for me for the heck of it ... and the lighter weight Rolex cheapo definitely bears the same markings as the weightier Alpha.  Seems they didn't change the machine that stamped the steel, just changed the quality of the steel used in the watch case and links.

But back to the Apogaum chronograph automatic watch I bought...not 7 months later, the watch stops working.  Finito.  No more.  Dead.  The automatic movement that once worked OK, is now clunking along.

But to the seller's credibility (after I emailed him), he said that he'd either fix or replace the Apogaum watch if I returned it to him.  I'm lazy and I guess I'm keeping it dead as a token remembrance of money not well spent.  Why bother with fixing it as this point? 

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Update:  Starlog:  July 2008:

I brought the Apogaum to a trusted jeweler and he replaced the movement.  The watch works fine now that the movement is not original.  The Alpha watches (I have two) continue to work, uninterrupted, and have not needed servicing at all.  The total cost to replace the movement in the Apogaum was 2/3 of its purchase price, or $65.  Apogaum is a good looking watch, but I would not pay over $50 for this watch, given it's reliability issues.

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Update:  Sept 14 2008

I've timed the Apogaum watch against my cell phone and it stopped at the end of the day (I had to take it off my wrist and shake it to work), and despite that, it lost 8 full minutes against the cell phone.  Hmmm.... +/- 8 minutes... that's a lot... most good watches are +/- 10 SECONDS.  I timed the Apogaum again today as I ran errands during the day, and again, a full 8 minutes lost.  That's twice. 

Given that I had this watched oiled and repaired, I thought I might give the Apogaum another look... I was hoping that it'd prove me wrong.  Lately, I've been reading about Chinese mechanical watch movements and had hoped the Apogaum was a Seagull Tianjin watch movement (which I read on several forums are used by the Alpha watches and several Fossil models).  Seagull movements tend to be the most dependable Chinese automatic watch movements; one of their top-line movements recently won the right to a patent in Switzerland due to it's technical innovation.  This is akin to entering the major leagues in the watch industry. 

Since the two Alpha watches must use more reliable Chinese movements (I'm assuming Seagull from other forums... I don't have the tools or the know-how to open the back and ascertain it's Seagull), I have had not any reliability issues.  The only issues I have with Alpha watches:  a) they tend to be staid replicas of the tried and true brands that have been around forever, i.e. mainly, homages to Rolex, and b) their metal watch bands tend to be on the chintzy (light) side.  I have two Alphas, and the green-faced one has a better, heavier, more substantial metal band, but the second, the Pepsi GMT one, has the chintzy feeling metal band.  Although the green one comes close to the "feel" of a $300 watch, it still doesn't match the weight, polish, and substance of a Seiko Kinetic.  But again, for under $50, the Alpha is a good bargain. 

My Apogaum watch, for $95, as an homage to the Daytona is not a good bargain. 

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Update Nov 1 2008

Interesting side note:  There is an Ebay seller by the name of   "alpha_time" who maintains a Ebay store called  "1alpha-time" who is selling Paneri homage Militaire watches, however these don't appear to be "real" Alpha watches.  Isn't this a hoot?  A fake watch company being cannabilized by another fake watch company?  These Paneri homages don't even have the signature Alpha logo with the 1993 on the face of the watch.  I checked the feedback and delivery was prompt, but my guess is that this is another Shenzhen watch factory trying to ride on the coat-tails of the reliability of the "real" Alpha watch company.  Global recession hits the fake watch market...competition gets tough...LOL. 

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Update Nov 5 2008

The two Alpha watches I have now have separate problems due to regular usage:  a) date function has ceased to function on one, b) blue/red "Pepsi" design has popped off the bezel (landing in some restaurant parking lot).  Kinda reminds me of the 1970's when the Japanese cars had great engines but the door handle would pop off.  Reliability of Alpah watch movement gets an "A", but attention to detail gets a "C."

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Update Jan 13 2009

The Apogaum still sits dead in my drawer as a reminder of wasted money.  However, got an interesting note from a bloke in Australia that the Swiss watch-making industry, prior to WWII, not the high-tech glamour watch-making capital of the world.  Rather, it was the source of cheap labor, and the watch-making nexus centered in England.  Makes sense since the guy who developed the automatic watch movement was English.  I haven't verified this, but remember reading accounts to this effect. Plus, it demonstrates the economic pendulum:  the empires of today are the has-beens of tomorrow; the cheap labor pools of today have the potential to be the empires of tomorrow. 

My point in keeping the Apogaum piece of trash as part of my collection:  it will be a reminder that the Chinese manufacturers (when and if they become the next center of watch-making excellence) were once at the bottom of the barrel.

Also, I still see Apogaums sold on E-bay, but the advertisements says the contain Swiss ETA movements as of late 2008.  Has anyone bought one and what do they think of the quality?  Is it a true Swiss movement, or Chinese copy?  Please email me if you have any comments on this.

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Update Jan 27 2009

Looked at the Apogaum lying flaccid in the drawer and decided to take the Apogaum back to my trusted jeweler who tinkered with it for a few minutes.  He then showed me that it I had to pull the crown out to the first position and "wind" the mechanism like the Swiss ETA movements.  I got a peek at the Chinese movement inside, and it was undecorated, plain steel, encased in a white plastic case (the plastic case a sure sign of it being a lower-end movement). 

So I decided to test the Apogaum movement against a Miyota (Citizen) movement, as the Miyotas are the work-horse Japanese automatics trusted by name brands like Invicta.  I work the Citizen on the left hand and the Apogaum on the right hand.  The Citizen did not have the winding feature, but I gently moved it in a circular motion for 60 cycles to get it going.  I wound the Apogaum for a few minutes (it did not seem to come to a end, like the two Swiss ETAs I have, to signal that the spring has reached its maximum), and then gently did the same 60 cycle circular motion to get it going. 

I wore both watches for the next 24 hours, even sleeping with the watches to see which was the better movement.  Abruptly woke up at 3AM on the couch, and peeked at the Citizen, and it was still going.  The Apogaum on the other hand had stopped at 11PM.  Strange -- the Apogaums advertise themselves as "Swiss" ETAs on their most recent batch of Ebay advertisements, but the reliability is still circumspect.  The Apogaum doesn't have the true pendulum kinetic motion storing power of Swiss ETAs, and depends on the winding power for its reserve power.  Obviously, a design flaw in the copy-cat Chinese movement, which again leads me to believe that this Apogaum did not use the higher quality Seagull movements.  Probably a second or third tier Chinese manufacturer. 

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Update August 29 2009 - It dead, foh sure!  No repairs for this piece of junk.