shimside11

@eddhead I agree that Rolex uses price manipulation, very skillfully at that. I'm ok with that because it is their product and they can charge what they want for it. They should also be able to set the retail price of the product for those dealers with whom they have a contract (as they are representatives of the mfgr.). Now, grey market or any resale, all bets are off. Sell it for what you want since it is now private property. My point is that when you get in bed with the government and they start setting prices for the manufacturer of goods, you have to be very careful (there is a whole other school of thought for public monopolies, industry-wide price fixing, etc. which one could debate for days). If you [censored] off the invisible hand, it might slap you. I'd like to get your take on how the MSRP should be set and if it should be held to by the retailer. Should they be able to set any price they please as long as the supplier gets what they ask for the goods? BTW, I see this as good friendly debate, no hostilities, I figure that I may learn something. Anyone, jump right in, I don't see this as a private discussion.

Anyone who would dispute Rolex's right to sell a product for what the market will bear does not understand the fundamentals of capitalism. Rolex does not have a monopoly on watches. (Do they know that you can get a watch that actually tells accurate time for 5.00usd at Walmart, with the same functions as a datejust?) Anything approaching price manipulation in luxury goods by the government should be laughed at in todays economy. If you want to see a vision of the slippery slope created by artificial pricing, read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or just take a look at the Soviet experiment. I would hate to see the day when a company cannot make a reasonably good product, mark it up so much that it defies any logic, and then sell it to rich, greedy people for what they are willing to pay. When that day comes we are surely in for a Randian nightmare.

I work out with a quartz chronograph so I can time intervals between sets. Working out with autos makes me a little nervous. But I guess it depends on the workout. With free weights I'm more comfortable with a watch that can get beat up a little and it won't matter.

I tried on a gen 120 on thursday at Torneau. Great watch. It fits very well with my smaller wrist. I also tried the 111 and it just doesn't quite work. This watch is amazing. It's a 40mm blue dial, date, with SS bracelet which is very well done. Has anyone got Josh's version? I know they're not really popular, but if anyone has tried on the real one you know what I mean.

I spent the last few days in Las Vegas walking around while my wife was in a seminar. Here's a little report, hopefully it won't be too fragmented. First of all, I have never seen so many damned Submariners in one place before. Real, fake, lots of SS and two-tone. I saw five just between the elevator on my floor and the front door on the strip. Subs at the pool, at dinner. I even talked to a guy at dinner with us one night about his (20 yr old gen). Lots of Omegas too. Also, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Movado Museum watch. Moving on, some of the places I visited...Horologio at the Venetian (where we stayed), various Rolex dealers, Cartier at the Wynn, also a high end jewler at the Wynn that had a great selection of PP, AP, VC, etc., Rolex dealer at MGM, and of course Tourneau at the Forum shops at Caesers. Various other jewelers with stuff like Richard Mille, Harry Winston, etc. I tried on a LOT of watches, unscrewed the crown, wound them, played w/ the bracelet, etc. Some of the more memorable were, AP Royal Oak, IWC Ingenieur and Portugese, VC Overseas, Seadweller, SS Sub date and no date, Daytona, Panerai 120 blue dial, 111, Breitling Navitimers, (didn't dare ask to try the Pateks, a bit out of my range), Planet Ocean small and large sizes, Omega SMPs, Omega Aqua Terra, and Cartier Santos (various). Now I'm totally confused about my next rep. I will be spending all of the mortgage payments for the next three months on reps....arrrrg. My favourites were the Overseas, Royal Oak, and if you can believe it, the Cartier Santos Dumont (I know, but it just sat so well on the wrist). If the rep looks and feels anywhere near the Overseas, I definitely need to get that. What an amazing watch. Also I fell deeply in love with the Pam 120 w/ the ss bracelet (40mm). I was very surprised to find that I liked the IWC Ingenieur the least. It's very thick for its bracelet. That was one of the reps I had been looking at, but the gen is so off balance I could never wear it. The Pam 120 is just as thick but the whole presentation with the bracelet is so wearable and it just melts into the wrist. Lastly, I saw the Leopard Daytona in a display case. Never saw that live before. It is the most butt ugly watch I have ever seen. It looks like something you would see in WalMart that you would buy for your teenage daughter. Yeah, all the bling is real, but it's not impressive (at least not in a good way). Hans Wilsdorf is rolling in his grave...what the hell were they thinking? Well, that's my experience. Got some interesting stories about salespeople from it as well. I'll share those in another post.

"...the very water was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was" Yeah, I do that all the time now. Everything that looks like Guinness has about ten different meanings. Thanks to Mr. Joyce I can never look at that word the same again. Sorry for the hijack, More to the point - I agree that we know way too much about this stuff. Chris hit it right on the head. We know alot more about the vagaries of this sport than most of the employees at the ADs and we are confused when we realize that it's only a job for most of them. Watchmakers...sure, they'll know because that is what they do. But sales clerks are at the top of their game to just know the names of the different models in the brands, much less the proper hand stack of a pepsi GMT or the dial spacing of a Speedy pro. BTW, we all must take care not to bore civillians with all this stuff. I've got many a glassy-eyed response when I wax poetic about the fine points of a 3135 movement.

...been waiting for that...you can't have a post with this title and not have this response. it's one of the classic posts of all time. Is it archived on this forum?

A few ideas: Look for automatic or mechanical movements in a lot on ebay. Sometimes they are old ones that don't work, that they sell for parts to other watch makers. If you just want to see how they work and familiarize yourself, this would probably be the most productive. Alpha watches (ebay again) are usually pretty cheap. They are basically reps without the trademark infringement. This would be a safer bet than getting cheap silix reps through customs. This is good for experience w/ cases, dials, hands, etc. Also, if you have a local watch repair place nearby that has been in business for sometime, they may be good for a few old pin lever movements, old timex, bulova, croton, etc. I've cleaned out a couple of local guys of all their old rubbish, which they gave me at no charge, and they applauded my new-found interest. (Keep in mind that pin levers were not designed to be serviced, so alot of them won't go back together.) Pocket watch movements are bigger and easier to manipulate, if you can score some of them. Lastly, for what it's worth, the book "Practical Watch Repairing" by Donald de Carle, might help with the learning curve. It's rather dated, but a great resource. Good luck. Keep us posted with stories and pics.

My abay/aspire sub got some astonished looks at my local AD. These things are better than we give them credit for.

Insightful and troubling observation. This pursuit lends itself to paranoia at times. I believe that the only thing to do is get a gen. My wife won't let me do it until we finish furnishing the house. I'm squirreling away bits of some of the larger commission checks so it won't be too obvious. BTW, you might want to crack open the caseback on your gen...are you sure it's real...they're everywhere you know...they sneak in at night and replace the gens with....

By-Tor! I hope you're posting. I'd love you're opinion.

Just cruising through the regular forums/fora, I found this pic. It seems a bit off for a gen. I'm hoping the guy didn't get taken - sold the Daytona, new baby etc. Any expert opinions? I've compared mine to some gens close up. This looks alot like my rep (pearl, coronet @6). I hope I'm wrong. What do you think? newsub

PM John Holbrook. He lives in Ohio. That would be something I'd like to see. I've followed his reviews and got a ton of information from them. His rolex reference site is largely responsible for my online interest in watches. He's a contributing writer for a few esteemed watch magazines. He's one of my horological heros. That said, I was just daydreaming about him at a gathering of rep fans. I think that he would be amazed and horrified at the quality of some of this stuff. On second thought....lets just keep this among friends...

Expensive enough to be impressed, but not expensive enough to think that you're a fool. You really can't lose with nice reps

Very good point. Most of that extra 4500 is for the name. It's nice to have the option of paying quite a bit less for the name if you can get it.

Let me approach this from an entirely different mindset. You can take it or leave it... Start buying whatever you fancy. Reps of 5k to 500k watches. Tell everybody that you collect reps. Not the cheap ones, mind you, but the latest state of the art counterfeits. This whole area of interest is really less than ten years old. When you get a very well made swiss 7750 Daytona, tell them what you've got, pass it around, and be the envy of your peers. It's a very clever thing to be into for a couple of reasons. First, it's a bit underground and subversive. Not everybody can source top quality replicas, and you can get the best. If you're otherwise fairly conventional, this will introduce a small amount of danger into your life. Second, sticking it to the staid, overpriced, self-important Swiss companies with no apologies. Gives you a bit of the iconoclast flavour. Now, I know this is like a large woman coming to grips with her weight, just forget the stigma, be proud of it, dress to it, and get a confident and sexy attitude. There are some damn sexy big girls out there, most with confident, in-your-face attitudes. Not everybody can pull it off. If everyone you know is wearing an expensive gen, you've got to play the "rep as real" game, which is great fun in itself - just a whole different set of rules. But if you have the advantage of a sane, middle class peer group, as most of us do, give this a try. If you're up to the challenge, post the results. Should make for some interesting discussion.

I normally just keep the chrono hand at 12 and let the running seconds do its job. I use the chrono alot though, timing steaks, how long to drive from here to there, timing appointments w/ clients, etc. Yeah, it's a toy and it's still novel. I would be careful with the asian 7750 though. It's brobably best to use it only in an emergency (if it's possible to have a chrono emergency ).

thanks, bob. one of my favourites.

The higher-end brands do a pretty good job of keeping the prices where they want them, including the profit margins for their dealers. If Rolex hears about one of their dealers offering discounts, the AD is in danger of getting the dealership pulled. The thing that kills me is some of the lower brands like Invicta will inflate the retail so high that it's a wonder they keep any retail dealers at all. I saw a Speedway (Daytona clone) at my AD for 300.00. He was prepared to give me 15% off. I ended up getting it from an authorized dealer online for 130.00. Same thing for an Accutron Gemini chrono, 1200.00 at the dealer, 580.00 online. To Pugwash's point, there really is alot of overhead for a bricks and mortar shop, and the manufacturers that ignore it in their wholesale pricing do so at their peril. The more exclusive companies really protect the image very well by keeping a close watch on what price you can get ahold of their product. Omega is trying to dig themselves out of neglecting that for several years (along with over-extending and diluting the product line). Must...protect the...brand identity...arrrgh...

It seems that alot of the price paid is for the intangible. Much of these companies stock in trade is the name and what it has come to represent. If you look at what it takes to "manufacture" the image, which includes keeping prices high, then what looks like super inflated prices is more understandable. While getting into the whole watch thing, I had to abandon some strongly held beliefs which included the idea that prices reflected the worth of the goods ( including all the econ 101 stuff like value added, economies of scale, etc.). I've come to the conclusion that half of the price issue is keeping out the great unwashed. Even if the item isn't really great, it's percieved worth is greater if it's priced out of reach of 95% of the people. "Sure, it might be crap, but YOU can't afford it, can you" either really pisses people off or makes them go out of their minds aspiring for it because of what it represents. Years ago, I read in Fourtune magazine that a guy bought a rundown fleabag hotel in New York, did very minor repairs, stocked the place with old rotting European furniture and art, then jacked up the room rates by 1000% and marketed it as "old world elegance". What was a losing property beame one of the hottest destinations virtually overnight. Bottom line...it will cost you about 50,000usd to join the Patek or VC country club...or you can get the rep. I just love this place.

After looking closer, something seems off. The bracelet looks like a speedy bracelet, but not quite right. The price that it ended up at is too low for an automatic seamaster, but too high for a rep. There are no buttons on the sides of the clasp. I'm not really an Omega expert, but it just seems a little wierd. That HE valve is right where is should be, which is very rare for a rep. Maybe it's a frankenwatch. There are way too many seamaster models out there which makes it hard to keep track. Anybody else want to speculate, or maybe somebody has an educated opinion.

HE valve is in the right place. Back and clasp look good.

I've had mine (ETA from abay/aspire) for a year and it keeps great time. It really is a decent quality watch which is very comparable to alot of other lower end autos. I don't forsee any problems as long as I don't neglect it. Visually, it compares well to the gen (given all the usually gripes that we have). I've got no problem wearing it into any situation...well, except swimming.

I've had a couple of comments on the SS Sub. One was "that's my favourite Rolex" and the other was "is that the 'submareeener' or the other one?" (you mean the seadweller?...yeah, thats it...). There really isn't any reason to suspect it's not real. Real Acura, real Allen Edmonds shoes, decent suits, ties, etc. It's all part of the package. Even though I'm not really high-end, the overall presentation is one that doesn't look out of place with a 5k watch. Now, if I had a rep of a 50,000 Vacheron or Patek, then it would seem a little suspect.

I had that problem on a Silix bond sub. I just took off the hands, bent them a bit and re-seated them. It's been fine ever since (6 months ago). I did have things like hand removers, tweezers, rodico, pegwood etc. and the watch only cost 60USD, but was a great excuse to get into the case and do something productive. That was my first real surgery on a watch and it was quite satisfying. I have since re-lumed the thing with a bit of oil paint added for vintage effect. If you are inclined to that kind of thing, I'd recommend doing it yourself....well...maybe not on that watch. I'd hate to scratch or lose something. I guess the bottom line is, if you are good with your hands, and a bit adventurous, it's a quick fix which isn't too hard to do.