Short answer
On a real IWC Da Vinci IW376008 the running seconds sit at 6 o'clock and a single combined counter for hours and minutes sits at 12. If the watch in front of you has its seconds hand at 9, it is built on a Valjoux 7750 type movement and it is not an IW376008. That one check clears out most of what you will find online. Everything else, the rotor engraving, the flyback behavior, the case lines, is confirmation.
What the reference actually is
IW376008 comes from the cushion shaped Da Vinci Chronograph generation IWC launched in 2007, the one with the in-house 89360 calibre inside. It is an automatic chronograph with flyback, a combined hour and minute totalizer at 12, small seconds at 6, a date at 3, and roughly 68 hours of power reserve. The case is tonneau or cushion shaped, with broad polished flanks and a brushed upper surface, and the watch sits flatter on the wrist than its size suggests.
That matters because fakes get built around whatever movement is cheap and available, and the movement dictates the dial layout. Get the layout wrong and no amount of nice polishing saves it.
The "V2" label, explained
Sellers advertise this as a "V2" or "V3" build. IWC has no such naming. Those tags describe the batch of the counterfeit, and a higher number only means the factory changed something. It tells you nothing about accuracy, and it is not a reference IWC ever used.
Movement tells
- Rotor and bridges should be engraved "Probus Scafusia", the motto IWC puts on its own in-house movements. Fakes either skip it or print it thin and crooked.
- Flyback works like this: with the chrono running, press the lower pusher once. The hands snap to zero and start again without a second press. A 7750 based fake cannot do that.
- Power reserve near 68 hours. Wind it fully, set it down, and check it after three days. A fake with a generic movement will be dead.
- Pusher feel. Real ones are short, crisp, and mechanical. Fakes grind or mush.
Case, dial, and crystal
Look at the line where polished metal meets brushed metal. On a real IWC that transition is sharp enough to catch a fingernail. Fakes round it off, and the lugs usually look slightly too thick or too soft. Dial printing should be dense and flat, not grey or fuzzy, and the applied markers should throw hard edges under a light. The crystal carries an anti-reflective coating that makes it almost vanish. A blue or purple sheen across the glass at an angle is a bad sign.
Why this one is rarely faked well
The 89360 is not a movement a counterfeit workshop can copy. Building a convincing cushion case with that dial layout means designing around a completely different chrono, and the economics do not work when a Submariner clone sells faster. So the fakes that exist tend to be cheap and obvious rather than super clones. If a listing is pushing hard and the price feels impossible, that is the reason, not a deal.
Before money changes hands
- Ask for a clear photo of the movement through the display back. Real sellers have one already.
- Check the caseback engraving. The reference number and case number should be crisp and evenly spaced.
- Ask about service history. An 89360 service is not cheap, and no watchmaker will touch a counterfeit.
- Keep the legal side in mind. Anything wearing the IWC name is a counterfeit rather than a homage, and US Customs seizes these shipments when they catch them.