RobbieG

We (they) won't. Not feasable from any perspective this time. No way to build a reasonable risk model this time around for obvious reasons - and our (their) money on the long side in droves is crucial to the eventual success of the United States again. And again, there has to be either a reason to speculate that there will be and/or evidence that there is forward momentum in order to convince virtually any player to do it. Of course the crickets are chirping in that regrard so here we sit...

Sorry, I don't see the Seiko - although they do look less unique due to the choices they haev made. And I had been leading that charge on the gen forums too. I wouldn't go so far to call the pur crap though. Make no mistake - they are very nicely made watches and a step above most of the others that they now look more like. And as the owner of a gen Ti AT chrono from last year I will say the fit, finish and feel of the new ones is a step above believe it or not, design issues aside...

Yeah they execute Ti very well also - forgot about that. Also UN now has the 45MM MMD in a polished Ti which is pretty nice. One thing that bugs me about Dewitt though is they can look cheap sometimes from the alloys. They use too much rhodium in the mixes and it gives the gold that wet look. Some like it, but too me it looks like plated plastic in certain light. Other guilty parties for that are Dubuis and BRM. Overall, I think the Academias are cool but I have a fundemental problem though with thirty grand for an unmodified 7750 though. Fifty grand gets you a 1940 which is at least a cool remanufacture antique Valjioux 71 handwind chrono. Those are cool. Then all the really high end stuff is done in house. But I just think the cases are really cool looking designs.

Maybe. Maybe not. I guess from my perspective it doesn't really matter what it is or where it comes from. I was only trying to say I know from my experience that you can't fight ranging, rising, or falling markets by juicing the other side. It just never works. I make my living out of essentially following various self-fullfilling prophecy as they manifest themselves with no regrard for prediction or having any real opinion of it at all. I don't short because I think the market is going to go down. I short if it is going down. If it is ranging I don't hope for a trend or try to create one. I also don't know how far the market is going to move once I'm in a trade so I'm prepared for whatever by devoting some of the exits to short term ideas and some of the capital exiting with longer term perspective. In other words, in order to keep things smooth I can only be half right when operating at 100% efficiency if that makes any sense. Why? Because the one thing I have learned in 15 years of studying the markets I trade (and I still study them extensively every day of my life) is that there is absolutely no reliable way to know either what is going to happen next or to what magnitude. Wall Street loves to lie to retail and do everything in their power to tell you they can - and why shouldn't they? How else will they get you to give them commish? I wouldn't know - I don't trade for commish or fees, nor do I trade retail clients money. But I'll tell you that I know the only reason I have been able to stay in the game for all these years, never go broke, and deliver remarkable smooth results from year to year - and I might add never have a serious drawdown is because I have managed to not interject my intellect into my decision making in making immediate trading decisions. But managing risk is another thing which is very intellectual and the key to the whole game. The US and its business has done a dreadful job at that and that is the real reason we are in this spot of non-consensus and fear and will remain so until the bill is paid. I'm not off topic here in talking trading. Nor am I trying to connect the equities markets I trade to the current crisis. They are of course but that isn't the point. It is all the same force moving everything. I'm only illustrating it with trading lingo to say that intellect and piecing stuff together or trying to figure out who is responsible for what will not fix the broad issue. Nor will throwing money at the problem that is not enough and not real. What people don't understand is that what has happened is fundamentally no different than a day trader using extreme leverage to make big bets intraday, being wrong about them and getting a margin call. For those who don't know what margin is, in laymans terms you have to post security cash for each contract of a security you trade in a minimum amount in order to trade with leverage. If you lose alot of trades the amount of money in your account can drop below what you need in margin to cover the contracts traded. Before you can place more new trades you have to deposit new money or your account will be closed if your losses have eaten into the minimum margin (security deposit) required. You should never get a margin call IMO and if you do you are trading with too much risk plain and simple. So basically what has happened here is take that day trader example and multiply it out over years - the US has traded with too much leverage and has been losing a lot of bets. Now the US getting a margin call but we don't have the cash (not really, which is why all this is such a bear). So the world is going to close our account like it was our day trader's brokerage if we don't figure out how to do it. We can't trade because our credit isn't good so we need to post up to restore faith. The situation is exactly the same in evey way which is why I say the particulars are unimportant. But it is important for people to undertsand that this is life. Somebody has to pay in every thing or else the system breaks down. When people don't pay big bills bad things happen. Empires crumble. Things change and become different then they have been. The value of a country can go to zero just like a day trading account. You bet. You lose. You pay. And if you don't and somebody else has to pay you get cut off until you post up. It is ugly to swallow that that is what is going on here with our banks / housing industry, etc. but that is where we are at. People want to think it can't be that simple. We are the United States man. How could this happen to the greatest power in the free world? Like fish dying on a dock they flop and squirm. It makes no sense to work it out intellectually which is what you see the talking heads doing every day. Trying to find a way around it. It is almost amusing if not so sad and dire. But you make bad bets and lose you pay or you get eliminated. But what we are willing and able to pay is not only not enough, it also isn't real money either and everyone knows that too. In my example that is like funding your margin call with a high interest credit card that got closed for late payments a year ago...

Switched to the other Nardin tonight. Pure class and the ultimate crossover watch for me at the moment. Sporty to dress this one does it all well...

Yeah isn't it though? There are a few standouts and the 2310/20 and 175 are very high on that list if not at the top even. I just thought it would be interesting to introduce a few that are not as well known as the 7750 and 2892 in that regard. Some people are unaware that the whole world really only started revolving around ETA in the 80's and before then there were some amazing robust movements that stood the test of time and continue to this day. I didn't go into it in the article, but the 2320 is also the base for some very complicated calendar chronographs and repeaters as well. I don't know what it is about handwind movements and especially handwind chronograph movements, but they are just so elegant and perfect. I have a real soft spot in my heart for them. But I'm not particularly fond of the pocketwatch style handwinds adapted to wristwatches. Cool enough I suppose, but I'm more into base calibers that were made from scratch to be in wristwatches - especially the ones sized for special cases and the ones made especially thin and such - really specialty stuff as opposed to the more chameleon pocketwatch movements like the 6897's and on up. Nothing worng with them, just a personal preference. Also of note is Vacheron has developed its first new base handwind caliber in some time - the 4400, which is interesting in that the others have been smaller twin barrel designs and this time they made a movement to fill a 38MM case instead of a 32MM case with a single barrel and 60 hours of power reserve. So cool. Handwinds are "it" n my book. Plus, where is the fun with a watch if you don't get to set it and wind it I say...

I tried it but it doesn't seem to be very effective. I have a small beer belly I'm trying to get rid of but nothing seems to help it...

Personally, I feel the case wears bigger than 42.7MM. About like 44MM on my regular MMD. Plus the chunky CG's, flat caseback (which is very comfy BTW) make these very substantial. But the chrono has a less busy dial so maybe on the MMDC here the subdials bring it in a bit. Lani? Of course the case is thicker on the chrono as well. The main reason the watch wears bigger though is the bezel width is small which makes the dials seem bigger. Meanwhile, watches with more width to the bezels relative to the dial like say the Steelfish wear smaller than 44MM because of that. .02 BTW, important message to all: I am giving these a name for simplicty. As you know I always call my Maxi Marine Diver MMD to keep it simple. So now I officially dub the Maxi Marine Diver Chronograph MMDC. Please make a note of that from the unofficial RWG UN mascot - lol...

Someone asked my about the Dewitt 1940 Special Edition Academia Chronograph. No, those gens are not Lemania based but rather a rare antique Valjioux 71 handwind movements from long ago which were aquired (just a few) then remanufactured and lavishly decorated - but they aren't Lemania. That said, the Seagull ST-19 in the rep looks fine and will do in a pinch - and they aren't fifty grand either! Here is an example of the similar to Lemania 2310 - Valljiox 71 handwind chronograph from 1945...

And those in our business tend to see the truth in that - maybe because traders are so close to the discoveries that can only come from getting your head handed to you. LOL. You can take the concept down to the microcosm of even one trading day. Why? Consensus of value. Before price can move on it has to reach consensus. While it is moving it reaches tons of little consensus levels all the way up or down. Everyone who inserts his intellect into the equation in the soup and picks door #1 or door #2 in this just gets crushed. I say all this because I have to laugh when I see people struggling like fish because they don't know what is going to happen next. Welcome to the real world. We never did. It just seemed like it because we have been in the same long trade since 1926. LOL... How this relates to the current issue is this if you don't understand: Let's say a market doesn't know its true value because of turmoil, but before it can finish slogging around - or selling off, a big trader comes in and goes, "Watch this - I'm gonna flood the market with buy orders and make it trend up. I'll show that market..." So the guy comes in with billions and billions in equity and just floods that market with long trades. You know what happens? Yeah he succeeds at a short term runup for a few minutes or even half a day. But what happens next? The market goes right back down to where it was because it still either doesn't know what value is or it does and it wants to be lower. No amount of money can stop this phenomenon. You think a billion is a lot if money? In my example, that buys you 100,000 contracts worth of S&P 500 futures trades maybe in my example - assuming 100 contracts per million equity. How about a hundred billion? That market trades 2-5 million contracts a day. Get the picture? The point being fat.tail's words of peeing in the sand are 100% correct. You can use any market or issue to analyze it. All issues are their own little markets too. The consensus of value in the world now (so to speak) is either no consensus or down. Throwing a bunch of long trades at it (so to speak) could never stop something so vast. So yes, the wave is coming. And nothing can stop it. The whole discussion as it is being played out is mute. The real recovery that is lusted after can only happen after total destruction. And then there will be a true consensus. People just have to stop kidding themselves that some of those consensus prices are going to be zero. Zero happens everyday all around you, so don't think for one second it isn't plausible. But the rebirth is going to be amazing so lets think about the aftermath as he says. A much better use of time and energy - and we will need a plan to survive that.

Nope. Sorry. Not ETA as far as I can tell. For one thing I have never seen an ETA watch with that much perlage...

+1

Lani got his new UN tonight, so I'll wear mine it his honor now and tomorrow...

Yes, I beleive you can as the same tooling was used to build the 178. It just added the additional register and I believe is even the same size as the 175. I would highly doubt the posts are different. But on the outside chance they are a competent watchmaker could easily broach them for you and it would be totally invisible. I know The Zigmeister can do it, but I have no idea if he does that kind of thing anymore or not - or if only for certain members or what - can't keep up with the boy, but I do know he does perfect broach jobs. I would bet money that the hand size is the same though...

Thanks Shundi, but more importantly, congrats on the avatar upgrade - Christ - black eyes over here...

Thanks T and D. I put some time into so I'm glad it is appreciated... BTW, by other member requests, yes there are lots of good reps with the ST-19. Both the other watches I mentioned - the Patek 5070 and the Breguet Classique Chronograph are repped and are fine for what they are. Priced resonably too. You also might check out the Dubuis Easy Diver and of course the Omega Moonwatches depending on the models, including some of the older versions. I'm sure there are more too that I'm not thinking of.

He doesn't just wear it on the show either. We stayed at Shutters On The Beach in Santa Monica last year and he happened to come in for breakfast at One Pico for Sunday brunch and sat at at table near us (best hollandaise in the universe BTW - I would fly there just to eat Benedict and come home - great hotel too BTW). I don't know if he was staying in the hotel or not. Anyway, I got a couple good looks at it walking by to the restroom and again when leaving and it is definitely the mid-size Yachtmaster.

Yeah, I never got the chance to do that - I wish I did. For me the only things I got to know was the inside of airports, hotels and car services. The only relaxing I did was the hour and a half to two hours I was playing...

Please note the edited adds at the end. I answered a few questions that I had recieved on two items I either left out or didn't clarify enough. Hope that clears them up...

Watch Idiot Savant

Thanks guys. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for handwound chronographs so it was a labor of love. I have been particularly obsessed with 2310's and 20's for a long, long, time. I can stare at them for hours with a loupe (and have). My favorite AD's want to throw me out some days and probably would if not friends and/or me being a decent customer. Truly a sight to behold when hand decorated by the masters...

Introduction: I was going through some old PM's and emails, etc. with some questions from newer members and other discussions regarding handwind chronograph movements and thought since I haven't done a major contribution in a while I might do a post to clear up some common misconceptions about the best known column wheel chronograph movements as they relate to replica watches. This is not meant to be an exhaustive reference or anything, nor am I a qualified watchmaker or expert. But I am a big fan of these movements and have spent a fair amount of time studying them and their history. Before I start with the breakdown let's first distinguish between the column wheel chronograph like the movements discussed here and the cam lever / heart plate style designs such as the tried and true ETA 7750 we are all so familiar with. The column wheel design allows a slotted wheel to rotate via pushers. When doing so the slots between the pilars of the column either admit or reject the beaks of the two (or more in the case of flybacks, etc.) levers which control the functions of start, stop and reset. If the reset is depressed and the chrono is stopped, the reset lever is admitted to a slot on the wheel which clicks into place when rotated by the pusher. The same action will reject the start lever and it will stay out of the wheel. If the chrono is now started, the start/stop lever will drop into a slot instead and the reset lever will be rejected. Finally when the running chrono is stopped but not reset yet, neither lever will be accepted to the wheel. By contrast the Coulisse-Levier design developed by Valjioux uses a three plane cam system known as a heart plate as opposed to a rotating wheel shown here. The operation of this design is a bit tougher to explain, and in the interest of time I will leave out a detailed description here. But suffice it to say the the heart piece limiter type system is not as smooth as a column wheel and the pusher force varies with each function and as such, they are not quite as precise. It is for this reason that the highest end manufactories generally choose column wheel designs for their flagship timepieces and while more expensive, they are widely regarded as being the superior design by high end collectors. There are many excellent replicas on the market which use the principle column wheel chronograph manufactered in China by the Seagull company. More on that later, but we need to first clear up a common misconception created by replica factories. In many of the dealer websites, the Seagull ST-19 is incorrectly called a Lemania movement or a Lemania clone movement. Of course the first statement is not true as genuine Lemania movements are expensive and not found in replica watches, but to say it is a Lemania clone could be deemed both correct and incorrect depending on how you look at it. Again, more on that later, but first a little background on the genuine Lemania movement model most closely connected with our replica column wheel chronograph. Lemania: The Lemania 2310, it's variants, and it's upgraded versions are widely regarded as one of, if not the highest quality column wheel chronograph movement available. It beats at 18K, uses a screw balance and needle index (the upgraded 2310 adds a swan neck regulator. Nouvell Lemania, which is now the movement manufacturing arm of Swatch, was founded as A. Lugrin in 1884 in Vallee de Joux as a dedicated movement supply house speicalizing in high quality complications including minute repeaters, perpetual calendars, and you guessed it - chronographs. The tradename Lemania was adopted in the 1920's and was branded into many watches all the way into the 1960's. In 1932 they initially joined Omega and went on to develop the very famous Moonwatch Caliber 321. The 321 is the hand wound chronograph certified for space by NASA in 1957, which remained available for many years in pretty much it's original form, a few small upgrades aside. This movement was simply an extention of the very earliest version of the Lemania Caliber 2310 initially developed in the 1940's. Here, this early version was actually part of a complete watch from Lemania from the early 40's. Throughout the years many high end Swiss manufactories continued to use the 2310 and it's variants as ebauches in the most raw form as bases for its flagship handwind chronographs. This has been made continually possible since Lemania was officially united with Breguet under Swatch in the 1990's. To this day, 2310's (upgraded to 2320's which include swan necks and others based on the original) are seen in the highest possible form of decoration, as well as adorned with addtional in house complications modules, as the engines of some of the most complicated and expensive timepieces in the world. Famous watches featuring these movements include... Breguet's 5237 Patek's 5070 And the Vacheron Malte Chronograph (more on the rep later) which has been discontinued and replaced with the similar Patrimony Traditionelle Chronograph introduced at SIHH in 2009. Venus 175: So now that we have Lemania out of the way, let's discuss another very similar column wheel chronograph movement which is more closely connected with the clone found in our replicas - the venerable Venus 175. The history of Venus is no less interesting, but instead of going into great detail as I thought was necessary for Lemania to lay the foundation, I would rather focus on the 175's transition to Seagull and hence the replica clones. But just a brief bit of history is that they were originally designed around the same time as the Lemania 2310 and produced at the former Fabrique d'Ebauches Venus S.A. in Moutier between 1940 and the mid 60's. Like the 2310 it is a 17 jewel handwind column wheel chronograph beating at 18K. Absent is the screw balance found on the 2310 (& 2320). The 175 was seen extensively in chronographs of the 40's and 50's and was used especially extensively by Breitling in the original Chronomat and Rodania single button chronographs. The 175 is no longer available new, other than stock piles of NOS movements that may be held by some manufactories and individuals, but both remanufactered and NOS movements keenly decorated are seen from time to time as well - such as this one from Maurice Lacroix (which as shown has been modified to include a usually absent screw balance and swan neck). Perhaps the most interesting item in the Venus 175 history is ironically how we came to be the recipients of its clone via Seagull in relatively recent times. Around 1957, a factory in Moscow started producing a copy of an earlier Venus Caliber - the 150. This was the legendary 'Strela' movement. A few years later Venus was planning to reduce the number of movements they offered and were planning to offer an upgrade of the 175 - the 180. But they realized they needed money to do so which they would generate by selling some redundant tooling they didn't need. They first tried to sell it to the Soviets (who had already shown an interest in copying them) but they were happy with the Strela and turned them down. But it just so happened that at the same time the Chinese Airforce was in need of a pilot's chronograph and for political reasons could no longer buy Strela's from the Soviets. So Venus offered them the 175 by selling them all the tooling to make the movements. Here is a picture of an early 175 seen in a Chinese military pilots watch. It was only in production for military purposes for a time and then was eventually released to civilians as the Seagull ST-19 in more modern times. Modern Seagull ST-19: So now you know the not-so-secret- which is that the handwound column wheel chrongraph found in our replicas is actually not a Lemania or a Lemania clone but rather a Venus 175 clone. In fact, one might even make the case that it is a Venus 175 really, since it is manufactered using the original tooling - or at least was at one time. Of course blued screws are laquered and not flame blued and the final finish, decoration, and assembly is how shall we say, "all China", but the function and robustness stand. In fact, many watchmakers have given a sort of seal of approval to the ST-19 as one of the best movements to come out of China. Even the dirty versions seen in our watches always seem to hold up well, but if you take the care to have it serviced, there is no reason it couldn't last for many years or even a lifetime. I didn't want this article to really get into talking specifically about available replicas with this movement so I will limit the discussion to a brief overview of just one - the Vacheron Constantin Malte Chronograph that I once owned. Without going into great detail let me just say that the rep is extremely accurate despite being of a Lemania 2310 (2320) based gen. The reason as you can see by now is because the Lemania and Venus movements are very close to each other in looks. Absent of course is the high level of decoration and the raised gold lettering on the bridges, but in a pinch it will pass. After all, who would really know or examine it that closely? The one thing I will point out is the subdial spacing on the gen, which is Lemania based is closer to the center than on the 175, so the rep's subdials are a bit further apart. Other than that, the dial is quite accurate as well. Beyond the Malte, there are many other replicas using this movement from Breguet to Omega and beyond, and you will find many of them quite accurate (all things considered) to their usually very expensive genuine counterparts. So I hope you have enjoyed this article and learned a bit along the the way. I also hope that the new found knowledge may make you seek out and appreciate more reps and gens using these movements, and that you find them as fascinating and beautiful as I have over the years. EDIT ADD: I have already recieved a couple questions which I left out, so here goes - and if I get any more I will try to answer them here at the end if I can. The first question is what are the sizes and retail prices of the gen watches using the Lemania ebauches I mentioned... -The Breguet 5237 is $28,900 in WG and is 37MM -The Patek 5070 is $47,300 in WG and is 40MM. However Patek is shrewed and limits supply of these. Availability is so tight they are like the SS Daytona in a sense. Collectors really desire them and they routinely sell for $65,000 or more and as much as $110,000 for the platinum version new with box and papers. Ouch! -The Vacheron Patrimony Traditionelle Chronograph is new this year at SIHH and is 42MM. It is new and retail pricing is not out yet on it. But the Malte Chronograph it is replacing retailed for $41,500 in WG last year and was 41.5MM The second question is which movement is better, the 2310 or the 175... The answer is a subjective one, but most agree that the Lemania 2310 and variants is the better movement. One reason is the 175 uses a longer push rod which tends to break when it gets brittle and the Lemania uses a much shorter one. Another is power reserve. Depending on the model, Lemania handwinds are capable of 60 hour reserves or more. Finally, the 2310 is the slimmer of the two (also smaller in width) by about 4% which makes for slimmer, more elegant casing. The third question is since the movements look almost identical, why is the subdial spacing off on reps of gens built with the Lemania as opposed to Venus movement... The answer is simple. Size. The 2310 is 27.5MM wide and the 175 is 31MM wide. Doesn't seem like much, but in micro mechanics it is huge. Since the 175 clone in the reps is so much bigger, what happens is in order to rep the case size correctly they have to adjust the dials accordingly. Since the movement is too big for the case so to speak, it effectively moves the subdials away from the center and toward the edges of the case. So if you look at the dial of the Malte rep for instance you can see that while the cases are very close the subdial spacing is quite different on inspection. The 23(20) in the gen is smaller in width, whereby moving the subdials inward. You can see how they had to adjust the outer indices on the rep to compensate. Notice how the little dots at 9 and 3 are missing. You will of course see a similar reaction on any rep designed around a Lemania gen. But as I said, nobody would ever really notice that in person unless they were really looking for it. Gen: Rep: R

Insomni-wack. Can't sleep so I got up and put a watch on. One of the benefits of being a trader is there is always action 24 hours a day. So I'm hanging in London from afar with the FTSE and EUR. We don't trade em' usually but I'm hanging just the same. Not much going on though besides "breathing" so far after yesterday's beating...