MikeC65

I expected this would be resolved. I just ordered two watches from Andrew end of January, and received one of them (DeWitt Academia) 9 days later. The other one is a PAM 177 which I understand is out of stock but I haven't been bothering Andrew about it. I trust him to get it to me when it becomes available again.

My watch shipped on January 28th via EMS from China and arrived on February 4th. No problems there.

What's "regular" sapphire? How is that done?

It's been down for two days now.

Of course it's light, it's made of titanium.

I too have a rose gold HBB which is over a year old and the rose gold plating looks just fine. However, I am very careful with this watch, as I am concerned that one accidental scratch and it's history.

I'm going to get one as soon as the big pile of cash I am expecting in the next few weeks comes in. Along with a few other watches I've been waiting for.

My grandparents used to live right across the bridge in Bay Harbor Islands, so I was within walking distance of Bal Harbour when visiting them. That was before I was into watches, however. As for Aventura, well, I haven't really fancied the place ever since a giant rat ran out from under the bushes by the mall entrance when I was walking out to my car one day.

They are the same watch.

I have a gen BCE and also a rep BCE, and the dial on the rep is not 1:1 if by "1:1" you mean perfectly duplicated. It's close, but not identical. On the gen dial, the ticks around the 15 minute marks (1 minute, 14 minutes, 16 minutes, 29 minutes, 31 minutes, 44 minutes, 46 minutes, 59 minutes) are shorter than the other ticks. On the rep, they are all the same length. This is easy to spot and an instant tell if you know to look for it. Also, the numbers on the subdials are too fat on the rep. In fact, all the print on the dial is finer on the gen than on the rep. The rep looks good by itself, but next to the gen it's quite obvious that the dial is better quality on the gen. I know I'm being nit-picky, and it is indeed a very good rep, but the idea that you can't tell the difference is just not true.

It's not a $300 price difference. Not even close. None of these watches have the ceramic bezel of the $700+ rep HBB's. The 'regular' HBB on Andrew's site with steel bezel, 28.8 bph Asian 7750, and double AR is $428.00. Angus's 'economy' version of the same watch with steel bezel, 21.6 bph old Asian 7750, and no AR is $268.00. That's a difference of $160.00. Andrew's price on the 'regular' HBB with rose gold bezel is $448. Angus's 'economy' version is $288, again, a difference of $160.00. For $160.00, yes, I'd rather have the better movement and the AR. And there is no 'economy' ceramic bezel version.

JCB (prez of Hublot) said this recently in the Hublot forums on TZ. He said that the ceramic bezels are made in Japan by Kyocera. Although, come to think of it, I'll have to find that post again. I definitely remember him saying the bezels were not Swiss-made because ceramic bezels cannot be sourced in Switzerland, and thus Hublot gets them from Kyocera, a Japanese company. But I don't recall him saying the bezels are actually MADE in Japan. Perhaps Kyocera makes their parts in China for Hublot? Who knows.

(1) Gai yang noy and Khao nieow duai ... and the tea with sugar isn't there either. (2) not enough chicken?

Does PayPal charge any kind of extra conversion fees for paying in Euros rather than dollars from a U.S. account?