Short answer: IW371765 is a reference in IWC's 3717 pilot's chronograph family, so a fake IW371765 is a copy of a 42mm steel pilot's chrono with the day and date at 3 o'clock, subdials at 12 and 6, and a Valjoux 7750 lineage movement inside. Copies sell from roughly $90 to $800, and the tier a seller names (AAA, 1:1, super clone, Swiss made) tells you far less than three daylight photos and one video of the chronograph running.
What the real 3717 actually is
The 3717 family ran from about 2006 to 2011. You get a 42mm steel case around 14.5mm thick, a soft-iron inner cage for magnetic protection, a sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating, 60m water resistance, and IWC's calibre 79320, a Valjoux 7750 base running at 21,600 vph with roughly 44 hours of reserve. The layout is a bicompax chronograph: running seconds at 6, a 30 minute totalizer at 12, day and date in one window at 3.
Reference suffixes (371701, 371702, 371704, 371705 and others) point to dial color, case finish and strap or bracelet choice rather than to different watches. If a listing cannot show the engraved reference on the caseback clearly enough to read, that is your first problem, not your last.
The three tiers of copies, and what each one gets wrong
- Quartz and cheap automatics, $80 to $150. The case often measures 40mm or 44mm instead of 42mm, thickness is off by a millimetre or more, the crystal is mineral glass with no coating, and the pushers feel hollow. The chronograph may work, but the reset snaps back instead of sweeping. Date and day fonts are the usual giveaway.
- Mid automatic on an A7750, $250 to $450. This is where most buyers land. A Chinese 7750 copy gives you a working chronograph with the correct hand stack, a case close to 42mm, and dial printing that holds up at arm's length. Weight usually runs a little under the real thing, so ask for a scale photo.
- Super clone or 1:1 tier, $500 to $900. Better brushing, a closer date wheel font, sometimes a reworked or Swiss ETA 7750 inside, and deeper caseback engraving. It still is not the same movement architecture. Most builds skip the soft-iron cage, and the rotor decoration rarely matches IWC's finishing.
Details that survive photo compression
- Day and date font. The real window font is narrow with tight spacing. Copies run wide or bold.
- Subdial hands. On good copies they reach the printed track. On poor ones they stop short of it.
- Crystal tint. The real coating reads faintly blue in daylight, not purple and not clear white.
- Caseback engraving. Look for crisp edges and even depth on the numbers. Lasered text looks flat and shallow.
- Bracelet end links. Gaps at the lugs are the fastest tell in a wrist shot.
- Lume. Even, flat application across the markers. Copies pill up or sit unevenly inside the plots.
Ask the seller for this before money moves
- Daylight photos, no flash, of the dial, caseback and clasp.
- A 20 second video with the chronograph started, stopped and reset to zero. Watch the hands return cleanly to 12.
- A scale photo in grams. A 42mm steel chrono on a bracelet should sit well above 150g.
- Calipers across the case at 3 and 9. You want somewhere between 41.5mm and 42.5mm.
- A movement photo with the caseback off, if the seller will do it.
Payment, shipping and the part nobody mentions
Most replica sellers take bank transfer, Wise or crypto. None of those give you a chargeback, so if a deal goes wrong you have no leverage beyond the seller's reputation. Customs seizure is a real risk. Counterfeit goods can be destroyed in transit and you may end up with a letter instead of a watch. Servicing is the other problem, because a local watchmaker may refuse to touch a counterfeit case, and parts for a copy 7750 are not interchangeable with ETA parts. Budget for the chance that you own a paperweight in two years.
Buying counterfeit goods is also illegal in many countries, including the US, and enforcement can fall on the buyer as well as the seller. That is a risk decision, not a technical one.
Seller red flags
- Stock photos that turn up on other sites when you reverse search them.
- Swiss made 1:1 claims on a watch priced under $300.
- No video, only stills.
- Prices far below the going rate for the tier they claim.
- A refusal to send a timestamped photo of the actual watch.
Bottom line
The mid tier on an A7750 is where a fake IW371765 makes any sense, and only from a seller who sends daylight photos, a chronograph video and a weight shot. Anything above that is paying for finishing you cannot verify from a listing. Anything below it usually shows up as the wrong dial font the first time you wear it next to somebody who knows the reference.