freddy333

Beater Everything else in my collection is fair game depending on activity, environment & dress code.

Based on the price of gold these days (currently hovering around $760/ounce), I would find it very hard to believe that a rep contains solid gold anything. There are 2 truisms to keep in mind when buying reps -- Take everything you are told with a (large) grain of salt and the basic principle of selling is to buy low & sell high.

A friend who used to manage an AD told me once that he had heard through the Audemars grapevine that a number of luxury watch brands met secretly with a major Chinese rep factory and told them that they, the watch brands, would not go after them 'in any serious way' (that was the exact phrase he used) as long as the factory agreed never to produce an exact copy of any of their watches. Initially, I thought this was preposterous or one of those urban retail myths. But after thinking about it for awhile, it sort of began to make sense. Look, for instance, at my 116509 Daytona. They got all of the complicated little details on the dial right, but then they throw on these bogus 3/6/9 index markers that mark the watch as an obvious rep (at least until I can figure out a good way to fix them). It is these kinds of 'mistakes' that make me wonder, because I find it very hard to believe that anyone could spend so much time researching to get so many tiny details right & then make such an obvious mistake that undoes all of that hard work. It just strains believability.

Buy what you like & ask the forum if you have specific questions about a model.

Nice ride, predfan. I am still riding this And strapping this

Sporting this on Friday While preparing for the relaunch of this (hopefully soon)

Looks like you have the makings for my kind of watch (steel Datejust). Keep us posted on your progress with more photos. In the meantime, here is one of mine for inspiration

You would have to ask him. If you have access to the VIP sections, you can try this one.

Click here or here.

I saw that too. Hard to tell details from the small pics, but I do know that early Seadwellers were just Subs with the new dial & He valve tacked on in an effort to remedy the exploding crystals problem experienced by deep sea divers when going through decompression. The larger cases and superdomes came later as sort of a second generation, which continued.

Your parents had good taste Triumph (British) and it does not leak

Yes, but based on his email, it looks like he wants to sell frankens. And, at $6,500 each (for the 6239 Daytona), considering that everything after the V72 is nearly pure profit, he should do quite well. But if you compare one of his vintage Daytonas to one of Avitt's 2 beauties, I think you can see the difference between a watch created by a seller, who builds for profit & a watch created by an artist, who builds for beauty and the sheer love of watchsmithing. And the difference shows.

After a suit day, en route to a casual dinner with friends & a Newman last evening (no time to switch to the Rolex lizard strap) And still lugging the Newman around today

$4,500 with your V72. Considering you could buy one of DW's (with a much better dial & hand set) for under $2,000, I think it is kind of steep (putting it mildly). But, on the other hand, if you wanted a vintage Daytona and did not want to pay $60k for a gen & did not know about RWG, $6,500 is not such a bad deal. If only his dials & hands were not so scummy........

Apparently, it is not just gen Daytona prices which are heading for the stratosphere. According to an email I received from him this morning, our friend at jewelryandwatch is selling his 6239 frankentonas at the 'special price' of $6500.00 But based on the quality of his dials (the crowns look like a blind man cut them out with a chisel (or maybe he just lets his cat chew them to give them a nice 'patina')) and hands (each of the 2 chrono seconds hands I got from him (at twice the cost of DW's) came loose at the rivet that holds the hand to the hand stem & I had to epoxy them to keep the hand from spinning, freely, around the dial). I have to wonder, though, if he is actually getting that much. If he is, he must be doing well enough to afford to buy a few gen 6239s. I just thought you would like to know........

I have to say that I think alot of people have forgotten just how confusing it is to search for information on a site like RWG. At least if you want something conclusive. You can search for days (literally) & end up more confused than when you began (has anyone tried to search out info on 'DW' lately?). I know a bit about watches and I have been a member for over a year & I still get confused. So telling newbies just to use the Search is not going to do anyone much good I fear. I think a better solution would be to encourage newbies to read the Pinned articles atop just about every forum for general information and frequently asked questions (like the ubiquitous 'How do I mod my....?' or 'What is the best.....?') and, then, after that, ask members if you either cannot locate the info you want or have located too much info (which often happens). I think the real benefit to belonging to a community of like-minded souls is the way each can learn from the other. And learning, in my experience, is not always a one-way street. Just my two-cents. And since things seem to be getting a bit heavy, here is a new wrist shot of my 6241 to soften things up a bit

Ditto.

With the end of Boss's Day approaching, I just finalized reservations for dinner & plan to dine with this on the black Rolex lizard strap (but specifications are subject to change)

Why? The point is that not having to ask these types of questions is one of the reasons I spend more of my time here instead of there. No offense to anyone at RWI, but I think clearer heads tend to prevail on RWG's side of the Web.

The thing I do not understand is how & why anyone in their right mind would allow someone like Joe, with his history of questionable activities, to moderate anything related to watches? That just gives the guy credibility he does not deserve & is probably why people like Diesel continue to be misled into listening to & entrusting him with their watches.

I have to say that I think some of you are being much too hard on Diesel. I do not know what Diesel knew (or did not know) about Joe's history before enlisting his aid, but I have to say that it is virtually impossible for people to separate all of the wheat from all of the chaff when it comes to deciding who to entrust one's watch (and money) to (when the owner does not have the tools & skills necessary to perform the work themselves). Instead of blasting the poor sod for picking the wrong 'expert', why not provide him with positive & constructive recommendations on where to go from here? That makes alot more sense to me.

I think I will pass on the $10 offer & keep my home-brewed DRSD as is

It is obvious from the flat dots and width of the crown (too wide) that it is a rep part (probably the original crown that came with the MBW watch), which will only fit a rep crown tube. But the larger picture makes clear the other issues. I actually like the way Joe applied the lume (with more color in the center of the markers than around the edges). If only he had used a more realistic color....... Still, overall, the watch looks quite nice & I would have no problem wearing it (with a different bracelet (those riveted reps look really cheesy to me)).

Clark's T39 would have been a better choice than the crystal he used. The crown looks like the original MBW aftermarket part, which will NOT fit a gen crown tube. I would replace the rep riveted bracelet with either a rep hollow center-link Oyster or gen folded link. The bezel insert should be replaced with either a gen or one of these and replace the pearl with one of Ofrei's Illumines Dots. And if you want to go crazy, I would file/sand/buff the case and CGs to reduce the sharp edges a bit and do a working He valve.

Tribal -- I agree with you about the bezel. It may just be the angle of the watch in your photos, but the case shape (especially the slope of the lugs) bothers me more than the bezel. Because so many Seadweller reps use Sub cases, that is one of the first things I look for to identify a gen from a rep. The gen Seadweller case has a more pronounced hump at the lug than most of the gen cases.