RobbieG

All I can say is WOW. Nice job. Love all the boxes and such.

The test drive concept is one that I have been doing for years. This process has landed me 4 gens so far that I learned I couldn't live without because of falling in love with the rep of the watch first such as with the PO, the Steelfish, the Aquatimer and more. Conversely and probably more importantly it has saved me from buying a dozen more that I didn't love and the reps were solely responsible for taming the impulse purchase of many that didn't really "grow" on me. Several PAM's, a Chronoswiss, a Navitimer and a Big Bang. After owning these reps I realized they didn't knock me out and as such I wasn't stuck with a gen to take a big hit on when selling. Whether helping you to save money on a gen or helping you to spend money more wisely when choosing gens - reps rule!

I'm confused. In your original thread you seemed to like the brand and now it sucks. Not that I care what a man buys or doesn't buy, but neither the price nor brand sucks in any way, that is for certain. Regarding resale, ALL watches are marginal with the minor exception of Rolex, but that too is changing now unless the model is inherently collectable. Yes, our old friend supply and demand again from the drama threads. LOL. Gens too I'm afraid. The huge watch boom of the last 5 years has created a glut of watches on the secondary market - the bulk of which are due, but have never been serviced which makes matters worse. Quite simply the supply of used Swiss watches (including Rolex) far outstrips demand at this point. You will continue to see lower and lower resale values on all fine timepieces unless special in some way. Always buy a watch because you like it and have some emotional connection to it. Forget trying to make a smart purchase in terms of resale value. Those days are over. There is no smart watch purchase. They are all overpriced and a stupid way to waste money. Man do I LOVE being stupid though...

Def sub second. Love the phantom. I was going to PM you. I just did a cool Ti homage which is getting a double AR crystal at the moment. You got me started on the homage PAMs and now I can't stop. Bastard... Just kidding. Always loved your watches and pictorials OS...

CS is ceratinly one of the worst right now in terms of resale value. The brand is getting hammered. I had a minute repeater that got stolen and Tourby just made me a sort homage to replace it - sans strike train... Yes, Gerd Lang is arrogant but he has really made a great contribution to what we have today with the resurgence of mechanical watches. He helped paved the way for the comeback in the 80's. On a positive note it is one of those little brands where the production is small enough to where each watch is made with love and care. Kind of like Lange & Sohne in that respect. Gerd is truly a master watchmaker and to be honest I have met many master watchmakers from Gerd to Walter Lange to Francios Journe and there has not been one who hasn't been arrogant to a fault. To be truthful I think to operate on the mental level that these guys do is almost absurd and it is no wonder they are not merely arrogant but rather stark raving mad. My best advice is that if you truly want to appreciate a fine timepiece, skip meeting its maker. On that note, Chronoswiss is a great watch for the money. I'm planning on adding two to my collection eventaully. First the Regulatuer which is teh signature piece as he was the first to ever offer a serially produced regulatuer which is cool. Second, I love the Tora Chronograph with the black dial and white hands with a whisky strap. I also like whisky...wait...I digress...OK I'm back now. But seriously the Tora Chrono is based on the 7750 but has a cool complication added where the GMT hand is in the same subdial as the seconds at 9 and has a seperate pushpiece for a quickset incremental click of the GMT hand. The subdial is split with the numbers in black on white and white on black to show day or night. Pretty cool...

Yeah sort of the same vibe with the enamel but yet more early Breguet like because of the case. Also of note is that it wears smaller than the Jones which is a big 43MM IMO. I owned it for a bit and I found it wore too big for me as a dress watch and didn't function as well casual. This one is 42MM and wears just perfect and can dress up or down. Funny you should mention the Jones as I always wanted a replacement for it that fixed a few things. I always loved it but I wanted the case to be smaller. I guess I finally found it. More importantly I feel like I have my Chronoswiss Repeater back sort of. Man that theft was a tough loss. Insurance can't bring it back...

Yes, and a great guy too. I have to get used to calling him T so new members can find him. What he is offering at the price he is offering them is unmatched anywhere in the industry IMO. Just world class stuff to be had for under a grand...

Well I had some special circumstances and we played with some ideas so you can't go by me, but he has this exact watch listed on his site now for $925 I believe. However, the watch shown on his site does NOT have real blue steel hands so that will cost extra I'm sure. There are also two basic case designs and several bezel and crown options for any of his work and all have slightly different price points. The movement upgrades are of course where you will spend the money. I opted for just the basic decorated version but there are soeme amazing hand engraved gold and rhodium offerings as well and a lot in between...

New custom genuine enamel dialed 1900's homage...

This is a wonderful custom piece made by one of our members, T, at Hagen in Westfalen Germany. The watch is an homage to an early 1900's pocket watch style dress watch with a genuine enamel dial. Enamel is very rare these days but just so beautiful. The dial is very similar to that of a Chronoswiss Minute Repeater that my father and I owned jointly which was stolen. It was a sort of prototype model that Gerd Lang had made for us quite some time ago. Anyway, T came through in a big way and in fact he has just released this dial as a permanent model in his collection. The watch is constructed of super high quality parts all sourced from Germany and Switzerland. The case is just first rate and is adorned with double AR sapphire crystals front and back. The hands are genuine 300 degree C heated blued steel as are the decorative screws in the movement. The movement is an ETA 6498 with seconds at 6 which has been hand decorated with Cotes de Geneve. T is known for his decorative genuine 6497/8 movements and many are sourced from the SOPROD factory of Panerai fame. The strap is a hand made genuine Bony Crocodile with double deployant clasp. Everything about this watch is world class and I would highly recommend any of his offerings to anyone looking for a wonderful genuine watch for a fantastic price. This watch meets or exceeds the quality of many of my genuine watches without question. Here are a few quick and dirty shots until this weekend when I will try to shoot a full pictorial. Enjoy...

Can't agree with that bro. This is pretty out of whack for them. My UN diver is only $7500 and the milling is flawless. Actually so is my Steelfish which is only $2600...

Hey, not to nitpick this watch as I too think it is a really cool design, but check out the metal milling on the date windows - particularly the strip between the two sides. Pretty sloppy. I would expect much better finish work from Breguet of all companies. Seems like the outer dial ring is a bit rough in spots too. Wow...

I bought once from him and he burned me and then stopped communicating as well. He couldn't source hands for a 7750 super rep and had his watchmaker broach Asian hands on without asking first even after I asked him not to when he told me he was having trouble sourcing the hands. He tried to sugar coat it and I caught him. I told him I would wait longer if needed and even pay extra to have it done right and he conveniently "missed" those emails and shipped the bad broach job version of it anyway. He also promised two minor QC issues as a sales pich to get me to buy from him and never even remotely did either of them. I just redid the watch myself so it was right at my expense and it was then perfect. It has since been sold to a happy buyer so all is well. I didn't respond here to tell that story though really. But I needed to tell it for the back story. The front story is that when I received the watch I tried emailing him several times to offer to ship it back at my expense, pay extra and wait for the 7750 watch I originally ordered. I never heard from him again. That was about 4 months ago and I chose to let it go and not trash him on the forums, until I saw this thread. But the bottom line is that in all my years I have never been disrespected by any other dealer. As far as I'm concerned Angus is a POS liar and a thief. But those qualities I can even stand in this game as it sort of goes with the territory sometimes. Expecting more may be "the right thing" and ethically correct, but sets one up for many disappointments around here. So the bul*sh*t I can stand. Not returning my emails when I ask nicely for a resolution to a problem created by him was and still is unforgivable. I have no doubt one day this will cost him his ticket here...

Just me and my charts today as usual - getting a monitor tan from my 8 22" wides here at my trading office... A couple new wristies of the mighty UN as I wait for the next setup...

It seems like the Seagull 2892 clone (again) would be a good choice depending on the China mod module. In theory the base movement could accomodate a big date module. The bottom line is that the BP is being done now as a supposed 1:1 and that has a big date so obviously they have the Big Date issue figured out somehow without using a total trash China movement. Which base movement it is is anyones guess. The only other issue is the center seconds which of course the BP does not have...

100%. Lani has nailed it. When a crystal has AR, durability is only ONE element to consider. AR comes in many colors and strengths. Coating both sides of the crystal obviously increases its intensity. For me, I have always leaned to the artistic side and the way srong AR just MAKES the look of the watch by bringing out the rich color of a dial - particularly black ones. In the spirit of this discussion, I offer my gen PO against a rep PO with no AR that I got from Andrew's site. On another note, even most China single sided AR is not AR at all, but rather purple colored crystal with little or no anti-reflective properties. Anyway, these photos illustrate what great AR does to bring out the black in black dials. I can honestly say that I would not be interested in owning the gen PO if its crystal didn't have AR. I chose the gen PO over a gen Sub as my black - bezel - dive - watch - category - watch because of the AR...literally. I wouldn't own it otherwise. AR is just a must visually for many watches.

I'm very much an emotional buyer and I always was and I make no distinction to this method whether purchasing a $150 rep or a $25,000 gen. Cost has never been a consideration for me with any watch purchase and that has always been true regardless of my age or income level over the last 20 years. I do agree with the statement made in this thread where others may think any watch one wears might be a rep simply because he or she is a college student or is known to have a job that simply doesn't pay enough to afford to buy expensive Swiss watches. That would be a difficult thing for me as I prefer people not to notice my watches out in the world although I love sharing them here. I'm sure many people we connect with every day might think it pretentious if they knew how much some of our watches cost. I simply have never treated watches as a luxury item or ever consider whether people will notice that I'm wearing a nice watch - or if they think it is a rep. If I was looking for attention, all I would own would be Rolexes. Nobody has ever seen a UN where I live as an example and I wear my Diver all the time. I haven't bought a rep in some time and that probably won't change anytime soon. There is really one reason for that choice and that is that the principle thing that attracts me to watches is the finest details which can only be had with gens. Not accuracy in looks, but rather the touch and feel and world class inner workings of something that was built by the maker that invented it and ultimately manufactured and assembled by highly skilled labor. I also have issues lately with QC. Not that I think they are unreasonable QC issues as some may think, but rather that I say to myself why bother as long as I have the money to buy the gen? That may sound a little cavalier but it is at least honest. If I start falling in love with say, the Skyland which is kind of happening now and I decide I want one I already know what the mental process is going to be. I am going to say, "Wow, the rep is great...I should get one and save the extra cash..." and then I'm going to remember all the little let downs I have had with reps and sending them back and sending them off for lume or AR and all the modding stuff I used to love but don't anymore and then I'm going to say ask myself what the impact to my life would be if I just paid ten times as much and got the gen and the answer with most sports watches at least would be none, and so I'll probably get the gen simply because I KNOW I won't have any problems with it and it will be perfect - NOT because I think it is really THAT much better than the rep. The point for me being the question: "Would I rather take a chance on having issues or would I rather just spend the cash if I have it?". That simple. So I am definitely not one of the many on this board who depite having the means, buy reps because they think gens are either overpriced or otherwise unjustified or that they can afford maybe one or two gens but prefer owning 20 or 30 reps intstead so as to have more variety. That is very common on these boards and I totally get it, but its just not the way I justify watch ownership. That said, on the other hand if all I could afford was reps I guess would have no problem owning a fleet of them as I have many times in the past as I think they are a great alternative to genuine pieces on a budget or even otherwise. But personally I have come full circle on this very recently and if I went broke tomorrow there is a good chance I would just own one gen. But which one? Hmmm... Finally, when it comes to design it is always impulse on what moves me. Sometimes it is series of low impact ones that grow over time and one day I just have to have it. Other times it is instant, like when I was in Vegas once and bought a Millenary right there the first time I had ever even tried one on. I can just never tell. I have no clear picture of what I like and don't like in watches - other than most watches over 44MM I have no interest in and I don't care for yellow gold and I think rose gold is WAY overdone and most rose mixtures are either ugly by being too pink or being too green.

I take my Ti with a splash of yellow...

+1...we all watched the Dutch man literally "grow up" on this forum and the 2000 shows just how active he was here in his formative years.

I can't wait though. It has been on my list since the ceramic first came out. I had the gen black bezel version for a while but it just didn't do it for me. It ain't a GMT unless its' a Pepsi or Coke for me I guess. I'm selling both my gen and rep Coke soon in anticipation of basel next year. I heard they nailed the ceramic color issue through the grapevine but who knows if it is really true yet. The new watch is so nice in terms of fit and finish that I can only imagine how nice the colored versions will be...

I'm truly baffled as to why they didn't rep this as all the CNC is in place and it is the same internally as the Slevin. Moreover, they already nailed the Ti execution for the case with the GST and so they would pretty much just have to do that but for the Slevin case design essentially. Oh well, the gen is pretty reasonably priced and I'm not really missing the rep but seeing how well they nailed the steel version I just think it would make good sense for them to do the Ti as well since the infastructure is all there. Found money for them I would think...

http://timetapestry.blogspot.com/2008/07/i...amic-pepsi.html

Like I always tell you, if there is anyone on God's great green earth who should own a gen Pepsi, it is you my friend. The orginal 16710 mascot! I knew it was coming of course and I have said it before but a big congrats - again!

Yeah, I think I paid like $118 or something for mine new from River as I recall.