Bike Mike

My $0.02

You are correct that oil does reduce friction. It also reduces wear. Without putting you to sleep with a engineering lesson, oil does reduce friction, but also introduces a degree of drag (drag is friction between a solid against air/fluid). In the case of the heavily modified A7750 movement, the drag created by additional jewels (specifically the oil in the jewel), will induce a greater degree of resistance then the current degree of friction between the components. Make sense? This is why watch makers will use different viscosity of oils to help regulate a watch. Different viscosities induce different degrees of drag. In theory if a watch marker were to put is drop of oil the exact size of the contact surface area, you would reduce friction without additional drag. Beer me......My head hurts.

Because, while jewels increase longevity and decrease wear in the movement, they also increase drag due to the viscosity of the oil/lubricant. The additional drag on top of the tremendous amount of drag already being created by the 11 additional gears is too much for the movement to overcome and be reliable. Realistically the module they put on the movement could be reduced to about 6 gears, making it very reliable.

Replicating the 125 Navitimer should be possible but the movement will not be. On this model the minute totalizer is on the main dial, it is the hand with a the "arrow pointer". The aero racer bracelet is very comfortable. The 125th SuperOcean Heritage pieces are gorgeous. I have a white face on order.

You should be fine as long as you are not coming from Asia. I used to spend a lot of time in China working with a good friend of mine. We would bring back the occasional rep on our wrist, maybe 1 or 2 in our carry on every month or so. Customs had no issue, that was until the one time by buddy brought back 10. Customs let him keep 1 and they took the rest. From that day on, he was grilled for 15-20 minutes by custom agents anytime we came back as they had him

Agreed. But if someone is dumb enough to walk into a AD with a rep trying to BS their way into getting paperwork or the piece serviced, they deserve to have their piece confiscated. After all it is counterfiet. I am lucky as I have 3 watchsmiths in my area that will service anything you bring them. One I have become good friends with and he has serviced both my rep and gen PAMs.

The COSC certificate is actually embossed as well has the warranty number hole punched in the upper left corner. The number on the COSC actually corresponds with the stamped number movements winding bridge. So what would be the point in having a blank COSC? You could put in any number you wish, but that is not going to correspond with any number on the watch. The warranty book also has the same hole punching as the COSC with the warranty cert. number and Authorized AD. All of these number are interlaced with the watches Serial number and COSC number. You could ink in the warranty book, but you would not be able to do the hole punching to spell out the AD. I agree with most around here that there is no need for anyone to have these documents. The documents only serve the purpose of getting the watch serviced and show its authenticity. I was at my local AD last week to purchase a Rodium face Chronomat and watched them confiscate a gentleman SA while he was trying to pull some BS story with them about losing his papers. The sales manager handed the watch to his tech. who promptly removed the case back and confirmed the watch was a rep. The guy then had the nerve to point to my wrist and call out my Blue face SA (I purchased form the same AD 1 month earlier.) as being a fake as he was a expert in spotting them. They promptly called security and had the gentleman escorted off the property. Nice to get back in touch with some of you guys again. I have not been too active in the hobby since the closing of TRC.