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As we have many new members on the forums now I thought it might be a good idea to touch on how these sites came to be. The first true replica watch forum was TRC (the Replica Collector) there was in fact a group before this but it was more a notice board than a forum. TRC was not only the first but for quite a few years even after the formation of others it was regarded as the aficionado, the board where all the serious collectors were. The one real draw back for TRC was its sedate pace, which did not prove attractive to those who liked a more up tempo style. To this end a young member of TRC decided to form a new forum called Replica Watch Guide (RWG), this forum took off like a rocket, in fact a visiting TRC Moderator at the time described the RWG experience as akin to stepping off the sidewalk into heavy traffic. For a long time the Replica world existed off the flat out RWG and the more sedate but far more serious collector forum of TRC. Unfortunately things do not always pan out like we want them and such was the sorry saga of the RWG Collaboration 1 watch which was the start of the collapse of RWG. The watch itself was an attempt to 1. Knit the community together more and 2. A special memento/reward for the loyal members, I should point out that by this stage RWG had a VIP room in which the senior members could chat in private with the admin team, so while the watch was being planned on the open forum there was also a behind the scenes discussions that the general members were not aware of. Early in the planning of the watch our Admin (Blade) took over the communication between the members requirements and the dealers. After much discussion on the forum we came up with the design we wanted, the end product which many have seen is exactly what was planned, a redialled Omega Railmaster but to get there was a very, very rocky path. The major problem was that we wanted a clean watch with no brand name markings, a watch that could proudly be shown as the genuine RWG watch with nothing to show its replica heritage and this was a stumbling point with certain dealers (no I will not name them) as profit being profit there was a constant insistence to recycle branded replica parts. What followed turned into a clash of wills with the dealers trying to force what they wanted on us and the members refusing to accept anything but what we asked, and Blade? Well I still feel today that he was caught between a rock and a hard place as by now he had paid a lot of our money to these people to make what we wanted. From there on it was a case of missed deadline after miss deadline until the unthinkable happened, Blade disappeared! From that moment on the RWG admin team and the VIP’s became somewhat a crisis team going around putting out spot fires on the forum, keeping a cap on the gradual creeping discontent within the group that had paid their money for this watch as well as all those who stepped up claiming the forum was basically an elaborate scam site and we also needed to find our way around many hurdles simply because when Blade disappeared he took the keys with him, we therefore also mounted an intensive search to try and track Blade down. A side product to having your admin go missing around Christmas time was that RWG for the best part of the year was decorated with a perpetual Winter theme. The one date that we had glowing like a beacon before us was the renewal of the domain, the admin team and VIP’s knew that if we could not find Blade before this we had no way of paying the fee so RWG would simply cease to exist. Despite our best efforts with less than a couple of months to renewal date we had still made no progress in trying to find Blade and knew it was time to bite the bullet and look to preserving our forum elsewhere. We debated long and hard what our options were within the VIP room, a new forum was obvious but under who’s administration? To this end I turned to the admin of our respected sister board of TRC, once he had decided to take the second board on I worked as the go between with him and my own VIP’s, as without the keys we could not let him into the group. The formation of the new RWG consisted of a 3 point approach, first of course was alerting all our members to what we were doing, second was to move as much knowledge base as possible from the old to the new board and third was to build a forum that our members would not only feel ‘at home’ with but basically a better model than what we were leaving. Unknown to us at the time we had a member (with the help of one of our seniors) going through the PM list recruiting for his own new forum, it was underhanded and it was a banning offence but we lacked the tools to stop him. He went on to form the first ‘For profit’ board RWI, he was also the first forum Admin to openly scam his members out of a lot of money before disappearing. From this bad blood a new forum was then formed ‘Rep Geek’ this was the 2nd ‘for profit’ forum and also the 2nd time a forum Admin went on to scam his members for much money then vanish. Back on the new RWG we didn’t really concern ourselves too much with other forums, our aim was only to build the best we could for our members, which we know is what we achieved. The day for the launch of our new forum was set about one week before the deadline with the old forum, on opening day we had more traffic than any other board has ever seen, the admin team (although a global group) was basically all present, I know I was online at 4am from Melbourne, we spent the entire day welcoming and interacting with all the old, and new, members. Then one week later Blade came back and paid the fees for the domain renewal of old RWG….. Blade did come over to our new RWG, he sent me a PM saying that he was happy with the work we did to preserve the forum, but the reply I sent to him was never answered. At this point we had 2 RWGs, our new thriving forum and a ghost town, we did speculate crashing the other forum as we had the people with know how to do so but in the end senior members who held our respect (Dempsy, Omni, Highflyingclive etc) started using it as a playground so we left it for them and with time others stumbled across it and it slowly became the wild west of replica forums, this was not by design but necessity as they had no way to give moderator powers to anyone to keep the place in check. Obviously many things are glossed over in this brief history but to fast forward a little, it's one year later and the renewal is due for the old RWG again, only this time Blade did not come back. Being the civil types we are here on RWG (the real RWG) when the old board died we set up a sub forum for the members of the old site on our board so they could stay together until they could launch a new forum of their own. This is an important point to understand, if we did not give them a way to keep their people together they would have scattered far and wide and there would have been no point for a new forum. So now we come to the current situation, we have this board that imported all the original members and knowledge base from our home in an attempt to save it and we have the jr RWG started up with no member more than a year old or with anything even resembling what the original forum stood for. Still all water off a duck's back as far as we are concerned, on day one of our forum we discussed the path we wanted to take within the admin area and we have always stayed true to that path and we are very happy with what we have built. We could get upset with petty things like ‘the knitting club’ comment but we always set out with a ‘less is more’ approach and we find that has attracted the more serious and mature collector so if you enjoy the joke, knock yourself out…then of course we could point out that the member who created the comment was banned from every forum under a previous incarnation and for reasons that every rep collector despises and who has been a sworn enemy of our forum long before the RWG jr came to be. Yes there are forums I have not covered Watch Trader is one, they formed to give us a place to sell watches when we suspended sales on the original RWG due to brand name lawyer attacks, however WT closed doors when we started the new RWG, their Admin told me he was just doing a service which was not needed once we started afresh. There was also a forum that spun off Rep Geek after the Admin Julio did a runner with members' money, the forum name evades me at this time. Just a quick wrap; the majority of members travel to all boards and that is the way it should be, one of the founders of the other RWG (trailboss) who is now the admin of RWI is an Aussie who I have shared beers with and would do so again, these forums are in fact hobby boards and as we are provide the same thing we should all be able to co-exist. Yes there will always be a clash with the names, the name is ours we used it for years on the old forum and we used it for around a year and a half once we started the new forum, others can tell themselves anything they want to believe. Ken

Thank you all for keeping this the best place on the net. I am proud to have been a TRC and RWG v.1.0 veteran member. The incredibly remarkable membership clientele, the vast array of empirical watch and life knowledge, and the amazing friendships created over more than a decade going on two decades! WOW! I'm very lucky to be able to check in on all of my pals here--anytime! Best regards to all PS. Thanks KB for sharing the brief history. You've sparked up quite a few memories for me. Cheers!

You made the jump successfully. Welcome back brother

The second of two bigwaved dials. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[emoji632]

Here is a build based on a cartel 6263. The insert was removed and replaced by a Vietnam insert. The movement was CLEANLY converted to reposition the 6 o'clock hand. I could not resist finishing the top plate with a perlé... Even if no one will see that. Dial is from Viet nam WITH feet installed for the Venus 75. Revarnished to be more resistant and not get damaged on the edges, relumed and index finished with black enamel as it should. No glue here !!!! All clean and tidy inside out. I can't stand chewing gum finished watches.... Subsidiary hands are from DW as cartel hands are too large for my taste. Gen 700 crown, and cartel pushers modified to look like first generation pushers. Cherry on the cake: retailed by Hermès..... so we reach the half million !

Dang right! That was thee test to end all tests back then!!! Nice bit of history and certainly it was conducted under the most rigorous test parameters around--COAC standards!! Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) approved watches have nothing on Contrôle Officel Alaska des Chonomètres (COAC) approved watches!!!!

"Modded" 47 mm aged EGI Pratt build (I changed the movement and dial to three hands from two and added a small seconds hand) on a strap from @Avenov85 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Are you wanting information on the model or are you looking to buy one?

*GROOOOAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN* Ba-da-bum! Psssshhhhhhhh (rimshot!)

Dare I say it...................... USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION! Hah, welcome back old timer! Glad to see you darkening our door again.

From what you are saying, Matt, it sure does sound like the SA3135 you were comparing to the Yuki was a V1, not V2. I say this because I have also had a V1 SA3135 and a Yuki side by side, I will try and get one of these watches with the V2 SA3135 in, and get some good detailed strip down documentation with plenty off photos to either prove, or disprove the aforementioned claims by the op. I'm not in any way saying you are wrong @chefcook, I just want to find out for absolute certainty they the V2 SA3135 is indeed a Yuki or not, if it is, I would indeed be very happy about it as I could buy watches with this V2 fitted, and part them out

Nothing for reference:232.32.44.22.03.001 , sorry. Is possible that the steel crown is the same (with different ref. numb.) of this gold one reference number 069BB 42233: approx. 6.45 mm outside diameter, 3.45 tall and 7.15 overall length (source: http://tinyurl.com/zqnl5h9 )

Glad to see that everything worked out

Most all the watch material supply houses have hands to fit ETA. Try Otto Frei. No offense, but if .5mm and a set of hands is enough to stop you, don't bother trying to build a 6542.

Wow. I have had the yuki and the sa side by side last week. While they look very much the same, nothing will interchange. I had a bad winding pinon on the yuki and thought I would pull the one from the sa to see if it would fit. By the way, the sa is a parts movement. The winding pinon was not even close to the one on the yuki. Niether was the clutch. I had the rotor assy off the sa and tried it on the yuki, again not even close to fitting. The calendar wheel was very close to fitting, but did not work right. The stop lever did fit both movements. The bal assy from the yuki looks almost identical as the sa, but will not interchange either. The repair I did on the yuki was with 3135 parts from star time. New winding pinion for the gen 3135, new winding wheel, and new clutch. They all fit the yuki and made a nice fix. Work very smooth. Also, the gen 3135 date wheel fits the yuki and works exactly like it should. While the sa and yuki look almost the same side by side, my experience is nothing about them is the same. That's my 2 cents.

I feel like this would be a good sticky in here.

Keeping your cars for them is a great idea too...cross my fingers they're showing some interest when they're old enough Lucky me all of my kids are already interested in watches...even the little one who just started to speak recognizes when I change my watches...he always says "Uhr, Uhr, Uhr" (watch in German) till I tell him "yes...it's another one" and then he smiles at me

Hey Euno... good to see you! Member number 343 !! Who can beat that?

Wish I didn't trade this bezel with patina for a NOS mint one! Stupid me!

My new bigwaved dial came in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Story checks out!

Hey, dadog! Great to see you around! Take a look at archive.org, it's the Internet Wayback Machine and it has screens from TRC, way back in the day, with a lot of familiar names. Good times.

It's always nice to re-read about the history of rep forums. I was back then present on the forum(s) but not linked to any "team"/"group". I followed everything what was actually happening. Today I found myself more of a lurker than a member mostly due to my limited time available for the hobby. Felt good always on all boards, even on repgeek where I got banned by a frustrated mod for a fight with another member (who actully was not banned even though he used some harsh words in my direction). I was never a person making fuss, fights,..always tried to enjoy the hobby for what it is - love for watches! I am always glad to see things move around here with the prosperity to last for a long time. Thanks to the mod team achieveing this for quiet some time now (similar to RWI).. Hopefully in the future of the rep forums there will be less shock and the boards will keep doing their job - gather watch lovers from all over the world (rep and non rep related).. Cheers to the admin team! (btw, I still have my RWG ring as a memory of good old times) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll take it... I need a good base for my 2xAR x-tal and was planning on buying a Yuki, so why not...

"Unless you need the convenience there is no point. You will not damage your movement by letting the watch sit in a drawer. No need for all the wear and tear. On the other hand, especially if your watch is hard to set, it can be nice to have one around. Keep it cheap...all it needs to do is spin." True. They don't wear out when they are parked. What will cause wear in the long run is allowing them to run down and setting/hand winding them constantly. Running the hands around to find am or pm when setting calendars causes a lot of wear on canon pinions and before too long the cp will get loose...eventually loose enough that the watch runs but the hour and minute hands do not move. I have fixed a lot of these problems over the years and slow set models are the worst by far. Hand winding automatics is usually not very good for them because many (most probably) are designed where the a/w parts are spinning faster than usual when hand winding causing undue wear to reversers etc. I have seen Eta 28xx that have been hand wound so much that the reversers were shot and the little oval shaped boss cast on the main plate where the crown wheel turns is worn half way off the plate and the Val/Eta 7750 does not like to be hand wound (with all the a/w parts attached). The rolex 3135 is also famous for wear on a post cast on the main plate that can wear away from constant setting and lax service. The article below explains it and shows one worn half way off: http://www.chronometrie.com/rolex3135/rolex3135.html If I wear a mechanical watch it is usually a no date model but with date models I note if they stop on am or pm and if it really matters (a 'good' watch), I may shake it a few times now and then while it is parked and keep up with the time it stops and try to have it stop between 8 and 11 in the am. That way I can set the date and the hour will not be far off if I want to wear it...no cranking the hands around and around hunting am. Mechanical watches are having a hard time with current lifestyles because they were made to be worn during a point in time when things were much different...life in general was much more relaxed and owners were more aware of the inherent troubles of the mechanical watch through magazine ads, long experience with mechanical watches etc. There were also repair shops in every town and parts were widely available. Not so today. Mechanical watches are basically novelties today...fragile and expensive dinosaurs from the 1930s/1940s/1950s forced into the fast and furious 2000s by fashion. "A Rolex can take anything your arm can take." Q...If that is true why do they have one of the biggest repair networks in the world? A...Because they break a lot and cost too much to throw away.

First, what is the diameter of the dial that came with your 1655? Does it fit the case with no 'wiggle-room' at all? You might have some flexibility as 1mm isn't much room. I have reduced the diameter on dials, and made dials round from flat stock, by using a bamboo shish-ka-bob skewer as an 'axle' in the center hole, and lightly touching it, making the dial spin on the axle, to a bench grinder. caution: Using metal as an axle will ruin the dial by enlarging the center hole while spinning! A toothpick isn't strong enough and will break. The bamboo is strong enough. Afterward you can use that bamboo stick to apply lume. Holding the axle and using my thumbs on each side to steady the dial, I touch the dial edge to the bench grinder slightly. The dial will spin on the axle, and grind a tad, then stop and fit to the case. It usually takes a few times as you don't want to take too much or overheat the paint on the dial. If you have a spare dial you can practice.

Day two update: Continued shaving the cg. I used the old 1655 bezel as a guide and got it pretty close. It's not perfect or pretty but it is a 40+ year old with an interesting history. [emoji6]. I got a bit carried Away and sanded down The lugs on the crown side a bit too much. I may at a later date go back and shave down the other side to balance out the case and bring it back closer to uniform I think I am happy with the level of finishing on the case Grinding wheel. Drum sander. 180 , 400. , 600 , 1000 grit and then polishing wheel. I left some of the grind marks in the case as I didn't want to take the case down even more on the one side Reinstalled the crown tube. Also tried sanding off the cyclops and That will take a lot of patience and Finesse Got home and tried the crown and it threaded on. Happy to find out that I didn't butcher the tube Success!! Next up. The. Bezel. The WSO. Exp 39 bezel is designed for a flat sapphire xtal and and gasket. Anyone think that I can mod it to fit a domed acrylic ? Gonna order parts and a movement next. Fun stuff. !! [emoji1303][emoji1303] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks to be of recent (Asian) vintage........ $130, without knowing what is inside, would be a more accurate value.

Spent many hours on this one. I'm asking the Rolies experts out there. How can I make this JF 1:1 looking any better?

yes guys the watch is gen, no doubt about it. The purpose of this thread, is both for education and entertainment. I encouraged @paristototo post this thread, to share the knowledge that the reps these days are getting very very good, and calling a gen a franken or genstein may not be disputable immediately. It would in fact be bad for our hobby if this watch is resolutely identified as a gen, by 100% of the members who reply. And that once the human mind is conditioned to do so, flaws can be spotted where there are none. Yes of course this is a joke, and one of the things I believe a forum should be about. Congrats bro for this wonderful piece. And for this prank. Speaking of which, you are hereby sentenced to eternity in this madhouse, where the lines between gens and reps are increasingly blurred, and reality and delusion switch places at the blink of an eye.

I received the Black/White version today from Ryan. After some serious disappointment with the Blue version, this one has made my day! The insert/bezel assy look amazing, as does this piece overall. Love the strap, the dial and the overall quality of the rep. I can tell this one will get lots of wrist time!!!

Why did it take 3 times? Who did you buy from?