Agrippa

Just a quick note to say that I took the risky option and went for a Day-Date with white dial. That's the version I really wanted and the gamble paid off handsomely since the crystal has little or no tint that I can see. Otherwise the AR isn't "Chief Standard", but it's very good for a replica - close to the SOSF, Ingenieur, etc. The bracelet too is very nice - very smooth, yet very tight and the combination of brushed and polished steel makes for an elegant contrast. All in all a very nice watch indeed and a certain keeper. Not one for the lovers of humongous timepieces, with its 40mm diameter, but it'll suit a normal size human being quite well. Thanks for all the advice, very much appreciated!

I'd absolutely ship it off to Vac if I were you. It takes a little while to get it back, but it is oh so very worth the wait. Get Chief's AR while you're at it and you'll have one of the nicest reps available in my opinion.

That's one seriously nice watch! Here's hoping they'll replicate it soon.

Do you have a ballpark price estimate at this stage?

Unless I win the lottery, discover that I'm a long lost relative of the Sultan of Brunei or some such rather unlikely thing, I won't ever buy a genuine high-end watch. Firstly because there isn't a watch in the world that is worth thousands of dollars to me. Secondly because most or all watches in the price bracket I could afford (say up to $4-5000) are made partly in China or elsewhere in the Far East anyway, so why not keep it all Chinese and save most of the dosh. If I could actually get an all in-house manufactured watch for what I'd be prepared to spend, then sure, but that would require a time machine.

By-Tor's guides are usually the best place to start and the Omega guide is here. It also links to Stephane's pictorial, which you can find here. I'm not aware of any rep vs. gen reviews, but the regular Railmaster is considered a very good replication and since the XXL is the same watch, just larger, it ought to be just as good.

I've yet to reach your elevated age, but I'm getting there (faster and faster, it seems...). The question, quite rightly, is whether I really want one. Today the answer is no (unless someone gives me one, that is), but if I ever buy a high-end gen, it will undoubtedly be a Jaeger LeCoultre Master Control. I would go for the 40mm version though, since I feel that it is exactly the wide bezel which sets it apart from e.g. Vacheron's Patrimony, Patek's Calatrava and most other classic dress watches, making it more masculine and so easily distinguishable from the "herd". Which is just a personal opinion and of course in no way meant disparagingly in regards to your excellent choice. Thanks again for the pictorial - it's so very nice to see someone present something that has real class and a timeless elegance amidst the heap of fashionable dross.

Fabulous pictorial, thanks a lot! And of course, congratulation on your purchase! As you say, Jaeger LeCoultre still makes their movements in-house from start to finish, or at least most of them. After all they make 60 different ones; more, I think, than any other manufacturer and they supply them to most of the really high-end companies. Basically, if JLC were to disappear tomorrow, we'd see Vacheron, Patek, Audemars, Cartier, Glashütte and many more struck by panic, since that is who powers most of their product lines. These guys are in a totally different league than Rolex, Omega and the other plebeian brands - Jaeger LeCoultre is haute horologie through and through, one of the few such companies still in existence today. Hope you derive as much pleasure from your Master Control as I would, if I owned one.

Heroes? Tiger's a dab hand at golf, which although lucrative as hell is a completely meaningless skill. A hero is a different thing altogether. Otherwise I'm all in agreement.

So we've established that he's really great at hitting the little ball with a club. Fab and groovy.

Excellent form, calling someone a crook in post no. 1. And without substantiating it in any way, shape or form.

Certainly, but they are vampires because we want them to be. The reason the media is full of celebs, scandal and the private details of other people's lives, is that that is exactly what the public wants. Just as there will be drug dealers as long as there is a market for drugs, there will be peddlers of tabloid filth as long as people read that kind of garbage. Which they do only more and more. It doesn't make much sense to blame the media exclusively for being immoral and insensitive, when the public at large is equally immoral and pathologically fascinated by the private lives of others.

Thanks. As if I didn't feel old and decrepit enough already...

Bravo; well summed up.

Excellent, thanks for the confirmation Offshore! Thanks too for the tip about using a second container, I'll certainly bear that in mind.

Big yawn - heard it all before, about so many different things. There is no way US Customs or any other country's customs can put more than a slight dent in the import of counterfeit goods. There isn't a customs force in the western world that isn't already stretched to breaking point and well beyond in dealing with narcotics, illegal immigration, sex trafficking and god knows what else, so any campaign against counterfeits will necessarily be short, very limited in scope and hence have little effect.

So I've just put a bid in for one of these ultrasonic cleaners on ebay. The price is very sympathetic, the seller seems good and the specs seem to be ok too (40KHz). Now all I need to know is whether I also have to get a special ultrasonic cleaning solution, or if perhaps something more mundane will do? As far as I can understand the cleaning solution's primary functions are to reduce surface tension (in order to increase cavitation levels) and to act as a solvent/detergent, which leads me to think that perhaps ordinary washing-up liquid might do the job, since it is both a wetting agent, a detergent and a mild solvent?

Alpha Watch perhaps? Lots and lots of both nifty and strange designs and rock bottom prices ($50-150).

Thanks mate, that's what I assumed.

Another excellent addition to the saga! One thing though - do these findings have any practial real-world implications for those of us who don't try to drill into our reps, but just wear them?

Oh dear

Great work and a very interesting read! Looking forward to the concluding chapter. So far the conclusions are pretty much what I would have bet on beforehand. I guess the practical implications are slight or non-existant, but it would still have been nice to get what we've paid for I think.

Surely it's called either a deployant or a deployment clasp.... Anyway; on a closed clasp (with no strap fitted) place one pair of pliers near the lock and another near the hinge end. Bend the hinge end carefully either up or down to respectively loosen and tighten the locking action and to decrease or increase the curve of the clasp. Keep making small adjustments until it feels right.

A very interesting read for sure and exceedingly reasonable compared to similar threads elsewhere. Also I'm pretty much with TeeJay regarding the quote above - I have never actually considered buying a genuine watch, other that Seikos and such up to $250 or so, and I never will. For the kind of money I could afford to lay on the counter, I'd never get anything that wasn't made in China anyway. I'd only buy a genuine watch if I could actually afford one that was real haute horologie and guaranteed to be an in-house effort in its entirety; but that day will never, ever come.

It seems your post passed me by, but if it's not too late I'll see if I can make up for it now. Pitch black here at this time so no daylight, and I'm no Bagrad Badalian no matter what light is available, but here goes: Lume shot after 5 second charge: