fotoman

me personally before i would spend the $$ on a new apbands strap, i'd have hktan build me a custom strap, similar in price and you can have it made as thick thin long tapered colored anyway you can imagine. you would still need a buckle or deployant and the appropriate connectors. the way i'm looking at it, if your rep came on a strap, then you just unscrew the screws in the leather strap, through the other on and done. I had a AP ROO that had an apbands strap on it, but ordered the rubber strap thats being offered now - pretty much a straight easy swap out. i'm hoping mikeolee enjoys his strap, i think he got a very nice price for a used ap bands strap 100 bucks !! one thing i do like about the ap bands is they are nice and soft and comfy.

2500/ POWERMAX seemed to take forever for me, but i am now creaping up on 3000. And as i always say i wasted 850 on RWGI, and another misc 500 posts on other watch forums I think we should be able to take our post count with us And, if anyone suggests, wow, 1000 posts you have no life take solace that pugs and kenberg are out there in teh stratosphere posting faster than a good secretary can type you know you start to look back and your like nearly 4000 posts on watches since 2005 - how could i possibly have THAT much to say?

i think its time for a new section of the site, totally dedicated to those of us that chemical imbalances for UN's and Robbie should be the moderator by the way, i already purchased more watch stands for the inevitable upcoming variations in UN pieces if they start donig the 1846, i think i'd buy it in all the colors even likek the orange and crazy colors

we can't ever thank you enough, so i will just do it whenever appropriate

pm robbie, he is th UN expert

also a good place to get real photos of gens

ADD did I really say that quote? I gotta lay off the crack pipe

yeah its like a month. like a blackout period for reps

so. when will the whole watch world shut down for like a month? I couldn't find anything other than a single DATe and Iknow it's for awhile

this thread has lots of words - i thought there would be pictures too many words, not enough pictures

Please move me back to general discussion? throw a brother a bone

General discussion - i was hoping more folks would contribute about where they were and where they are with watches its a general topic

the straight side on shot that josh has makes it alot different than the old green tinted bubble rep. the crystal actually looks good, just not sure how tall it is with that thick bezel on it compared to mine. Fact is, this watch is very hard to shoot. If they do do that and its good, i'll probably sell my gen and get the rep i hope they do the rep skeleton. It can't be a hard movement to find, i think invicta uses it? not sure, but its a pvd skeleton movement in the bubble we'll see

i saw you replied, i was about to give you a good thumpin. But someone keeps doing this to me. anyway thanks for not moving it ken by the way, what did you ever do with that blue watch i sent ya

JTB TMJ MPG DOA i get confused

cmon who moved this to my collection, this was supposed to be about showing where you started and where you are now, my collection is for personal collections Dammit i put it in the thread title defend thyne actions mod

since i was diggin around always love to sport my Freak shot this is a real phoband wrist shot, unfortunately, it was in the store

the corum bubble is Gen, got it for $900 new, its quartz though ken, the old collection has a corum admirals cup competition in the photo that was my trusty watch i did have some rep corums that i did a comparison on - figured since a corum "super rep" is coming out the old stuff doesn't matter as much. We have to wait and see what that rep looks like, crystal doesn't look big enough to me, but it could be the thicker bezel that is makign it look shorter, mine doesn't have a bezel

wish i had robbie G's budget@!!!! but, quality over quantity happens by means of the free market - new rep comes out, only way to afford it is to sell old reps, what do you sell, the ones you like the least. eventually you are left with reps you only really really like, because by natural selection those made it through the cut.

so every once and a while i like to dig out my - "my collection" photo from when i started, 1, to show people who are just starting how far they can come slowly over time with a modest budget - i gradually upgraded over 3 1/2 years and also to show the difference in rep collecting in the last 3 years so class - first up Phobands summer 2005 collection first of all 5 are reps - i'll talk about those, the others are Gen 1. my first ever rep was a blue quartz breitling - as many may have read my holy grail of watches was the blue 2 tone crosswind - of which i now have a franken. It waas that gen that got me looking for reps, and it was this rep that i found. Sometime in 2002. I paid $200 for it, sad to say but it was recently donated to another forum member, not sure if he needed to fill cracks in his driveway or what, but he wanted it so you can see the whole reason i started looking for reps go from first purchase to achievement of holy grail. I did spend more time in the rep world back then, i even tried to do website work in exchange for some reps - it never panned out, anyway i had 1 or 2 other rolex reps. fast forward to 2005, i got back from a cruise while on my travels i got introduced to corum, so i went back and tried to find some corum reps. - thats when i found RWG. things were way different back then, there was no perfect clones, stuff was much more secret, prices were arbitrary stories can be told elsewhere. But i got that corum rep from trusty, my first deal from here. then, soon after i got those 2 rolex reps via RBJ (who ripped me off) and frankly i have no idea where that 111 came from. over the next few years i bought, sold, upgraded, sold gens - in fact, non of those watches still exist in my world except the citizen. And the real reason it does, is, its too scratched up to sell. I love it, but never have the opportunity to use it. I do sometimes travel with it cause its very reliable. Right, there is the before - and now, Super Reps, lots of trading up over time and many trials, dealers failures and successes later, we have this plus i constantly stare at my collection, and even the photos of it adn can't believe its mine. even if they are reps, they are freaking cool watches. It blows my mind. aand i know there are some equally exciting projects within the next year coming around. I couldn't be happier. thats just 1 side of teh forum, i have made many friends, learned photography, learned about illeegal watch trade learned about movements, custom made leather straps - anyway, my experience here has been unreal. Feel free to share your before and after photos by the way, i have alot i can offer now in the realm of photo tips based upon things i have learned over the last few years, i am making it a resolution to put that stuff together for a big post based on the "you can to" with "stuff from around the house" concept. Cause i learned from pugs and TTK. - say what you may about TTK but the dude could take soome bad ass photos and i always was looking at how to work up to his level. ok - nostalgia away

buy the way, as i am sure your learning 99% of us can't afford a case full of reps 99% of us don't have a great camera 99% of us can't manipulate small tools yet most find a way to help out and be a part of the group. Even if its sometimes just creating some action on teh boards, i used to post alot more on non watch issues when i first started - now, i just have less time. also, we all started somewhere, this was my collection of watches 3 months into RWG. 5 reps, 4 of which were rwg reps, the quartz breitling was pre rwg compare that to my signature 3 and a half years later aand up until 2 weeks ago all my photos were done with a point and shoot canon, and alight box i made for less than 17 dollars

BE VERY CAREFUL - you can easy scratch your watches doing that, lankai and i were talking about that over the weekend. i also picked up some linoleum tiles that look like rock - no damage to teh watch. i'll post those soon too. I want to do some comparison shots to illustrate what i'm talking about - however, i can only spend so much time sitting up taking photos before the pain draws you back to teh floor . Corgi- THANKS! very nice compliment samuri re; the filter - i got one of the cheap ones it was only like 15-20 dollars brand hoya . cheap but respectable. you can buy them up to 100 dollars. if you have a dslr, get one that is in line with the value of your lens, me i have the stock canon lens so the hoya was fine. if you spent 1k on your lens maybe another one would be appropriate if you have a point and shoot camera, you can actually use a pair of polarizing sunglasses.. just put them in front of the lens and turn it, you will see the reflections change.. i'm also going to try to do some more photos showing just how cheap my setup is, and that some of the photos i am most proud of was taken by just regular stuff you find around the house.

so, i have been spending a bunch of time on my back, unfortunately not the old fashion way earning money, but the new fashion way, because i threw out my back. Anyway - i have had alot of time to think, one of the things i thought about was expanding some of the things i want to do with my light box. one of the ideas that seems to be working is creating new "floors" to the box to give a different flavor with other photos. My recent photos were done with things found around my house, but i decided to go out and see what else i could find. I went to home depot and got some wood floor samples. they are small blocks that cost a dollar a piece. I put them together and got some clear high gloss poly coat, which went on pretty easy cause the floor didn'ttake it well so basically gravity just made a nice clear coat. Here are some very ruff and dirty shots no touching up or even cropping. Finished shots would have to be cut, the lines between the tiles "erased" using cloning but the basics and first tests are promising. by the way, one of the secrets here is the use of a polarizing filter - the polarizing filter can change where reflections come from, so i can dial down or dial up the watch reflection - or at parts i was getting a hard core white reflection from the side of my lightbox- which would either be photo shopped and cropped out or adjusted with the filter. So, here you go for like 6 to 10 bucks you can get these different setups. - by the way, i first saw TTK doing this with the wood reflection a few years ago. It basically is mimicking a nice poly coated high end watch box. I think it gives a very Rich look to the photos. Please note with these photos - you click once to get the large version, if you click the large version you get a Super Large Version

"what kind of egotistical maniac quotes himself in his own forum signature" -phoband 2008

whenever chief gets up and running with the AR runs i wanted to send my Rubberclad crystal Seconds at 12 and one of the new Casablanca Crazy Domed Crystals. having just experienced the pain of screwing up an asian steelfish, because the bezel was not designed to be removed - i wanted to check in to see if others have yet done those crystal removals. Thanks