RobbieG

Anybody use motor oil? Maybe a nice 10w-30? I don't know why but reading this thread just made me think of Chevy Chase in Fletch. "It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads. And I'm gonna need about ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, make that Quaker State."

Yeah Photoshop is a great tool. I use it in my other work a lot - when I shoot with SLR. Heavy duty flower stuff like this always needs color correction. My point was to say that when you focus on controlling your LIGHT everything changes. Your perpective changes and so does the image. Yeah, I get that color correction is cool Pho. I know all about it and I have work heavily with the program for years now. I'm just saying that you don't always need to do that to get world class images. Nor do you need great equipment. BTW, the reason the point and shoots work great for certain subjects is the same reason why reversing rings work actually work better than a macro lens... Here is some very color corrected and processed nature done with an SLR which is clearly different - but then its kind of the same isn't it.

There are no absolutes in life. And to that end let me show you all something. I basically only use PS to clone stamp out dust spots and as a vehicle for resizing and saving photos. Many of my pics which you all know by now were taken with a pocket snap shot camera with no adjustments of any kind. NO WHITE BALANCE ADJUSTMENTS either. No light box. Natural light. Tripod and no flash set to the cameras automatic macro program mode with no adjustments of any kind. Once in PS each of these has has NO processing of any kind. They key is the light, the light and the light. You have to learn to look for when the light looks right and is nice an diffused so the watch looks appealing to your eye. When it does, chances are any camera will capture it. Sure I have an SLR that I use for my more serious photography, but to be honest, I hardly use it with watches. I have gotten so I prefer the pocket camera actually. I'll let you in on a little secret - the little on board lenses in pocket cameras is actaully an asset to macro work as it automatically solves depth of field issues. Too much technical stuff to go into here to explain that but anyway, suffice it to say that you don't even need an SLR to get good watch shots... I'll bet a whole lot of people here might think some expensive equipment and post processing was used to make these images. Nope. Cheap stuff on auto settings and no correction at all. If the light is right your pics will make themselves. If not, you either have to toss it (which I recommend) or process the sh*t out of it (which I don't recommend cause then they just look like marginal photos that have been processed. A few examples of my no talent, no equipment photos given to me by Mother Nature. The scary thing is that I wonder what they might look like if I did process them in PS. Would they get better? Or worse? I'm in no hurry to find out as I like the natural vibe to them. They look real to me and that is what I'm going for:

MMD for Thursday. This one is for my buddy Bytor who loves the crystal clear wristcheck pics...

Perfect Jeff. This is what I'm talking about. Very refined. You have given it a lot of thought obviously. Isn't it amazing how you have all those watches and then realize one day you only truly love a few? I assume you have sold all the others that are wasting space?

Toad is showing us his feminine side...

I have my eye on just a few gens and as usual would love to see some reps to see if it really is love or fleeting lust... I hear there are some new more accurate DD's coming. I have my eye on a 36MM with a roman glacier dial. I hope in the new run they wil finally do a color accurate version of that dial which isn't so turquoise. I want to be sure I love it before I pull the trigger on a platinum watch as if I don't really love that dial I would just get a white gold version or keep my DJ... I would like to see a Vintage Jubilee Aquatimer done, although the movement would never be right... I would like to see the new regulat AT's done. I wonder if Josh will preorder something from that line and get it in the pipeline for a 1:1. And I would add that I hope they do a non-chrono version this time... In fact, I would like to request that a new non-chrono movement get propped up so we can kill this ETA nonsense. I'm rooting for the 2892 clone. Imagine all the cool watches we could have with that - especially if they start doing modules for complictions with them. I know, wishful thinking, but imagine if we could have something like a Breguet Marine watch. I'll take either the chrono or the non-chrono - although I would like to see more non-chrono watches this year. I think the proportion of A7750 watches has been a bit much lately. That said, I prefer the chrono version for this particular watch... Finally, I would love to see the VC Partimony traditionelle in WG get done as that one will probably be my next gen. In know the movement will never be right but who cares. I'm sill torn between that and a 5120 Calatrava though, but the VC has the edge... Since this came out there is a new handwind with seconds at 6 that I like better. The former would be the better rep for movement reasons though and unfortunately, the handwind just came out at SIHH and I don't have a pic in WG for that version yet...

I hear you Tazz. I love my gen and I would love to see that get repped, but due to movement issues I doubt it will ever get done.

Brigade of left wing hippies... You made me smile this morning Rxus. What a visual image that invokes...

That is absolutely incorrect. The WM9 YM is not anywhere near that price. It is a nearly 1:1 replication and uses an ETA 2892 (clone?). It is in a whole other league to what other dealers sell. You can get one from BK for basically the same cost (or cheaper from group buys I believe) and then have the benefit of his quailty control and upgrades. It simply isn't in the same zip code as the other YM's he speaks of. Why so expensive? You get what you pay for in this life. This watch is the best I have ever seen as is the Sub from the same maker and I owned both gens for quite some time... See this post here for more information: http://www.rwg.cc/members/Annoucing-WM9-YM-t86979.html

Right. All from the same concept. You have to smile at these things though. Mostly because Gerd sits around and actually thinks timepieces on clipboards might be useful for rallys...

Thanks brah - you know I do it all jus for you!

You got that right Toad. You and I are a lot alike. At the end of the day I think most people take themselves WAY too seriously and I do the same thing as you and laugh at them all. I once had a girl tell me I should be drinking Coca Cola because it was going to rot my stomach while she was freebaseing on front of me and saying it between hits... For me, I know my behavior is insane and I don't care - that is the difference. To me that there are people on gen forums that have a Lange and actually look down on Omegas. That is as funny as people on here owning reps of luxury items and then putting down people who buy luxury items that aren't reps, because after all, it is their superior intellect that has allowed them to leave the suckers in the dust by secretly purchasing a $300 rep that spits in the eye of those greedy Swiss who have created this broad conspiracy to overcharge the world? I wonder if those people are addicts or something because they seem to think everything is about them... BTW, I've studied some watch company financials and ironically they can't be overcharging. Their margins aren't all that great. Sure, they are doing 200M in revenue, but it is expensive to be in the luxury biz. The ad budgets are huge as are the R&D costs. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that the true irony of any business industry with competitors is that the market is always right. Luxury watches cost EXACTLY what they are supposed to given the factors involved. If they were overpriced, the market would price it in immediately by way of competition lowering prices to increase demand. It happens all the time actually and notice that the prices only go so low. There is no conspiracy there. Standard sh*t. Don't get me started on efficient market theory. Everything costs what it is worth. Value is determined by the actions of market participants and is also limited by the hard costs of producing and marketing a product. Anyone who thinks a watch is overpriced might do better to blame display rates at Robb Report rather than those "Greedy Swiss". Greed's got nothing to do with it. Gens, reps, and toilet paper all cost (sell for) exactly what they are worth. An individuals perception of worth has no bearing on it other than he can choose not to participate. Anything else can explain why thousands of traders lose money everyday chasing bad positions. I see it happen all the time. "No wait - how can it be at 850. I KNOW the support level is 875. This is going to turn around any minute. I KNOW it..." Price is value. Volume precedes price. If people buy the price goes up. If people don't the price goes down. But then with tangible goods there is always a low value that cannot be exceeded or the goods will cease to be made so it isn't that simple. Remember, the margins are not that big. I hear that all the time. People say its not at manufactory it is at retail. Well top line retail is 50% and most aren't getting that with most brands and even if they did - what rock does one live under to think 50% is a great retail margin? It doesn't get good until it crosses a hundred or two guys. Rep margins exceed gen margins at retail - and besides, like gens they are worth exactly what they are priced at. The market says so... So in this slowdown you will see that play out in Switzerland. My sources say they are already doing it. They are tightening supply. They have to. They can't lower prices with reduced sales as the numbers no longer work. It is a machine with many parts so to speak. Ironically, they have to stop selling instead of lowering prices and ride it out. That is what they are doing. And the decreased supply is effecting demand. There is just not a ton of new watches in the pipeline right now because they are trying to find the sweet spot for demand.

Security?

Thanks guys. I put a lot into it in terms of thought and I'm very happy with my choices. It is so much more rewarding when you really give thought to what you like and then filter want and need and the delicate balance of the two so as not to be wasteful...

Grey with grey on the SL looks great Lani...

Absurd. They recycled that too. It used to be a dash mounted piece for your car. I thought of getting one at one time. I guess they never sold and now they are trying to see if they can use the big watch craze to get rid of them. Of course, being the d*ck that he is, albeit a talented one, Gerd Lang will never admit that he would do such a thing. But he did pretty much save the small, independent mechanical watch industry in a way in the 80's so I suppose we can forgive him. The original Regulateur he still makes today was the first production piece of that kind ever introduced. IMO it is still the coolest watch in his lineup. Classic, elegant, perfect...

Exactly. And this whole discussion even is what sets us apart from the pack - and why I hang out here instead of TZ (well I do post there a bit...). There is just a higher level of conciousness about it all here. As you know, I'm exactly the opposite of you and I usually think it is the reps which are not worth the money and wish they solved the little detail issues and were a grand instead of three hundred, but had dirt free crystals and movements. LOL. And I as you know do think the gens I buy were worth every penny mostly because they make me happy. I repeat all this really just to reiterate that we are both the exception to the rule in that we have trancended what was supposed to be a simple luxury item and choice based on status to most into something that is pure truth and feeling. And that is something 99% of anyone who buys a luxury watch - rep of gen never even considers. We discuss, purchase, enjoy what moves us - NOT what moves others which as you point out is assumed to be the motivation of EVERY rep buyer and of course it isn't so. But I say let them obsess on it and be tortured by it. Meanwhile we will all sit back and enjoy our watches rep and gen!

Still... I Forgot how comfortable this was. Usually only for travel but I discovered I can still play with the GMT function at home. Today I went to the grocery store and fell back an hour. Reset when I got home. Man am I car-lagged...

Yeah I think that is a fair statement. Hypocrites abound on both sides of the issue. You have gen owners who buy them as status symbols but you also have rep owners who buy reps so others will notice that they are wearing status symbols. Most of them in fact. Look, the whole industry rep and gen is populated by some very vain people. I'm not, and my interest is purely in perfected horology, but we can't just will away the truth of what makes the luxury world tick. Reps are really just an extention of that for people who want to look rich but aren't. Before anyone freaks out, I'm well aware that there are exceptions and most of those are here on RWG and the other rep forums. But make no mistake, most rep owners are not watch lovers or passionate people at all, they are trying to fool someone - mostly themselves. They are the exactly the people that ad was written for. It wasn't written for us watch lovers. It was written to tell people that if you want a status symbol buy a genuine one. Nothing personal - they don't even know or care about our little subset. In fact Bytor is right - most serious collectors here own both reps and gens. And I have to disagree with the statement earlier about gen forums. I have to say that you will find even more true watch lovers there by the numbers than here. Sorry but it is true. Most people who populate watch forums are enthusiasts and they are generally not interested in showing off. And TZ for one has been around a long time and just by the sheer numbers alone I have no doubt that there are more hardcore, true watch loving, non status symbol caring types there than here. Just a numbers game really. People like us and them just love watches. Look at me. I hang out on a rep forum and don't even own one. My collection is all gens. The lines are blurred... Is it true that lots of gen sales are to people who buy them as status symbols - yes. But they aren't usually on watch forums afterwards. They don't even know there is a forum. They are either golfing or counting stacks of hundreds...

Yes, UN does a limited edition with a "blue" theme every year. Blue is kind of a trademark that represents the connection to the rich marine history of the brand in making marine chronometers. A little history for you: By the early 1920's all but two nations were using UN chronometers on military and merchant ships as a principle means of navigation along with the sextant. The two that were not was Japan and the US. Japan was using a chromometer developed by Kintaro Hattori who went on to found Seiko. The US was using chronometers that were self developed and exactly like the UN design. There was an ongoing lawsuit for years in which UN basically alleged that the US has used political influence to essentially steal a key to the Swiss patent office. The entire Marine line presently still has dial layouts exactly like the original ships versions with power reserve at 12 and outsized seconds at 6. The whole obsession with chronometers in the wristwatch industry has really just been an extention of that designation from back then. Accuracy was of critical importance obviously in navigation. A single second of error at the equator represents a distance error of 463 square meters. And finally, here is a stunner for you. Between 1846 and 1975 there were only 4,504 chronometer certificates awarded in total. UN was awarded 4,324 of them. To say that they developed and ruled chronometer performance in horology is an understatement for sure. Here is a pic of a classic UN Marine Chronometer from the 20's...

No there isn't one and due to the layout yo can't just drop a gen ETA 7750 in it either. The seconds at 6 is the issue and that is why they never offered it in ETA. The gen is a 7750 as well, but it is modified with a module that puts the seconds at 6...

Yeah, for the money you won't find anything better and in some parts you won't find anything better at any price. The only area you will see what I would call standard Swiss grade finishing is in the movements. If you want the wow factor with movements you have to step up to VC, PP, AP, etc... and pay the price of admission. But cases, bracelets, dials, etc. with UN are as fine as anything at any price for sure- but then to be honest Rolex is real close when it comes to case, bracelet and dial. Of my starting five UN leads, followed closely by Rolex, then Omega, and IWC brings up the rear in terms of overall "feel-able and see-able" quality of parts, fit, and finish...

Can't help you there. Distance and detail of subject makes it very difficult to get everything sharp except with no depth of field and then nothing is sharp except one spot anyway. Watches are funny like that. You would think you could just cabk off to a more landscape view and refocus and everything could be easily sharp but it ends up putting you in the worst possible position actually...

I of course would like to see the UN Diver Chrono and if anyone has a Big Pilot 5002 I would be interested to see that one as well. It also might be neat to have a Slevin, a PO, and a DJ there if anyone has them especially if they are modded in any way.