jkerouac

My first reaction to the pictures was of parts loose in the watch, as if they had broken off. But your description sounds interesting. I could never imagine buying a rep with diamond decorations. If the quality of the rep itself doesn't give it away, the quality of the diamonds almost certainly would. But then, I couldn't imagine wearing a real watch with diamonds on it either. Of course this is for your wife. I hope she appreciates your thoughtfulness.

Concentration on small details, perhaps? Or, if one is cynical, an alternate profession if they flop in the tournament. Interesting that DW is taking such a cynical tone. As a native born German, I will be cheering them on.

Coincidence...or an entrepreneurial member of the community?

From Deutsche Welle: NEWS | 22.05.2006 German Team Risks Going Cuckoo With Wacky Watch Training Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Germany's countdown to the World Cup features some strange training methods They certainly broke the mold after they made Jürgen Klinsmann. The German coach has introduced a number of strange ideas while training the national soccer team but none can rival getting his stars to repair watches. Wacky training exercises rate alongside homeopathic healing and astrological wall charts in the list of practices most likely to give your fan base the feeling of impending doom before a major tournament. Spare a thought, then, for Germany supporters who must be wondering if their soccer team are about to suffer due to Jürgen Klinsmann's alternative methods. Germany's World Cup squad will take a course in watch making to fill up a bit of spare time during their Swiss training camp, according to team manager Oliver Bierhoff. "They'll learn how to take a watch apart and put it back together again," he said after the squad arrived in Switzerland on Sunday after a break in Sardinia. "It's something a bit different." "It must be a great feeling when you get all the bits back together and you hear it ticking." Players' mental state at risk from bizarre training? While the exercise may ensure that Germany's players make the kick-off on time, the bizarre training sessions may prove too much for young men who are more likely to spend their time buying expensive time pieces than taking them apart and rebuilding them. Given Switzerland's time-keeping tradition and the country's fame for producing a certain type of clock, fans will be hoping that the weird techniques won't make the players go cuckoo before the World Cup starts on June 9. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2028587,00.html

It's becoming harder to keep up with all the wrist checks.

Welcome. Waht do you mean by 'middle men'? I don't think of any of the dealers who advertise in the dealer section as middle men -- that is, no more so than the people you mentioned are middle men. I'd suggest you search their sites, photo albums, and listings, and if you still don't find what you are looking for, write to a few to determine whether they can obtain the model and style you are looking for.

Starting the week with my VC Overseas, but for tomorrow all of these nice Pam pics have convinced me to switch to the 192 for the next few days. Sorry, no pics on my office box.

Welcome, SnowCrash. You seem to have a pretty good sense of where you are in regard to watches and what your aesthetic sensibility is. Keep sharing your thoughts and insights.

Wasn't his point that we become a bit too obsessed with relatively small differences. For example, did you get a O, P, or Q version of the Pan 999? God forbid if I ordered the "wrong" one.

The primary appeal of RWG is the people and the dramas that play out. As for watches, I love almost all of the reps that I have, but don't know what I will buy next or when I will buy another. My collection is neither extensive nor perfect. There are watches I would like to have, but none that I must have right now. For now there are other priorities in my life. So one of these days a rep will appear that I have to have -- or enough time will have passed that I decide to buy something that is on my 'would like to have' list. Sure, many reps are imperfect. But in my opinion that's part of what makes rep collecting more interesting than collecting genuines. Do your homework and you'll get both a beautiful watch, a classic design.....and a good value.

Great advice. If I have to sit in traffic, I take anything testoserone-related off the stereo, and go for something meditative.

Kinks....Boston... second balcony.

I'm with SubFrog. Beautiful watch, but which version to put on my list? I think the black dial looks best, but I don't have any blue dials (except for a fantasy cheapie that winds down all too quickly). And good blue dials are gorgeous. I put this on my list alongside the Royal Oak Jumbo, and new Seamaster GMT.

It all depends on who the person is. A friend I will tell right away. At work there are a lot of people who could afford gens, but few who are really into them enough to buy one. They would sooner spend $700-1,000 on a PDA, GPS system, or game setup than a nice watch. With most people at work, I would prefer not to chance the potential negative connotations associated with reps, so I wouldn't wear a really flashy watch (say a gold Daytona) at work -- but then, I tend to prefer more subtle watches such as an IWC or VC Overseas any way.

Seven or eight years ago my brother gave me a Rolex Explorer rep, and a d a year or so later a Patek Phillippe rep that he picked up during travels to Hong Kong with his Chinese girlfriend. My mother is Swiss, so I would get what I refer to as the "Swiss disease" whenever I visited and studied the many watch shop windows there. But even though I came close many times, I could never bring myself to justify the cost of the watches that attracted me the most. So the last time I came back from Europe I started searching online for more information about different brands and the best values on genuines. Having been reasonably satisfied with the reps that my brother had shared with me, I followed some links to rep Web sites, and as my research escalated I came upon RWG and subsequently TRC -- the undisputed best sources for information about quality and value in watches today. Thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences and knowledge, I have spent quite a bit more than I would have spent if I had sprung for one of those genuines in Zurich -- but I have a very nice variety of beautiful and quality timepieces that give me great satisfaction. I know much more about their pedigrees and histories than if I had not taken this turn in the road. And I've enjoyed getting to know the many diverse and great people on the board.

ryyannon, that's practically an entire flash mp3 player! Springsteen -- The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle Grateful Dead--American Beauty Pink Martini--Hang on Little Tomato Marcia Ball--Gatorythms Marcia Ball -- Let Me Play with your Poodle Puccini's Tosca Robert Schumann: Symphony no. 3 in E Flat and Konzerstuck in F Major

Have you contacted your dealer about possibly getting a replacement closure or bracelet? They might be able to help. I have also had screw problems with this watch. This has also been noted in a number of reviews. After one of the lug screws came out and I was unable to find it, a watchmaker was able to thread a replacement screw. He charged me $5 for the fix.

Minor inaccuracies have been noted in the IWC GST. I have one, but I don't expect to be called out on it. The Pan 192 has been called out for a few inaccuracies as well, but seeing that it was a limited edition (and Pans aren't that common to begin with), those inaccuracies seem fairly picayune and inconsequential. I think I could hand either of those watches over to a dealer, and unless they happened to be an expert in those brands I don't think I'd be called out. Rolexes are the most at risk from being called out, just because they are the best known and most imitated. That is one reason why I only have one, a YM, and even then I don't wear it barely as often as some of my others. Even if it had smaller or fewer flaws, it would probably be called first. So to answer the original question about which models are most accurate and require the least mods, my answer would be that it depends-- on the circles you run in, the watch models involved, and the quality of the watch that you purchase.

I have both a PO and a 192. The more special watch is......... the 192. It's a beauty. As for the last 5% of details in regard to accuracy, no one will know anyway. The 192 was a limited edition with production in the hundreds or low thousands, I believe. So the odds of running into someone who knows what a Pan is, what a 192 is, and how to spot a fake 192 is almost infintesimal. Of course, if you happen to run with Pan dealers or Pan experts, then that might alter the odds. But hardly more than for any other Pan rep, in my opinion.

Reps for us are not unlike other fads over the centuries. Do you recall history lessons about the tulip craze in Holland? If I recall correctly, the introduction of certain new colors would cause a frenzy of reckless bidding. That's not unlike how some of us react when, for example, new improved Pan crowns came onto the market. Face it, some people would only consider you a serious collector if you jumped to get on the bandwagon. Accept the crown that came from the factory and your cred were suspect. The same might be said of misaligned bezels, although those can at least be corrected by the purchaser without an additional outlay. A wise man (or at least one who has profited mightily off of the rest of us) once said, "A rep is just a rep."

For what it's worth, I think you owe the mods your first-born sub for the awesome glow on your handle.

Many RWG members have admitted to being addicted to watches. After not wanting to pay one or two or three grand for a classy genuine watch, within a suprisingly short time you can spend that much or more on a collection of good quality reps -- and still want to purchase even more. Part of the collecting addiction is the information and friendship shared on this board. When I get to work in the a.m., I check e-mail, and then I check what is going on at RWG. And I also check briefly to see what is happening several times throughout the work day. At home, RWG is my home page, and I check in once more as soon as I get home. If my wife isn't home and nothing else needs to be done, I spend a bit more time on RWG. In all, I estimate that I spend between 1 and 2 hours on RWG every weekday. On weekends I may have a bit more time to play online, but on other weekends I may not get online at all. I get the impression that many of my friends consistently spend even more time... in some cases much more time ..... on RWG. A quick glance at today's top posters can tell who must be spending a lot of time here. And now that we have a game arcade and the whole RWG money game, there seem to be even more reasons to linger here. So the question is, how much time do you spend on (in? at??) RWG? And how does it impact the rest of your life, say work, time with wife/girlfriend, reading books, outdoors, etc? I'm really interested to know how others here balance this online club with the rest of their lives. (OK, it's an absolutely perfect sunny day in Seattle, and I'm going to go back outside now. So until later......)

I never did business with Joe, although I was tempted to have him fix the crown guards on my YM -- one of the few things that irritate on an otherwise fine rep. My impression was that he started by doing a few mods on his own watches, then offered to do similar mods for a few other people on the board -- and his volume grew from there. My sense was that he was learning on the job and not the true equal of someone like The Zigmeister who in my perspective is the unequaled master of movements, at least in these parts. Could he live up to his growing reputation? Could what started as a hobby turn into a full or significant part of his income? Could he offer professional quality on every job? Perhaps people haven't examined these questions carefully enough, due to his unique, ebullient personality. I don't know. I hope this works out well for all.

Life moves in only one direction -- forward. Lots of great memories there. Those will remain with us. The real loss would be the great archive of historical knowledge.

Welcome, Phil. For $145, your risk with hotreplicas is relatively small. We will all be interested to hear how well the watch performs over the long term.