crystalcranium

I can understand your reaction to posts that are very heated and profane. I wouldn't be exactly ready to own up to culpability under those circunstances either.

All I think we're looking for here is an admission you made a mistake in how you marketed this watch. You are defending to the nth degree your reasons for doing this and that. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy????? I can't see how you can possibly defend the decision to represent this watch the way you did no matter how complicated the rationalizations.

Translation: "I did the best I could.....I made some bad decisions....If you think it's so easy you try it....F all of you!" I don't know if that qualifies as an honest discussion of the facts of the watch in question but it sounds like that's about as close as we're going to get.

That's pretty close to an admission of the pressures and risk you are under as a dealer and I can appreciate that but Andrew, this movement might be known in China as the ETA 2892 clone, but you are selling to a world wide market for whom ETA 2892 means what you well know it means. It sounds like, between the lines, you are saying, "We took enormous risk getting this to the community and we screwed up cutting corners with the movement because of the pressure we were under." I just wish you would come out and say exactly that. The thread is all about you right Corgi?????

Thanks for speaking up Andrew. I asked earlier in the thread if increasing pressures from IP infringement and shippers might be behind some of the price increases. Movement scarcity also makes sense as a reason. As I said, the price issue doesn't bother me much...but the exaggerations crossing lines into outright misrepresentations...that's another issue.

The dealer response, or the lack there of, to the little white lies thread was telling. Yes, some came forward and discussed rectifying the B&R issue but a dialogue, above board, with those of us who know a little of how the business of all of this works, would have been refrsehing. It didn't happen. the dealers in question covered their heads, waited the storm out in a bunker and then continued business as usual once the worst had passed. It made me feel like they were treating the dedicated customers and members of this forum like dupes. I like Josh, Andrew and yes....even Paul. Most of, no let me rephrase that, all of my purchase transactions with them have been satisfactory yet they seem to have insulated themselves from feedback, discussion and criticisim in recent months. Going underground and nonresponsive is not the way to deal with this. It looks like Andrew has taken his public interactions with potential customers elsewhere, to another board, for whatever reason. I don't know what the atmosphere is there, I don't frequent it. This is the only replica board I monitor and post on. Perhaps he's a stand up guy there, perhaps he's insulated and protected by the powers that be. Don't know. I wish there could just be an honest discussion. I posted some pleas in the LWlies thread for some of my favorite dealers to just come forward and talk about the mistakes, pressures, bad choices etc.....we're such a forgiving, understanding community. Nothing short of child molestation couldn't have been worked out or understood.

I'm just asking a question here, not taking any side, but could the price increases be explained by increased pressure, risk, and replacement liability assumed by the dealers in an enviornment where there's growing scrutney from IP infringement pressures and shippers? I kinda don't have a problem with higher prices per se. It's the misrepresentations that are the most egregious.

Agreed. It has not been my perception that there is a large groundswell of dissatisfaction here with the implied dealers in question. There has been an intetesting, more nuanced debate about advertising language, but what Edge is suggesting is far more serious. If there is a database of silent, frightened to spill the beans for fear of being thrown off the gravy train customers, rest assured, you'll still be able to get your watches!

A public free forum wouldn't be the place to air the specifics of customer complaints against dealers who are having their reputations called into question?

Oh Boy!!!! I have no knowlege of the misdeeds described. Conspiracy theories are hard to prove. I think the bottom line is lousy products, outright deceptions and misrepresentations reflected in customer dissatisfaction. I agree, we have been seeing more of those from certain dealers. If Edge is in fact sitting on a large file of customer complaints that are growing in seriousness and frequency, there needs to be a public airing of them.

You want to know if it's "taboo" to put a non OEM strap on a replica of a watch??? Whatever turns you on!

You are actually engaging in exactly how not to order from TTK Yes, several threads on this in the last couple of weeks. In a nutshell, Neil is not a dealer, he's a procurer, he has some ongoing health issues that precludes him from jumping on every e-mail, and as of last check, has very few watches to sell (looks like one, the Chopard)

It's an interesting business idea and I can see the market for it...but not for me. I can see myself renting a Corvette convertable on vacation for a week to cruise around in but ....not a watch. Smells too much like a "lookie what I've got loser" rent a personality game.

Beautiful, classy watch on a strap. Understated and timeless. A few years from now when we're all looking at these frying pan watches in our collections like our 70's haircuts saying "What the hell were we thinking", that watch will still sing. good luck. Beautiful!!!!!

Bad enough to quit in 8 months? I have three watch winders through the bay, all Chinese made, all beautiful looking, all less than $100, all less than 2 years old and all three have a dead winder. Ever wonder why good watch winders are so expensive? Because working reliably all day every day for years is tough to manufacture. Basically, this level of quality winder is disposable. If you get 18 months out of one, consider yourself lucky.

The principal of IP infringement is what keeps the genuine companies interested in stopping this, not the quality of the replicas. As great a reproduction as some of these watches are of the genuine article, as Pugwash has said here before, they are not forgeries. You might see a few more unfortunate souls duped on ebay by the better quality of replicas, but the market price for the genuines are not going to be diluted by indistinguishable counterfeits. An inspection with a loupe, an open caseback etc is all your local pawn shop owner has to do to make sure he's not taken to the cleaners. I guess my point is that if there's more heat on dealers, or if you're afraid the reps are getting so good the ride can't possibly last....relax. When the replica market comes crashing down, it's going to be for reasons other than the genuine manufacturers being [censored] their buyer base is being siphoned off by cheap watches from Asia that are equal in quality.

Adjusted to 5 positions. That means the watch is adjusted and is evaluated in its' accuracy in 5 positions. This evaluation best represents the position of the watch in daily use. Yes, watches adjusted to near perfect isochronism will fall on either side of the knife's edge of perfection due to influences other than balance spring length, most often influences such as temperature and friction in the balance wheel pivots due to position. Watches tend to gain dial up, the position they are in on your nite stand 8 hours a day and loose crown down, the postition they are in most of the day on your wrist. If your watch is a fine machanical marvel, these variations will tend to even out over a period of time. If it is a very fine timepiece, the positional variations will be small and even. A Rolex 3135 is a beautifully balanced movement that is usually +- a second, perfectly compensating, in a variety of positions. I don't know of any movements that swing broadly and compensate. Usually 3-5 seconds difference in positions plus and minus is about the maximum for a fully compensating positional movement. This is the rub that some mechanical watch enthusiasts have against quartz watches. An accurately adjusted quartz watch is a marvel of accurate time keeping but a slightly out of adjustment quartz movement will not positionally compensate. In other words, a quartz watch that is half a second fast out of adjustment will gain a half a second every day additively where a mechanical watch that varies a half a second a day will tend to even out the variations in time over time. I have a beautifully adjusted Omega SMP Chrono that may be off by two or three seconds on any given day but usually at week's end, it's spot on. This was the kind of accuracy initally insisted upon by the railroad standards over 100 years ago. They weren't particularily interested if your pocket watch was 10 seconds off in the middle of the week as long as the 7 day variation was not outside of 30 seconds.

If I told my wife she looked like a "hot tart" she'd probably not talk to me for several days. If I told her she looked "hot" I'd get sex for several days. You do the analysis and see what you think.

[censored] Tracy would love it!! Actually, with the size of some watches like the B&R, you could probably watch a video without too much eye strain on a screen of equal size.

This is not a watchmaker, it's a guy who works on watches. I agree with the advice to walk away. This will only get worse.

Great stuff NRG. Isn't the knowlege and wisdom available here amazing.

Not much market. Russian mechanicals have their passionate followers but the affordabilty factor makes them not very attractive to replica manufacturers. Same reason you don't see Hamilton replicas or too many Tissot reps.

I think the silence is "I dont know" among those who do not, and 'wrong forum" among those who might. Repair forum??? Other brands forum???? A little information about what's happening to the clasp when it opens?????

Down to two reps from over 25. FA Jones and SS Sub. I love replicas and will always be a fan and part of the discussion. They were my introduction to fine time pieces but I find genuine collecting much easier to live with. I've also acquired a taste for early 20th century pocket watches. I have a couple of Hamilton 992 railroad watches that are amazingly accurate and close to 100 years old.

Be careful of the case tube. There are some reports of stripping on these so screw and unscrew carefully. It was the alarm raised about this very watch that prompted me to include this negative in this fantasy scenario. http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showto...mp;hl=stripping