Hari Seldon

That would be awesome, however, I think the Bently is the author's personal watch. It is shown in the thread where he pictures all his watches.

I am in on the group buy if it's the same version Sql_pl posted about (amazing). The prices mentioned already sound good.

Wow, after all this time I never knew you did this much to make sure we get the best replicas. Thanks a lot TTK, I will certainly be buying something from you in the (near I hope) future!

Damn, why do I actually have to work for a living. If the production gets bumped to 20 pcs., and it's still $50, I'll take one. Two if I am allowed.

I also bought one from Precious Time. It looks great. A hell of a lot better than the one in Tag's picture. I only have wrist-shot's, but here goes:

Other than my opinion that Seiko is one of the better watches in terms of value, I can say I have had no problem buying from sellers in Singapore. I have not gotten anything from the guy in the eBay link earlier in the thread, but I have bought four Seikos from eBay seller "pokemonyu" also in Singapore and have never had a custom problem. They aren't replica's so why should customs care?

Yes, I haven't seen it in a while, but some of those pictures on the page that was linked in the first post are from the movie Daylight I think. I don't actually know about the watch Jason Statham is wearing, I remember at the beginning of "Tthe Transporter" the Panerai he has on has an alarm which I imagine was added through foley editing. I am guesing that was what movie the picture is taken from, but I only saw it once and am not sure.

It's the super limited 196 Daylight alarm model. (by the way, where do you think the name "Daylight" in the Panerai line came from?)

What color genuine dial are you getting? I was able to handle (briefly) a genuine yellow dial model the other day. I was also surprised how light it was for being so large.

I don't believe I have used the word "dumbass" in about a decade, but I do believe that mods don't often provide the level of return for what they cost. Now I am not talking about putting genuine parts on a vintage MBW or other higher quality parts than what are originally on the watch, that is probably worthwile. But stuff like "crystal reallignment," "water testing," blowing dust off the dial, messing around with the bezel, etc. Unless it's a package deal for about twenty bucks it's not going to be worth it. In Namor's case, and he sad he was a newbie so that obviously factored into it, he could have taken the extra $400 and bought every tool needed to do the mods himself. Wat does Joe charge for labor then? Let's be generous and say it would take four hours to do all the mods that were claimed on that watch, and parts cost about $50, which seems high. His labor then comes out to like almost eighty bucks an hour. If you want to spend that kind of money, go ahead, but I will continnue to think it's silly. Okay, for some reason I hadn't gotten that you had sent the watch to Palpatine. In that case I apologize for whatever paragraph it was that dealt with returning the watch. You are right that I brought my own personal opinion about mods into the discussion and that was not really what it was about, although the situation does present itself for a discussion about that. Even if Joe had done every mod he said he would have and done them perfectly I don't think it would have turned that watch into a $600 item.

Thanks a lot for that link! I have only been able to purchase the foil two cloth packs locally and have been wanting to get the six count tin. I imagine it makes a handy container to store them in.

This thread is BS in my opinion. Now, let me say that I will never send a watch to somebody for mods. Servicing the movement certainly, but any mods I don't feel comfortable doing myself I just say, "A rep is a rep." I am not going to let anybody else start removing steel from my watch under any circumstances. You can't glue it back on if they mess up. Same thing for any work that could cause scratches. They can't be fixed if they are anything more than superficial. With that being said, the picture of the sub posted on the first page is fine for a rep. The crystal is aligned perfectly. The cyclops obviously was glued on crooked from the factory, but that can't be fixed by realigning the crystal. It's orientation will be wrong regardless. Can Joe remove and reglue the cyclops correctly? If so that is the mod that should have been done. However, this guy is complaining about paying for a crystal reallignment and he got it perfectly. The scratches around the bezel? I have totally ruined one watch trying to get the bezel off. Totally gouged the case almost the entire way around the crystal. It's okay, it was an old Invicta I was using to practice removing bezels so I wouldn't mess up my nicer items. However I now realize it is very hard to get these bezels off. There is a way I discovered (actually another forum member here told me it in a thread, you can find it pretty easily) that allows you to do it with very little damage, but it still occurs sometimes. The method in which some of the reps attach the bezel was not designed to be removed like a genuine Rolex is. The "lip" (for lack of a better term) that the retaining wire snaps under is angled so the bezel can be attached but then not removed. You have to force it to do something it is designed not to when you remove the bezel. Last but not least, the bracelet. I don't know for sure what cause that slight dimple where the three pieces are connected to make one link. I have the same thing on my one sub rep, I imagine it is not completely uncommon for the hollow mid-link bracelets. I would bet the three pieces used to construct the link are not manufactured with the same degree of precision that genuine Rolex parts are. Both of the pictures show dimpling where the pins attach the pieces together so I would guess the pieces had slightly too much material to fit correctly so when they were forced together the pieces dimpled outward. Now here is the problem. If this guy paid one of our trusted dealers the going rate for this watch, $180-220 I would say, and showed us these problems I think many of us would say to get over it. It's a great watch for that price. Personally I would love to have almost spot on date magnification like that on my sub. I could live with the cyclops being slightly crooked. Won't notice it on my wrist. But the watch cost $600 from what was posted and the additional cost appears to have been paid to have Joe modify the watch and run it through some additional tests. I would never have paid that, in fact I would have laughed at the idea, but if this guy is willing to pay Joe three times the price of the watch for an item that with the best possible outcome might make the watch 5-10% closer to the genuine article more power to him. Personally, it sounds to me like his expectations were too high. No amount of modification is going to make these watches identical to the genuine article if one scrutinizes it enough. Look at the pictures provided by the owner. Think of how close to your face you would have to hold it to get the same view. I don't think there is any rep that is not going to reveal some flaw when you are looking that hard to find it. I must also express my opinion that this guy handled the situation about as bad as he could. We haven't heard from Joe yet, but it sounds like he contacted him about it and Joe asked him to return the watch so he could assess the situation. The owner refused to do so citing customs worries or some other cop-out. Did he seriously expect Joe to refund him money without seeing the problem himself? Or somehow fix the watch magically while it remained in the owner's possession? As to using Tommy/Palpatine as a third party, he says Joe agreed to this [i quote] "But palpatine never saw any money or parts..." Did Palpatine ever see the watch either? It's the same silly idea. If the guy expects Joe to send Palpatine money or parts without either of them seeing the watch it's no more help to Joe than if Palp was never involved. I know for damn sure nobody I have ever bought a good or service from refunded me money or fixed some problem until I returned the item. I would love to see this guy go to the store to exchange or return something and tell them he doesn't want to return the original item first. See how far that gets. Why should Joe do any different? Okay, my post probably make no sense to you at this point, but my main idea is that the watch is fine for a rep of the quality we expect but not for $600. It seems to me the guy missed the original point of RWG. Taking a $200 watch and fiddling around with it for a while is never going to turn it in to a $600 watch. I don't see this guy's actions as any more intelligent than a bestswiss.com customer. This thread is a great example of what not to do, but the only guy that should be blamed is the one that wrote the very first post.

Is that because he made the pictures disappear?

five for me so that makes 1102

Thanks a lot. I am going to try the electrical tape method later on. That sounds like just the thing to keep from damaging the case.

By the way, the two invicta's use the same bezel assembly as the TW you described. It seems like I have encountered at least three methods of constructing a unidirectional rotating bezel. There is the way you described, the Rolex way (see here) and a third where there is a hole drilled somewhere in the case under the bezel with a small pin placed in the hole on a spring. This pin contacts the "teeth" on the bottom of the bezel itself. The method on the TW case seems to be pretty good as the bezels on the Invictas I pretty much ruined have good bezels with nice loud clicks that are impossible to rotate clockwise. Or at least not possible for me and I am fairly strong. The pin in the hole method is used on my LV rep, and I have some "Alpha" watches, cheap Chinese made watches using rep parts but with different dials, that have the same bezel assembly method and the bezels click weakly while turning and can be turned backward without much force. I also don't understand why replicas do not use the same method Rolex does, unless it is simply that the machining needed is too precise as the guy that wrote the guide I linked seems to imply. You said you couldn't get the OEM bezel to work, does that means you have an OEM assembly with bezel, washer, and spring? I was hoping if one purchased all three parts it would fit our reps. Sounds like that is not the case. Probably good thing for me anyway as I am sure they cost a pretty penny.

Can I ask how you removed the bezel without causing major damage to the case? I really want to remove the bezel on my LV rep to polish around the case unobstructed but I am afraid of trying to remove the bezel. I practiced on a couple beater Invicta's and caused HUGE gouges in the case working off the bezels. Even though they cost more than my rep, I can't bring myself to try it on the replica if I am going to cause the same damage.

That brass colored movement is a loose pack ETA, swiss manufactured parts assembled in Asia. The nickel finished movement is a swiss pack ETA movement, same parts, nickel plated and assembled in Switzerland. As you can see the nickel finished movement has some decoration to make it resemble the Rolex Caliber 3135 movement in the Submariner, Sea-Dweller, Datejust, and Yacht-Master. ETA nickel movement: Rolex 3135 Both the brass colored ETA movement or the nickel plated movement should be fine, if the price is the same get the nickel one as it looks nicer I think. By the way, both the Rolex and ETA movements are made of brass and then electroplated with nickel. Unless one or the other has changed their process in the last couple years that is.

That is why I said there is no such thing as a natural sapphire used for watch crystals. And it would hardly be simply "blurry" if so. Sapphire doesn't occur anywhere near clear in nature. At best it can be "marbled" (thee is a better term than that but I can't recall it) with flecks of clear and color throughout, usually green from what I understand for this type. But the expense of using a natural sapphire the size needed for watch crystals would be silly long before the composition of the crystal would matter. As previous posters have mentioned, the only real DIY way to be sure is try to scratch the crystal with something you know is softer than sapphire (pretty much any household metals, however some carbon blades are very, very hard). But if it is mineral as you seem to think it might be, than your crystal is scratched and you will never see the watch again without your eyes going right to the scratch (okay, that is my opinion due to personal experience). It's up to you, but I wouldn't do it. Having a mineral crystal is not the end of the world but I can understand how it stinks if you were told it was sapphire.

Did the listing for the watch you bought say "synthetic sapphire" or just sapphire crystal?. I fear the former terms is a way that dealers are using to describe mineral crystal. If it's sapphire just say "sapphire." There is no such thing as a natural sapphire used for watch crystals so no differentiation is needed. With that being said, there have been a couple methods described here or at the old RWG about how to tell your crystal. Some say if you hold a sapphire crystal against your skin it will feel cooler than mineral due to conductivity differences or you can drop a little bit of water on the crystal and if it's sapphire it will bead and on mineral it will just stay in one puddle. I don't know if any of these things work or not. I've never tried them. Personally, if it says "synthetic sapphire" I am going to presume it means mineral until the dealers start using the same terms accross the board, which will probably never happen. Plus, the swiss case thing is nonsense. What does it mean? You know the case was not made in Switzerland. I would be surprised if real Panerai cases were made in Switzerland. Why do so? It's cheaper and still meets the Swiss regulations for "Swiss Made" to do as much production as can be outside of Switzerland where costs are reduced. Only 50% of the COST of a watch must be made in Switzerland to qualify. If you can reduce the cost of everything except the movement for instance to less than 50% of the total then there you go. "Swiss made" watch, made in asia by asians mostly. This is probably not done by the old respected Swiss watchmakers, but I bet Panerai does it.

Does it mean the top five bidders get one? Or does the last guy bid for all five and get all of them at that price per piece as there is a quantity choice when you place the bid? I am sure it makes sense somehow but it is not very intuitive.

I guess I don't know as much about Rolex as everybody else, but haven't they always had models like this as special order pieces? Maybe not the same exact models pictured but one can always order jeweled bezels, rare dials like meteorite or sodalite, etc. Obviously there is no supporting text with these pictures but I don't expect Rolex is saying these are the models that are going to be in every AD's window. So, since we all know Rolex doesn't have any "new" models to display at Basel, which is the shows purpose for many other watchmakers in the industry, they show their skill and breadth at modifying their current line with accessories. If there had been something new, like fitting a date to the Daytona or something like the suggested alarm on the GMT master (cool idea) I would expect them to display that. Isn't the fact that Rolex has the same line year after year with only small changes while the rest of the watchmaking world handles the innovation something that certain Rolex collectors admire?

Great post PT. Very informative.

The URL was there in a thread, I can't see it now. In any case, I agree, great new forum! I never posted much on the old RWG, hopefully that will change now as I bought my first rep last weekend (after six months of "doing my homework"). Look for me in dealer review soon! And to all the dealers who entertained emails for me about pricing and never saw a purchase, I think this is one of many to come!! "Hari Seldon"