jnkay

Yes, the polling makes you vote for both IHS and CHS. Have an asian IHS and a swiss IHS. Both keep good time, but the gmt hands completely stopped working, and take on water like the titanic.

I have two GMT IIc's; one asian and one swiss. The GMT hand on both stopped working shortly after I got them. Otherwise, they work quite well.

Thank you, and good advice re: keeping it away from water. I had water get into the watch twice from simple stuff like washing my hands and spraying some glass cleaner on the crystal. It is very clear to me now that the water came in on the 3:00 side of the crystal. I can't tell you how long it was bothering me that I couldn't figure it out.

I use a watchsmith in the International Jewelry Exchange on US-1 in Aventura. If you go, he's got a booth in the back of the exhange. Seems like many of the vendors utilize him also. He recently repaired and overhauled my wife's day-date. There is also a place called Studio 52 on the 1700 block of 163rd Street in North Miami Beach who was listed in prior posts as rep-friendly.

Damn! I never noticed that my crystal is slightly tilted until I read your post. Very minor, but very unusual too.

One of The Zigmeister's posts said Selita was a crap movement

Meant to say, your second picture. I had handling the gen about two dozen times over the last few months, but without the benefit of a rep for comparison, and this is something that just struck me about the gen. Now, after staring at more pictures it's something that I'm beginning to think I imagined. Next time I handle a gen, I'll look again. Until then, nevermind.

Your top picture does a perfect job of showing another minor flaw that I haven't seen mention of. Look at the gap between the inner edge of the bezel insert and the crystal. Doesn't exist in the reps. I tried (probably not succesfully) to describe it once before, but your picture does it justice.

I'll post the result when I get it.

@John G, I totally get what you are saying. I feel the same way. According to Eurotime'z thread, which I appreciate tremendously, the movement for which I just paid $100 extra might not be genuine. However, I know that's not good enough to substantiate misrepresentation or even incorrect shipment from a dealer. To be sure, I took it to my watchmaker. He says it's genuine based upon a topical inspection. But he wasn't aware that there are copies out there now. He's going to overhaul the movement in a couple weeks when he gets back from vacation, and then he should be able to tell whether there are any discrepencies. One of three things will happen: he'll say it is not genuine based upon some giveaway; or, he'll say it is w/o a doubt genuine; or, he'll say that if it is a copy, it's an exact copy and there's no way he can tell. The way I look at it, I am keeping the watch one way or another, and no matter whether the movement is genuine or not, I want it cleaned and lubed. If it turns out it's a copy movement and the watchmaker is absolutely sure of that, I'll ask for the difference refunded based upon his written findings.

Nice watch, but nicer car. I KNOW that car.

I just had one of those disney "vacations." We were like the Griswalds, trying to see everything in 3 days.

King has this model with the SS bracelet. That bracelet rocks, with it's cool hing-links and the best instant-adjusting clasp I've ever seen. the rep seems to copy this clasp because I could see the buttons on the sides, but hard to tell. Is anyone going to pull the trigger on one of these?

Sorry, i just read this thread now, but the watch fair WAS at King's Jewelers on US-1 in Aventura over Father's Day weekend (makes sense, right?). Like Levinsons, they are a high-end watch dealer. Aventura's a good place for watches, with Torneau, Mayor's, King's down the street, and the International Jewelry Exchange also down the street on US-1. At the exchange, you can find Hublot, Ulyssis Nardin, Paneri, Corum, tons of Rolex. Still, the best watch store I've ever been to is Torneau in Las Vegas. It is a split level store that is literally 20 times bigger than the one in Aventura (it's the self-proclaimed biggest watch store in the world). Vegas in general is watch paradise. That's where I saw my first Glashutte and many other exquisite watches I've not seen anywhere else.

While the quality of the parts and overall reproduction are excellent and precedent setting for a rolex rep, I'm not even a little optimistic that we're in some new era of QC. I love my GMT-ALOT, but it does have many QC issues. I hope my case is an isolated one: mechanical issues/unreliability (swiss eta), one of the hands has scratches on it if you catch the light at the right angle, there is prominent piece of dust on the underside of the crystal, a couple of the screws are screwy (this has been a common observation), and I've had moisture infiltration w/o submerging the watch. These are problems I've never had with any other rep I've ordered, except one (bad movement, and it was also a GMT). Like I said, I hope these are isolated to my watch.

Oh yeah, the most obvious thing: no AR under the rep date cyclops. The folloiwng review was posted on rwi and has side-by-side pictures. http://replica-watch.info/forum/viewtopic....115&t=40456

Here's where I see the differences between the Super Rep GMT II-c and the genuine. Please note that I'm not Super Anal, which means all of the flaws can't bother me all of the time, but some of the flaws can bother me some of the time. Weight. The genuine feels slightly heavier to me. Actually, my gen sub feels a tad heavier too. Not sure where the weight difference would come from. I'd defer to anyone with a scale who can compare them, but I always feel like this rep is a bit lighter. Luminousity. The rep lume just doesn't get torch-like the way the gen lume does. I test them by taking a Surefire 65 Lumen tactical light and pressing the business end of the tactical light against the crystal. About 10 seconds is all it takes to charge either the rep or gen lume for an entire night. The gen will literally light up a dark closet with the lume glow. The rep will not. However, the large hour markers and wide hands of the rep provide enough lume surface area to be easily visible for 5+ hours, and is easier to see in the dark after 5 hours than a gen sub with its thinner lumed hands. Bezel rotation. The rep does match the gen's 24 clicks, and the rep bezel stops decisively at each GMT hour interval. Unlike many of the rep subs and older gmt models, the bezel does not move out of place when accidentally brushing up against something. The quality of the gen bezel rotation is clearly better and more refined. However, one advantage of the rep bezel is that if you like to use it to measure elapsed time, you can set the arrow marker anywhere on the dial. With the gen, you can't do that, as the bezel won't remain stationary between stopping intervals, and wants to move to the next bezel stop position. Bezel finish. Rep finish is exceptional. The gen finish is just slightly shinier though. Other members have pointed out that the numbers engraved in the bezel are a bit thicker than the gen. Crystal setting. Very close, but the rep crystal isn't separated from the bezel insert the way the gen is. It's hard to describe, but there is a difference. You should be able to see the difference in some of the closeups that several members have posted. The height of the crystal above the bezel insert (they are about level with each other) is the same in the rep as the gen. Coronet is there, but slightly misaligned. Not overly visible like some bad fakes. Dial. The rep dial is extremely accurate. I'm not super anal about lettering minutia, but I do tend to notice other differences. Two that are noticeable, albeith faintly, are the boldness of the minute tick marks (bolder in the rep, ever so slightly) and the thickness of the "white gold" rings around the hour markers. Hands. The hands are excellent, and for some reason, hold their lume better than the hour markers. In the end, this is good, because lumed hour markers are useless if you cannot see the position of the hands. The sweep of the second hand is accurate, and the GMT hand moves perfectly in sync with the hour hand. Date. The date fills the date window more completely than in the gen. This is to say that the gen has a bit more white space around the date, and this has a nicer appearence. This might be because the date window is not tall enough to fully encompass the date and still leave a small margin of white space above and below it. Also, the date in my watch often hugs the bottom of the date window and is not centered. Cyclops magnification and placement appear correct. Rehaut. Identical in depth and thickness. Some members have pointed out a lettering symmetry issue with the rep. Crown, guards. I'm not anal about crown guards, but they seem to be substantially correct on the rep, as are the crown dimensions. The quality of the crown/movement interface is not great (i.e. crappy noise when winding or screwing it in as compared to a gen, which is soooooo smooth). Case. Accurate. Even the fine brushing/polishing detail above the crown guards is right. That is, the entire top of the case is brushed while the sides and crown guards are polished, but there is a transition between the brushed and polished areas where the top of the case transitions to crown guards. This is accurate. Bracelet and clasp. Accurate. Includes an easy link, which works very well. Quality Control. Here are my observations about my particular specimen. -lume: evenly applied appearance (although hands are brigher as mentioned earlier) -bezel: tight movement, not sloppy -crown: typical OK quality winding sound and "it's not gonna snap off" feel. -clasp: flip lock is a bit on the loose side (it's OK though), but the spring-locking hook on the inside of the clasp is redundant and keeps the bracelet securely closed even if the flip lock is disengaged. -spring bars: good quality -movement: new, but origin/authenticity uncertain (advertised as swiss). Not adequately lubed. Very accurate when it is running, but for some reason (possibly the lube situation), it will lose 5-10 minutes over night when I'm wearing it to sleep. Theory: I'm an active sleeper, so when I do stay still for a while, the lack of body movement coaxes the unlubed parts to sleep. Bracelet finish: good. This might be one of those "soft metal" watches that The Zigmeister has started seeing fairly recently given the number of tiny scratches I have collected versus those on my gen watches. Just speculation. Engraving inside clasp is excellent. -Fit of bracelet to lugs and case: excellent on 3 sides, but there is a slight gap on the fourth. -Hologram: yes; outdated. Dial: no QC issues -water resistance: poor. For some reason, moisture gets into the case even though I haven't submerged it. The gaskets were all in place and fitting tightly, and the crown was screwed in, so not sure how this could happen. Hope this helps. Let me know if I forgot anything or you think I'm F!?*$%ING blind or something.

Has anyone verified the authenticity of the movement in recently purchased "Swiss eta" reps? I received my Swiss eta version GMT II-c last week, and with all the debate about our dealers possibly giving us Chinese eta copies advertised (and priced) as Swiss, I debated taking my watch to the watchmaker I use for verification. This especially after reading Chris's/Eurotimez post on how to tell the difference, which seemed to indicate mine is Asian. Then the watch made the decision for me when it stopped intermittently and allowed moisture to infiltrate the case. Interesting, since the watch was accurate to within 4 seconds a day until it would stop every third night for 5 or 10minutes, and because I never showered or swam with the watch, and the crown was screwed in tight. So I took the watch in today for a quick exam. It should be noted that watch repair business I use mostly works on high-end watches and does a lot of restoration work, although the guy has seen his share of reps and doesn't discriminate against them. When I questioned the quality of the movement, he assured me it is an eta, and showed me some of the markings and indications (note: he had not dissassembled the movement). When I told him that the Asians are now convincingly counterfitting eta movements, he took pause and said he didn't see anything that would indicate to him it was not a swiss eta barring dissassembly. So, until he gets back from vacation and can dissassemble the thing for overhaul, I still don't feel that I know for sure whether the movement is authentic. I'm also curious as to the quality of counterfit eta movements, and whether they can accommodate authentic eta parts. On the definite plus side, he was seriously impressed with the quality of reproduction and detail that went into the GMT-IIc, not to mention what he thought was a bargain price for all this accuracy and its appearance of quality. It would be interesting to see the results if everyone would verify the authenticity of their recently purchased rep movements. I'll post the final verdict in a couple of weeks when the movement will be dissassembled for overhaul.

Yep. pretty much like that. Grab the left and right sides of the extra tape between your pointer finger and thumb, push down a little with your thumbs to assist the tape with traction, and move your thumbs in concert. Let me know how it works for you.

Put a 2+/- inch square of duct (or electrical) tape on the removable case back. Take up the slack on two sides and twist with a little downward pressure. I have not yet had a rolex rep caseback I couldn't easily open this way. I don't care about the hologram, but they have always stayed intact, printing and all, when I remove the tape.

I've always been able to open them with duct tape

That wouldn't be correct unless you are looking at an older model sub, and I don't know how far back that feature was introduced.

Midlinks are still hollow on the submariner. The next version of the sub, to be released later in '08, is likely to have solid midlinks. It will be the super case with maxi dial and ceramic bezel used on the updated GMT II. That sub will be the full-gold, blue dial version, with two-tone and stainless to follow in '09 and/or '10. Also, the current version you would have seen at the AD is still 40mm. I too have come across AD salespeople who just don't know what they are talking about, and they try to fake it.

I received mine a couple days ago (5 days to US East Coast). I like it better than my gen sub, which I'll probably sell now, and would not have purchased in the first place had there ever been a very good sub rep. This is my new daily wearer. Even the way it stays put right on top of my wrist, thanks to the flatter bottom profile, is superior to the gen sub. I chose the eta version because parts are available if it craps out. Hopefully, it is actually an eta and not a copy.

True. The panorama date model actually has two date wheels side by side that are seamlessly integrated to look like one. I was told by an authorized retailer that this is the reason the date model is more expensive than the chronograph model pictured.