crystalcranium

Ziggy, doesnt the genuine looking regulator suggest this is a new movement...or do you think this is just another add on to the usual 7750 base? If it is, that in itself would be an improvement.

Love that Monster

Tom...cut your losses while you can...TTK will slice you to ribbons!!!!!

What do they say around here when this crap comes up sprinkled with testosterone..."Pass the popcorn!"

Wow...gorgeous...a little rich for my replica budget though...my MBW 1665 got a vintage lume from Ziggy, gen crown, gen crystal, gne insert, lug hole drilling...but a gen bracelet in the upper hundreds (and the gen movement...a great fantasy but...too much money and case modification) is just too much for me ona replica. I am envious though...what a beautiful watch.

Same here...it was less than $150 with delivery and it gets "wows!" when I wear it.

PVD is golding with titanium nitride...no actual gold. Copper plating will tarnish to green in short order. If your watch doesn't look like the copper water pipes in your house after a few days...it's probably plated with gold. I've said this many time in reference to gold plating on reps...they put just enough gold on them so they will look gold long enough to put enough time between the sale and the plating failure to give the buyer no recourse. Even the best domestic plating services state 5-7 micron plating is special and very heavy. 1-2 microns is more the standard for replate. I doubt most reps have more than a micron of electroplating. Wrapped claims are bogus...true wrap is an expensive process of bonding 10K gold to brass and plating to 10 microns over that for a 20 year gold finish...can you see the Chinese doing this or doing quick dipping in electroplate and making exaggerated claims to sell stuff with no guarantees on the other side of the world?

Does anyone have any information on what looks like a new generation of Asian 7750's out there and if they have improved reliability??? The newer reps have 7750's with blued screws, cleaner looking movements, lights out accurate engraved rotors that are often impressively decorated, and machined bridges with very good cloud patterns. I wonder if this is all window dressing but if the mechanical basics of an Asian 7750 are sound and cleanliness and oiling are all that separate them from being excellent performers, then maybe beauty isn't just skin deep on these new arrivals. I know my 7750 in my Navitimer is cosmetically very impressive...much more so than 7750 powered chrono movements I bought 2 years ago.

Why not you ask???? Because these are watches made in the black with clandestine parts sourced from dozens of "suppliers"...no QC...no responsibility for production quality... My replica experience changed 2 years ago viewing the infamous video of the Cartier executive touring the "assembly shop" of a replica supplier. It was a back room in a house with crying babies in the front hidden by a drawn curtain in the doorway. It didn't exactly look like Breuget manufacture back there. This is where replica production happens, in hundreds if not thousands of these little "mom and pop" operations. To expect consistancy and quality out of such a production scenario is unrealistic in fact, I'm surprised at the quality we DO get. Buy a positively reviewed watch from a reputable dealer with the expectation you are getting a base from which to start. A Ziggyfied Asian 7750, re-lumed watch is going to run you close to $750 total but you will have a quality timepiece. Out of the box performance with replicas is rarely perfect.

Haven't we been through this???? Don't buy the hype...Like Andrew said...listen to the buyer and collector experience. Unbridled enthusiasm abounds here...people buy stuff sight unseen...

Gross...what the hell is Rolex thinking?

$345 with shipping...2836 movement...looks like good coverage on the endlink gold cener...

Got the watch and it's beautiful, well proportioned, thick cased and on a beautiful aged deployant strap. Gained 4 seconds day one on the wrist. I agree, the rest of his stuff looks a bit weird especially the AM, which is promenently advertised in IW this month, is butt ugly but the Pureal is a beautiful watch.

I agree and the genuine market is primarily a luxury market. If this were the 1950's and China was seriously undercutting Hamilton or GP for the $50 decent mechanical watch that most people could afford...and that they were selling by the hundreds of thousands...then they might be a major player like the Japanese were in the 1970's. But who buys a $75 Girard Peregeaux today....no body because GP, Omega, Breitling, IWC, etc do not make watches for the masses. Somewhere along the way in recovering from the quartz death blow, these companies found they could survive just fine selling 200 $250,000 watches rather than selling 200,000 $250 watches. Reps do not seriously impact on the community who is going to buy these watches. Someone who has enough disposable cash to consider spending 3,5,10K for a wristwatch is not going to take a hike to Canal Street. For the most part almost exclusively, reps are purchased by individuals who haven't a snowball's chance in hell of affording a genuine in the luxury market.

I agree...there just isnt the wear and tear issue in a mechanical watch that there is in other mechanical devices...certainly not an automobile. Zigs has commented on this in the past and the rate limiting step with Asian movements is availability of spare parts to replace damaged ones and damage often is the result of misuse...not wear. Oil drying is time dependent running or not. I have a 100 year old Hamilton pocket watch that runs +- 10 sec/day since it was serviced. There is no reason a routinely serviced mechanical watch cannot last for decades and decades, Asian 21j's included...unless you drop one and break the balance wheel staff....then you're SOL...but you can buy a new one for $12 at clockspares.com

I agree...this is as close as any rep comes to having intrinsic quality built in. The driving force behind the replica industry in China is visual reproduction fidelity. Reproducing movement details when they can't be seen is a major step in the direction we as crazy rep collectors love.

Richard Lange and Doxa 750T

I think if modding is becoming a significantly supported service mediated by communication available through this forum, then modders should be regulated and scrutinized the same way collectors have been scrutinized here. Let the buyer beware in the interim. I applaud Ziggy calling attention to shoddy workmanship in the modification realm...it's telling it like it is and like the "little white lies" thread, it should be a watershed event at RWG

Let me tell you what this man, this valuable resourse did for me over the past 2 weeks. I bought a Breitling Navitimer that had the dreaded backwards B on the chrono second hand. I emailed the dealer who sent me a replacement and shipped both off to Ziggy for the swap. Zig informed me the tube on the replacement second hand was too short as it was a replacement ahand for the shallow, standard 12,6,9 layout and not the geared up tri-compax setup on this watch. I informed the dealer of this (who has dropped out of sight) but he was out of options. Ziggy further took the watch apart to see if a replacement gear/post assembly might work with the hand. No avail. He then removed the tube from the defective second hand and attached it to the second hand with the correct B and voila, the watch is perfect and beautiful. The price....well I won't divulge it here but with the time invested, you would think >$100...nope...>$50...nope...I'll say no more. The fact that this man brings his incredible skill to the replica watch world is remarkable. I'ts like we have Rembrandt doing our family portraits.

Isn't the difference in your hands amazing between a rep and a genuine? My jeweler was taught, as an AD for Rolex, how to spot fakes, not visually, but by handling them. Like slamming the car door and kicking the tires at the 1950s cardealer, the best test for quality is a solid and smooth experience in touching the product.

Please stay away from this ticking time bomb!!! About a year ago, a group buy when this thing first came out was something of a disaster with lots and lots of failures. The moving of a constantly moving hand in this particular movement is historically problematic.

My point exactly in the original thread. This test in no way validates anything other than this single watch. There is no QC in replicas...no factory assembly line...no replica to replica dependability in anything other than a certain level of consistant reproduction fidelity.

There was a post several months ago about a protocol to modify the case that did not involve milling the inside on a metal lathe. Someone took a file and patiently and I suppose evenly filed the inside of the case to depth to accept a genuine movement. Ziggy commented in that thread that the only way he knew to modify a case in such a fashion was on a lathe which he does not have so my guess is that this case came to him ready to accept the genuine movement and had already been modified by the owner.

Yeah I agree. I hope his lack of knowlege of a "gold fill" which is electroplating over 10K bonded gold over brass doesn't translate to a comprable lack of knowlege of the plating process. 10 microns is pretty hefty...probably a 10-15 year plating in daily use and with the way I rotate watches...this will be a grandchild hand me down.

I agree that the other <$1000 watches in their collection are a little weird in design and not my cup of tea but this one had my wife exclaiming "That's gorgeous!" so... Each watch is regulated prior to shipping with a regulation print out and certificate, wooden box, 2 additional straps in caramel brown and black with a deployant clasp all for $655. I ordered one for myself for Christmas! I wont be able to open it till Xmas so I'll report then. This was a LE run with only 100 pieces in the riginal run and I got # 92.