Fake 126619LB Wedding Gift

[_Watch_Guru_]

OOF, where to begin this story. Firstly, as a friend, but also as a watch lover, this story hurts. I went to one of my best friends weddings this past weekend and it was wonderful. During the wedding weekend, the groom's uncle, a self proclaimed "massive watch guy" with a "really crazy Rolex collection" rolled up with a 126619LB white gold sub, AKA the cookie monster or whatever you want to call it. The uncle takes it off his wrist, gives it to the groom, and says congratulations. My friend is a minor watch guy, he has subscribed to a few watch subscriptions that send some random sub $200 watch every couple months, but he has never cared enough about watches to spend his hard earned money on what we may all consider as a big ticket purchase, so it is safe to say he was absolutely blown away by receiving a $40k+ white gold Rolex. He knows of my love for watches and runs to find me to show me this amazing thing. I was blown away but it being his wedding day, did not keep him or spend any significant time looking at the watch.

Fast forward two days and I posted the attached pic to Reddit without doing any real inspection to the photo and was shocked when the comments declaring fake fake fake began to roll in. I quickly realized that they were right.

1.) Massive lugs
2.) No crown between Swiss and Made at 6 o'clock
3.) Generally bad font all over the dial
4.) no polished center links and a material that is blatantly stainless steel
5.) around midnight of the wedding, the watch lost over 1.5 hours of time....

The list goes on. To wrap this up, I do not think I will tell my friend. This watch is a wedding day memory that will last a life time and his "massive watch guy" uncle is either a complete fraud who purposefully gifted a fake watch or he is just another rich guy who buys watches for status and also got duped into buying a fake.

Chime in with your thoughts as I am still in awe of this story myself!