Bovet built its 19th-century reputation by selling elaborately decorated Swiss pocket watches to the Chinese market, where the brand became so recognizable that its Chinese name, “Bo Wei,” reportedly entered common usage as a general term for watches. The success was commercially explosive: the company expanded its production network from London and Fleurier into Canton and later Macau, while its watches were sold in pairs in mahogany boxes because repairs could take more than six months. Their skeletonized movements, painted scenes, engraving, and visible mechanical drama were deliberately designed to appeal to Chinese buyers fascinated by European watchmaking.
By around 1855, however, the Chinese luxury-watch market had collapsed under pressure from French and American competition and a tremendous quantity of Chinese-made counterfeits. The source does not identify a specific criminal syndicate or provide evidence of organized violence, but it clearly describes imitation Bovet watches as a major commercial problem rather than a modern internet phenomenon alone. The market deterioration, compounded by disruption associated with the Opium Wars, contributed to Bovet's shrinking operations; in 1864 the Bovet family sold its interest to Fleurier manufacturing inspectors Jules Jequier and Ernest Bobillier, later joined by Ami Leuba. Modern collectors now pay more than $300,000 for especially decorative original Chinese-market Bovets, while replicas—both 19th-century copies and newer fakes—continue to appear in European markets, online auctions, and on eBay, making authentication central to the brand's legacy.
