crystalcranium

I agree. Passions in collections are cyclical. I'm warming up to spend over $200 having Ziggy modify my $150 Submariner rep with some genuine upgrades, something I argued strongly against 6 months ago. Give it a break and you'll get your appetites back. I remember what Robert Deniro said about gaining the 60 lbs he needed to put on to play Jake Lamotta late in life. "The first two weeks were fun. After that...it was a job".

There was a guy on The Antique's Roadshow who brought in a 1914 Patek complication pocket watch that was given to his grandfather as an industry tribute gift. The appraiser said it was the most spectacular watch he had ever held in his hands. I don't think the owner had a clue that a Patek Phillipe complication munute repeater was worth a fortune! Unfortunately, there's nothing like this in my family time capsule. Link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/ser...paul/index.html

...actually, it was in my Cheerios!

It sits on it just fine??? Looks like the crown might fuse with the skin on the back of your hand. A little photo advice if you are trying to make a case for something fitting. As Alice Kramden said, never try to fit "two pounds of bologna in a one pound bag..."

The Breitling TT Navs are pretty classic and I don't think they rise to the level of bling. You've got quite an understated, decades old design, 9/10 replica there. A little gold, (OK the subdials are maybe a bit much) is not necessarily hip hop city. Beautiful watch!

Some beautiful suggestions. I vote for the IWC FA Jones in gold. Classic in design yet modern in dimmensions. Upgrade it with a crock strap in honey brown and you have yourself one stunner of a formal watch.

Why doesn't he have a watch strapped tp his ankle????? I wonder if a chronograph adjusted to 5 positions would keep COSC time on someone's leg!

Well said. The member list remains 66% non-financial contributors, dealers exempted. I'd be willing to wager most of us misplace the equvalent of $5 a month.

TJ.......you've got to start leaving well enough alone. You remind me of me!!!! My wife bought me a beautiful 1909 Hamilton Railroad pocket watch on the bay that gained about 30 seconds a day. Any other moron would have been very happy with that performance. This is a 98 year old watch. I couldn't stop fiddling with it and in the course of several days, a watch that had survived almost a century had a broken crystal and a cross-threaded caseback. The eventual service and restoration cost $330. It runs + 5 sec/day crown up and -5 seconds a day dial up. I wind it daily, alternate in each of the two positions every other day....and leave it the hell alone!!!!

Is wear due to dirt accumulation and lack of lubrication the primary source of internal damage?? I would think corrosion due to moisture infiltration would be the most common source of damage.

Dream on. You get some lip service about pre checks and perhaps Josh has a relationship with his shippers that they do some pre shipping inspection but I'm almost certain he DS his watches.

Josh drop ships. His address for returns is hong kong.

...and improperly oiled and dirty watches stop...which equals no more wear!!!!

I believe....yes...but not from the dealers but from the buyers in justification/celebration of how much they have spent. Some of this is pretty classic adolescent hyperbole. "Yeah, but my watch has an extra super special.....etc". We all tend to jump around like the man-apes in the movie 2001 whenever a new watch lands, dancing around it, touching it, rubbing it.....and the suppliers have really hit on a brilliant marketing ploy here. They have increased their costs and technical investment about 5% and in the case of the HBB, doubled the price. I've posted several times, the Cousteau Diver is not unique in it's fidelity of reproduction,...it a very good-excellent rep...but nothing intrinsic in its' quality of materials or manufacture to justify it costing 25% more than other similar rep chronographs. You don't go buy a car with adolescent egerness. Jumping around like a bunch of monkeys either in anticipation of or when a new watch hits the market only lets the seller know he can profit on the desireability factor.

There was lots more about that Cousteau Diver dial to take issue with IF one chooses to call this a "Super Rep". There was sloppy lume and the dial numbers were rough and the wrong thickness and font. Don't get me wrong, its an excellent rep and I also live with the mantra that all reps have flaws but some here are touting the virtues of these new reps as a quantam leap over the previous generation (particularily in reference to dial fidelity) and I see the same old stuff on close examination...at least on this dial.

Just got it??? Had it for a while??? I'm sure Josh would resolve the issue reasonably if the watch is relatively new. The Asian 7750 can usually be adjusted for error within a minute or two but bigger variations than that usually require more than a tap or two of the regulator arm.

I will make one final comment. I just took a look at some close up pics of the dial of the cousteau diver rep vs pics of the genuine in the IWC forum. No one is going to convince me that dial replication is a faithful copy of the genuine. I'll allow some room for the generic font of the asian 7750 date wheel but the marker lume fills are rough and not always within the borders, the numbers on the dial and inner bezel are the wrong font....that dial is a very average replication of the genuine. Not a thing super or 98% range accurate about it.

I wanted to allow some wiggle room for error. My information is based primarily on one thread here that linked to a video of Cartier exeutives documenting the counterfeit trade in China and how it operates. It was very enlightening as to the home grown nature of assembly shops that can produce a thousand watches per week in hundreds if not thousands of basements and back rooms.

Now there's a great idea. It would help the newbies acclimate without asking the trip wire questions that start the lynch mob. "Burn him...Burn him!!!!!!"

I see your point about the level of complexity in the HBB requiring another step in the reproductive state of the art to get it right and it appears they have done an excellent job (well there's that little bezel screw falling out problem). I agree replicating complex genuines faithfully should warrant a higher price tag. So I guess "Super Reps" doesn't mean "Super Accurate Replication" but rather replicas of "Super Complicated Genuines"? I say this because the first tier as you call them were certainly replicated in the 96-98% range of accuracy. I actually did a side by side with my jeweler of my TL Chrono and the genuine and she was blown away...even with an inspection loupe. I still consider that watch a "Super replica"!

Gotta apply for grant funding for that kind of research!!

I think we need to be conservative in our characterization of any "manufacture" in China as factory based. It's pretty tough to get a handle on how any of these watches are produced. There might be some single point production but the prevailing theory is one of very de-centralized production of parts combined with clandestine assembly. There are hundreds of combinations of movements, some purely Swiss but most a combination of Swiss and Asian parts. One thread mentioned no less than dozens of 2892 like variants available to assembly houses, (and yes, I do mean houses, basement and back room based mom and pop operations). An image of a factory operating like a clean production line, with tooling start up costs and a start to finish oversight of a production process is making a big assumption IMO. I know Angus talked about being in communication with "The Factory" but I don't think we should confuse this with our western idea of factory based production.

Second that. The LE 750T might be affordable as a genuine, (around $1000) but it still appeals to me as a rep. It's quite an attention getter, the styling is very retro cool and it has a passionate niche following. If this could be repped for what we have come to accept as an affordable replica, like in the low $200s, I think the desireability would trump the lesser cost effectiveness factor of spending 25% of what the genuine costs. It's not always all about getting replicas of mega expensive watches for 5% of the genuine price. I always fancied myself a little like Dirk Pitt.....um..no..I mean Brad Pitt.

Hey nobody even wants to talk about it here at work either!!! Like my wife says...."What a nerd"

Gee whizz. I'd get a good night's sleep. Like Scarlett said "Tomorrow is another day". We all need a break sometimes. I'd suggest taking some time off from the boards to see if that changes your perspective. It's been helpful to me when my frustrations begin to well.