I am new to collecting replicas. I made my first purchase a few days before I found this site. I ran a search on Google and discovered a site called hotreplica.com. It is a Russian company, and it offered a huge selection of fascinating replicas. I chose a Chronoswiss Pathos Skeleton, and ordered it on April 27th. It arrived today, and it is even more beautiful than it appears in its photo at
( http://www.hotreplica.com/product_info.php...roducts_id=1051 )
There was no need for any personal contact with anyone at hotreplica.com. I ordered on line via credit card, and trusted that it would arrive intact and exactly as ordered. I received several email confirmations and my watch was sent by regular air mail, so I did not have to sign for any package. Shipping and handling was a reasonable $11.00
A few days after ordering it, I discovered this forum, and noted several comments on hotreplica.com here that were strongly negative. None of those comments, however, were from people who had actually purchased a watch from hotreplica.com. Based on my own experience, I would recommend this dealer, primarily for its vast selection and easy shipping method.
I spent a great deal of time carefully reading the posts here, and noted constant references to Joshua Tan. I went to Joshua’s web site, and photo album and found two more watches I wanted to buy. He was extremely helpful, and within a few hours, I had purchased a replica of a Vacheron Constantin Malte Perpetual Calendar:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v646/jos...nt=DSC_0109.jpg )
plus a replica of a Chronoswiss Perpetual Calendar:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v646/jos...nt=DSC_0171.jpg
Joshua shipped the Chronoswiss replica out of Singapore via EMS and it arrived yesterday. It is every bit as beautiful as it is in this photograph.
He shipped the Vacheron Constantine from China on the same day, also via EMS. It has not as yet arrived.
EMS, whose packages are delivered in the US by the US Postal Service, requires a signature, which for me, anyway, creates a potential problem, since I travel a lot. In spite of that issue, I am looking forward to eventually purchasing other watches from Joshua – he is a treasure. However I will also keep an eye on hotreplica.com as well – primarily because of its large, ever-changing selection, and its simple, no-signature required shipping method.
Both EMS and regular air mail seem to take about the same amount of time from Asia or Russia to the US – a couple of weeks. EMS offers a tracking service, and Joshua promptly provide numbers, but neither the EMS Singapore website or the EMS Chinese website were able to track my parcels for me.