RobbieG

You're just obsessed with the brand now. I've seen it happen before. I could tell you were done for at the GTG...

One last quick note for consideration guys -regarding Lemania. As I mentioned in the article, the Nouvelle Lemania is actually the in house movement arm of Breguet which is also used by Omega being that they are part of Swatch. So the Lemania factory falls under the same Swatch directive of only supplying complete movements to the outside world and such will cease supply of ebauche 2320's and variants to other manufactories outside the group. Patek claims to only be tooled up to make a maximum of 250 5070's in a calendar year and as of a few years ago claimed to have sizeable stocks of ebauches. I have no data on Vacheron's ebauche status for the 2320's, but I have to assume they must be doing OK as they just discontinued the Malte Chronograph and replaced it with brand new Patrimony Traditionelle Chronograph at SIHH this year. So as I said, I assume they must have something worked out and/or are well stocked, given that they didn't introduce a different movement for the latest column wheel chronograph handwind timepiece. If anyone has additional information on the state of Lemania ebauches as it relates to some of these brands, please contribute what you know. It is hard to believe that these classic movements will be disappearing one day soon (or soon enough / eventually as it were) from all but Breguet timepieces...

I don't know if I can agree with the bracket above 5K being gone and reserved for collectors. Even small brands have done very well despite the downturn. The very high end has suffered, but that is more from price exhaustion than anything else - or perceived value. The 200K pieces were truthfully not even selling to collectors but to people who hopped on it as the latest "luxury fad" and had nothing better to do with their money so they decided to collect really expensive jewelry to show off to friends. Consider this, Ulysse Nardin made and sold around 15,000 pieces last year and grossed 190 million dollars. Down a little from the peak, but they are doing fine. It is a business centered around variable costs which makes it quite east to ride out recessions. Once the equipment is taken care of the rest is just labor and material to meet expected production. There is a lot of wiggle room there for them. Watch companies are very much limited by supply side economics. They can only make so many watches each year. Even if they had the ability to sell more, most have not the ability to and never did really. Long range planning dictates how far you can go before economies of scale eat you up. Most of the luxury brands we have all hear of are all operating at peak efficiency between 15k and 40k watches a year - AP, Lange, Patek, VC, etc. If the buy side gets a little lean, they limit supply further, bump up the price for a special edition or two and ride it out. It isn't quite as treacherous as some make it out to be really. Once a brand is over the hump, they can pretty much have a licence to steal forever as long as they don't completely f*ck up supply control which is how to stay in the game. Knowing Rolex is turning out a million units or so and most of them are gold Day Dates, one can imagine there is a lot of cushion there. The fact is if branding is done correctly and a brand can ease up on ad budgets when times are lean, they simply don't need to sell alot of units to have a highly successful enterprise. Sure its tougher now, but it isn't the end of the world for many of the big ones. They already cashed out the big ticket in the boom. The BRM's and Dewitts and Dubuis and FP Journe's and Forsey's and Kreiger's and that Titanic fad sh*t company whoever they are - those guys are all in trouble though. They never got over the hump in time and they are all going to wreck out.

No way. The situation isn't extreme enough to make mechanical watch lovers turn to quartz. Sorry, but people just don't take timekeeping that seriously to choose accuracy over luxury. Make no mistake. People buy these things because they are luxury items, not because they tell time well. LOL. So I agree with Boss. Most gen buyers aren't having to tighten stuff that costs $500 once every five years either. I mean come on. The average Day Date owner earns in the mid to high 6 figures or more. They aren't sweating the service bill, trust me. Maybe they are not buying a new car this year and downsizing the house, but $500-$800 bucks for service as a cut for a Rolex - or even Lange owner? Again, nah - capital "N". Nor will it really drive the industry anywhere drastic. The houses are already combatting it by decreasing supply and choking demand. It is working perfectly. Prices of new watches aren't budging and the machine is working pretty well. You have to keep in mind that the WIS who earns fifty grand a year and makes major sacrifices to own a gen watch or more that costs 10% of his annual income or more is the exception and not the rule. So sure, that guy who took a pay cut or lost his job is going to get stung by every bill, but the truth is, there just aren't as many of them. Believe me, if that were the center of the gen watch market NONE of the brands would ever be where they are today - it just wouldn't be worth it to them. Price is the key. So you are half right about the service quandry though. Meaning it is hard to justify for a lower income guy when it costs 10% or more of the value of the watch. But at higher retail price points not only are you dealing with a better % number, but you are also dealing with people who are very accustomed to paying so called "big" bills for practically everything in his life - vehicle service, electronics repair, dry cleaning, tailoring, travel expenses, etc. and watch service is no exception. In other words, when you routinely paying two grand for 1st class plane tickets your world is different in a nutshell. Recession effects at the consumer level can hurt some groups more that others but it is still linear phenomenon for the most part. In other words, on average everyone is off by a certain percentage of disposable income for the most part. But it is just simple math really. If one guy makes 50K and he loses 20% of his income he is homeless. If his neighbor next door makes 500K and loses 20%, he waits until next year to buy a new Turbo out of prudence only and not necessity. Trust me, if his watch needs service it is going in for service in 2009 and he is paying the bill without a second thought... I have two pretty good connections that help me gauge this stuff. One is a jewelry store who is also a very large volume Rolex dealer - top 5 in US. His jewelry biz is off 50%, but the Rolex biz is only down 10%. Hardly enough to notice in his words. Again, it is about price. I bet his average jewelry sale is $75K plus pre-recession, and his average Rolex sale is a fraction. The other connection is one of the largest multi brand AD's in the country (not a chain). They have AP, VC, Lange, Breguet, IWW, Dewitt, Droz, Glashutte, Panerai, Blancpain, and more I can't think of right now. They report retail tourist traffic is slow, but then the impulse buy isn't that biz anyway. They report hardly any slowdown as well. Used will continue to come down for sure, but the new market is still a luxury market and a reasonably priced one as far as luxury goods go. Don't forget guys, it is still a man's world. Women like to think that when cash gets a little tighter they won't be the first to get cut on Valentines Day. But the truth is, the guys find a reason not to buy that tennis bracelet as they drop off the Day Date for service and spa - not the other way around. Sorry girls, not saying I do, but that is really the way it is...

Another day saved by The Zigmeister, the great white hope of the frozen North. The Baron of Bergeon. The Matriarch of Mainsprings. The Lord of Lubrication. The Earl of Ebauches. The Prince of Perlage Pallet Pinions - if you will...

Wow. I am surprised really. Definitely the low quality Asian chrono movement in it as evidenced by the date window position. And $200 is way higher than I expected. I was thinking these would be sub-$100 replciations given the cheap base metal bezel with the thin lumpy plating. Hard to believe they get that much for them.

Well, I'm not a fan of the watch in particular so IMO the Pro Hunter guys just make it worse. In general I'm not a fan of most of the PH stuff, although, I must say, the standard Daytona in all black and white colors is a standout of the bunch. That looks really cool. The problem with all black watches is without some contrast in a strap or otherwise they usually look better in pics than in person. You kind of get taking by images and then on your wrist it falls flat. Something like the Blacksteel Skyland though has enough contrast and is not quite so black so it works better. Plus, some different straps and contrast stitching as I said work wonders... .02

Personally, I would still not respond. If they press it, it won't help their case in any way and your response of any kind could hurt yours. Just drop it and wait. They gain nothing by litigating you and I can't imagine them doing so. But if they do so be it. Just wait to be served or if you get a second letter don't sign for it and get an attorney. They have no case. They have a watch that you never took possession of. It is kind of like a theft case where someone breaks in but doesn't steal anything. The criminal is guilty of breaking in but not burglary - even if it is obvious that is what he intended to do. He has to steal something to get convicted of that. If you are guilty of importing illegal good, you have to be caught with goods to be convicted of it. If you want to assume a worst case scenario then react instead of responding by making sure you don't buy anymore reps for a while - even in the EU to your address. Buy only from EU dealers and even then have them sent to another addy in case they are staking out your mail. Again I doubt it, but you never know what someone might do if a higher up has a hard-on for you and wants to make an example. If you do get served get rid of your other reps immediately.

lol. I hear ya'. Out of context. The guy ate it all cause the watch was 6 years old and he had removed the bracelet to swap straps himself many times and probably didn't make sure before he finished. He takes full blame for it. Besides, no matter, UN has fixed this problem and no more loose screws on bracelets on the new ones.

Can't decide what to wear tonight. Meeting friends for a quick nightcap at The Ritz on the beach in a couple of hours. You choose for me. Yes, I will be changing out of the PJ's and into a long sleeve dress shirt and slacks...

BTW, do keep us posted as to what you decided to do and what the outcome was...

A typical timeline: A dealer of ours buys a gen UN before it is even released. He preorders it at Basel and as soon as it comes in he turns it over to be torn to pieces and replicated. -Then months and months later the rep is released to us on the boards first as a sort of test market for the first run to see how it takes hold. -Then it goes to the watch markets for bigger distribution as evidenced by Google image searches delivering hundreds of hits on sites we never heard of selling the watch. The high end rep is now taking a firm hold on the world. -Then the inevitable finally happens, the point at which you really know the new brand is officially taking hold. A copy cat factory buys the rep and then replicates that for the low end "Canal Street" level watches and markets. In other words, the reps of the reps start to appear. And so the circle of rep life is complete. And it all started with us and a dealer listening and giving us something we were asking for. But eventually, most of the UN Maxi Diver Chronograph reps sold will be these - by the truckload all over the world for mere pocket change: And the part I love the most? The red 200M font is totally unobstructed...

It doesn't surprise me really. Look how many times we all read threads on TZ about people who get burned buying fake watches on the bay. We are sitting there thinking how could they not know and spot the tells. Meanwhile they are regular vistors with hundreds of posts that hang out on those very brand forums. This is partly the reason counterfeiting is such big business. It is remarkably easy to fool most people. Notice the people who said they felt "something still wasn't right". If it were a watch instead and viewed by anyone here the callout would be very specific and swift...

Nah, he would be purgering nothing. He posts here under a surname and no good lawyer would ever let that get connected in court. Not that there is going to be a court case. Scare tactics - and they know it - both customs and Rolex, believe me. They have to catch you with the watch and taking possesion of the package to make a case. Those letters are toilet paper - both from Rolex and Customs. Don't respond at all. And to the OP and anyone else here - I'm sure I don't have to tell you or anyone else here to NEVER, and I mean never sign for a person to person Registered letter from anyone. Not even your Mother or even God! Those things are poison. And as a rule I won't sign for Certified's either unless I know who it is from. Nothing good can from signing anything that nails you down to a date and possesion of information. Registered and Certified letters are only used for one reason - to incriminate people by dating an event. If they are serious about prosecuting you, let them come and arrest you. But they won't because as I said you have never been in possession of the goods, nor do they have any paper trail connecting you to a crime. "Must have me confused with someone else sir" is the only response and only if you get arrested. Then call your lawyer who will countersue them both for libel and lost wages. Again, responding to a letter and saying you don't know what they are talking about is no good. Don't give them ammo for the future in case the shipper or someone or a witness or something on the other end is in heat and is ratting you out with a proof of order or something. You never know who might be trying to stick heat on you to get out of jail. Stranger things have happened. For that reason, make them arrest you. That way you haven't told a lie or the truth - just nothing. Let your lawyer handle it if it ever comes to that. But I guarantee unless you are distributing, which I assume you are not, it will never happen brother.

@urabus & stephane - Thanks for the kind words. Good subjects make good photos for me. And as for the shine, I do keep them well, but the magic clone stamp tool in PS will eliminate any scratch, dust, or fingerprint like a champ. Time consuming, but it works everytime... @lani - Everytime I see the 760 now I mean to ask you, "Did she sing today?" - the Fat Lady I mean...

I don't have this anymore, but after a Fish discussion with another member I wish I was wearing it right now. So let's pretend then...

That kind of stuff is really special brah and I'm glad it happened to you. I had a similar experiences here in Florida - although not vintage or Rolex related so I know how you must be feeling. I hope you will follow through with the pics - including some of the shop and display cases and even him. It would be nice to put the face with the story. You will have to take me to meet him when I come for a visit next.

No, it is a standard Maxi Marine Chronometer (sister to the diver - just no moveable bezel) 43MM like this, but in rose gold. The 160 comes in gold or platinum, but has a white enamel dial like the first 38MM 1846 chronometers. Black dials are on the standard models... ...And I agree with Pho. I wonder what that is all about. Is that model getting repped too? Maybe Pho is getting his wish and 09' is to be the year of the Nardin?

Absolutely, assuming they can build an aftermarket PR module for it - or Seagull has one - or the PR is just non-working which would be fine really...

Nice Harley - although I like the look of the more chocolate and also the more burgundy/brown tones best with the black on black PO myself. Seems like you have a calf strap that color as well, no?

Bumpitty, bump, bump. Oy!

Yes, glad to see more of us holding down the 42 front. It doesn't get as much attention as the 45.5MM, rep or gen...

We all rotate the same watches a lot man. Kinda comes with the territory. Post that one everyday if you have to. We won't mind - in fact, we will enjoy seeing it...

Can't quite get enough of the PO on the Sirtoli Shark lately. Liking it even better than the rubber at least in comfort anyway. BTW, nothing beats the feel of Sirtoli straps - especially sharks and ostrich for comfort. They have this great butter soft leather and super soft padding on the inside, but the padding on the outside is much stiffer to give them that cool looking rigid shape. Can't say enough about Sirtoli...

Yeah, that is one of the things that has actually bothered me about them. I really don't like the color German silver becomes. It is a REALLY sickly gold color that looks like the worst gold rep plating you have ever seen. Just horrible to me. Some love it though to be fair. But when it is fresh cut, the color of it is just amazing. I should find out if there is a way to treat it so it locks in the original color without coloring it at all. Maybe the rhodium will still work. The patina probably wouldn't bother me as much on their chronograph movement which has lots of smaller briges with space in between. But I have seen lots of aged 3/4 plates in person - including some old pocket watch movements from them and it is like one giant hunk of goldenrod. So then what happens is all the brass wheels and gold balance blend in and eventually there is nothing pretty and contrasting to look at any more. It takes a while to look that bad, but you can see significant "goldness" in as little as five years. I'll take the rhodium on steel from the Swiss in that regard and be fine with it...