Usil

My wife and I were coming home to our apartment late Monday night after a 2 week holiday in Rome and Venice. It was a long day to get home and did not end until we took the bus from Beauvais to Paris and then a cab to our apartment. We had just lugged our luggage across the sidewalk to our apartment building entrance, was facing the door and rang the bell to have the guardian unlock the door when three assailants (young men in their 20's) came up from behind us that grabbed my camera bag with Nikon lenses and another bag with my Fuji S3 pro digital camera (6000.00 total USD) and tried to drag them off our bodies. I resisted and got knocked down and kicked and hit on the head. As they ran off, I got up and started running after them and I heard my wife say from behind me '... it is not worth it' and then reality hit me and I stopped. Up to that point I had been operating just on adrenaline. I am very sore from the beating but we are ok. When I got up to the apartment, I had two watches from Trusty waiting for me and that actually made me feel better. I got another one from Neal the next day. Looking back, I am not so bummed about loosing the camera gear as I am of the feeling of being violated. They took what I worked long hours for and got a lot of enjoyment from not to mention every picture I took from the trip. But my wife says we were lucky and I guess she is right. I usually take more note of my surroundings in situations like this but not this time. Makes me think that reps too could be targetted since they would not know it was a rep. Now I am a little edgy and will be careful when and where I ware them when before I never would have thought about the potential danger. Maybe this is just a reality check for all of us that we need to be at least a little careful. Usil

Edge - your post counter says 666. This is spooky since the Omen remake is coming out soon. What is going on here???? usil

Hand sewing leather is a real pain but I would think that you can cut everythign out and take it to your local shoe repair store and have him sew it up for a professional look. Looking forward to seeing your tutorial. Usil

I, too, am one needing a watch repair (rep friendly) person in Paris. Anyone out here using one? Usil

I have had a bike since I was 16. I am now 59. Take my advice and look at the many used bikes you will see at large dealers. Pick up a 125 to 250 will be low in price, easy to learn on and plenty of fun. I drove a Honda 160 from Illinois to Colorado when I was 20 - 18 hours on a bike. It rained all the way through misouri and I dryed out half way through Kansas. Great fun. Then, after you have layed in down a few times, hopefully at low speeds (and this wil happen), then think about a 600 or there abouts. Buy a Honda if you want to ride and not tinker on your bike. very reliable. Usil

37 degreec C??? It will find an equilibrium temperature to what ever the ambient temperature is. Usil

I always liked watches but never seriously considered a Gen because simply out of my price range. Then I had a friend bring back a Breitling from Thailand last Fall and though it was a quartz - 30 USD watch, I liked it a lot. That got me thinking that there must be a way to get reps without relying on someone visiting Thailand. A quick google brought up too much and I had already known that the reps were one of the hottest scams on the internest so, while tempted I resisted. But, I thought there has to be some reputable sites that sell good reps. Lot's of googling and reading brought me to RWG and TRC and all of your comments on trusted dealers eased my mind about making an internet purchase. 7 months later, I have 14 reps: 4 Pams 1 Rx 1 IWC 4 Breitlings 1 FM 2 P. Philip 1 A. Lang&Sohn and 5 more on order: IWC Port., 45mm PO, IWC Big Pilot, Graham and a VC. Mostly uses Trusty but tried a few others too. My current favorite is the PAM 63 GMT from Eddie with the 2893 movement. I got the SS bracelet and the combination is sensational. I also like the Breitling Avenger, Navitimer and my PAM 111h with swan neck. I got to stop myself one of these days because I sometimes stair at them and can not decide which one to ware. This has been one of my best hobbies I have ever had and get a lot of pleasure from it - and I ahve a very understanding wife. Usil

Tritium, in small quantities, is found naturally in water. Usil

What is AP RO? Usil

Feek, yours is ok. However, some are so bad I just quickly pass them by not even bothering to read their comments. Usil

Were here to read messages and trade knowledge on reps NOT flood each page we load with huge meaningless pictures that waste time loading the page. It slows everything down and just gets in the way. Usil

I hope they are reduced in size. I hate seeing these things over and over and over and over... Usil

Was an email given? I made an order with TTK and would just like to say hi and insure my mailing address. Usil.

Andrew was my first choice for buying my first Rep a few months ago. I looked at all the comments made by others and examined his large selection of excellent looking reps and took the plunge that started my hobby in serious Rep collecting. I just bought the following watches from him: ROLEX - SUBMARINER LV GREEN - BEST EDITION Breitling Navitimer - Serie Speciale SPECIAL EDITION with "Serie Speciale" and received them while I was gone on a business trip. They are perfect and everything I had expected. I love the Breitling and the Rolex is my first. I had never really liked the looks of the Rolexes but the price was too good to pass up. It looks so good it changes my mind and I may get another in the future. Those just finding the forums and considering their first purchase or anyone else needing a new Rep - Andrew has always provided excellent watches, good service and timely communications. What more could you ask for? Busy travel schedule but will get pictures up as soon as possible. Usil

After being off an hour or so, I logged back in and now everything works ok. What ever you did worked. I am in Paris. Usil

I am a registered member but every time I click on a link it I have to log in to see the link. Sometimes I have to do this 2 times. Is any one else having to do this? Is there something I should be doing? I know we are temporarily using another server but this seems wierd since when I enter this forum it recognizes me as Usil. Usil

I know my time limit restricted me from finding a decent rep. My report was just my experiance for one hour and I did not draw any conclusions but just gave a report on my experiance and reflections for those here in the group. I still feel it is our good fortune we have of dealing with trusted dealers who can provide us with good watches for a lot less effort. I had asked to see better quality watches so it would not make sence that they would not show these to me since they would make more money for them. I have no idea why this produiced no results as I had a Thai friend with me explaining in Thai what I wanted. I consider it a luck of the draw not to see any good quality watches for my hour experience. Usil

If I had stayed home and bought my watches from silixwatch I would have added three more nice watches to my hoard instead of the crap to my scrap bin. I did ask fro their best quality watches and told them what I was seeing was not very good but I did not see any quality watch brought out. Usil

Well, I am back from a week busines trip in Jakarta. I had asked the group about the possibility of visiting a Bangkok watch area as when I came home I had an 8 hour layover in Bangkok airport. Several said to head to MBK center but most said time might be an issue. Here is the end of the story. I traveled back with a fellow worker who happened to live in Bangkok. She offered to take me into Bangkok (I had not prodded her on this) and said no problem on time. So, I took her up on it. We headed to MBK center and arrived in about an hour. Traffic is a mess and for someone who suggested a motorcycle taxi from the airport – you had to be kidding. I headed to the 3rd floor as others had indicated. The center is a multi level extravaganza of shops and specialty stores and it was packed. There were watch stores but not as many as I had expected but I did not look all over the place because of time. Interestingly, there were real watch stores close to rep watch stores on the same floor. This was weird. The first shop I saw had nothing but crap out. I asked about PAMs, Breits and IWC. They brought out some large envelopes with these brands in them and I looked them over. More crap. These watches would give REPS a bad name. All of the PAMs were so bad there is no way I would have bought one and placed it beside my great reps at home. It would have been embarrassing. I went to a few more stores and more of the same. I found one that looked a little better and time was running out so I bought 2 breits and a A. Lange & Sohne. Total expenditure for them was 5000 Baht or about 130 USD. I probably could have done a lot better but time was passing quickly. We headed back to the airport and I spent the rest of the time in the Thai business class lounge. I had plenty of time – about 4 hours. As there was nothing else to do, I was sitting in a corner, took out each watch and examined it more closely. One of the Breit bands fell apart, the A. Lange & Sohne had the automatic rotor loose in the case and 2 small screws from the back fell out and became lost as I was just looking at the watch. All total, I would have gotten more satisfaction giving the money away to the poor. What a waste of time and effort in an incredible hot and sticky weather. There is a moral to this story. This gave me significant insight into the great deals and treatment we get from our trusted rep dealers here in the forums. They provide us with tremendously good looking reps, good quality and interactive communications as well as good service – all from the comfort of our computer rooms. I did not know how lucky I was till I tried this myself. Was the trip wasted? No, the lesson made me appreciate our trusty dealers even more and I got to experience down town Bangkok instead of just the airport. If anyone is thinking about doing this I hope you think twice and don’t waste your time. Oh, and I am just recovering from the diarrhea. Usil

Who has the best PAM OEM buckels? Usil

I got up this morning and got ready for work. The usual, check the computer and the rep sites (we have to have our priorities), showered, shaved, dressed, grabbed my leather jacket and helmit and headed to the garage for my motorcycle to drive to work. Got to the office, fired up the office computer (checked the rep sites again), read some emails and then looked down in horror. I had forgotten to put on a watch. I could not believe it. The arm was bare. And I had not even thought about it till I got to the office. What does this mean? Do I need to see a doctor? Support group? This looks serious. Usil

I ordered a Breitling Navitimer – Series Special (Black Face) from Trusty last week. Hope to get it soon. I really like the looks of this watch. My other Breitling is the Chrono Avenger and it's fit and trim is amazing. Everything is silky smooth, perfect time. Pams and Breits - what could be better? usil

While individual watch results will probably vary, it would be nice to see a tabel of your results summarizing when you saw leakage and from where. Static pics don't do the test justice but a table would be ok for thei info. Usil

Have you considered doing a little business with the rep groups? It would consist of: 1. Testing the rep to see if currently waterproof 2. Providing a service to apply the silicone grease to the seals 3. Retest to see if works 4. Send watch back with report Some watches may already be water proof. Some may not be. Some maybe can become waterproof with only the seals greased. Your tester can tell us that. All I am looking for is to withstand surface water levels in a pool, showering and sink. Agqin, I think this would tell you that. Above all, you would make absolutely no warenty to the information and greasing you perform. No risk on your part, and you provide some useful information to us and what we do with it is at our risk. It would require you to learn a little watch work but since you bought the tool, maybe this is no issue. What do you say? I think all of us (for a fair price) would like to know if our watches are ok in water. Usil

The MBK center seems like the place to go. How late are the reps selling there on Saturday night? What is the driving time from the airport to the MBK center? Where do you catch a cab for going back to the airport? Usil