RobbieG

Well I can't to your particular situation but I do know that customer service varies. Here are two conflicting ones from my own experience: I constantly hear a lot of negativity about Joshua including lies, dropshipping, market manipulation, etc. and yet I have bought from virtually no one else for close to half a decade and his service and honesty is beyond what I have heard anyone gets from any dealer. Any time I need parts for project watches, dead ones, straps - anything he just packs them up and sends them even if I have no watch purchase at the moment. He just does and IOU and tacks it on to my next order with complete trust that I will pay him and I always do. Sometimes he even forgets and I have to reind him I owe him money. He also has never dropped shipped even one watch to me. I know this because I have given him special QC instructions on every purchase that were way to specific to ever be carried out by a drop shipper. I have even had him install a different GMT hand on a new watch before shipping. He always answers emails immediately and I know him well enough that I would be able to tell from conversations about previous stuff that a "third party" would never know. In other words, Josh is one person and his personality shows through in communication. I have never bought even close to 30 reps a year from him and he just treats me like gold. My purchases mean nothing to him. Joshua is a pretty serious gen collector as am I (where do you think a lot of the alpha watches come from for the 1:1's...). Anyway, we talk a lot obout gen watches and I don't know if we have developed a kind of friendship over that and maybe that is why I get such good treatment. Who knows. Maybe he just likes me. Lucky me whatever it is By contrast I strayed and bought one watch from the great Angus who is regarded as such a great guy and famous for his QC and I got the worst service ever. Actually, what he did was downright dishonest. I ordered a ETA 7750 version of a watch. To save money from the factory he told me he liked to just buy the hands for the Swiss versions from them and transplant the ETA himself and pocket extra cash. No problem. So what does he do? The maker decides they won't sell him the hands. He told me this after he said my watch had shipped but it never came so I must have emailed him 4 times to get a response. He says he is having some trouble because the maker won't sell him the hands. I sent him a response saying that he should just buy the complete watch from the maker and if he didn't feel he had enough profit to just tell me what the difference was and i would send it immediately. I mean what customer would offer that. I am much too nice and in this case it got taken advantage of. Anyway - again no response. Three weeks later I write again to ask him if the watch shipped. After three more email attempts he finally said yes so I asked him if he ended up getting the hands after all or if he just got the complete watch from the maker. He then said that it was no problem - his watchmaker just modded the hands. Ouch. You can imagine my frustration at that point when I just found out that a Chinese rep level watchmaker had broached hands on my thousand dollar super rep. Still I gave him the benefit of the doubt but I did say it was completely unacceptable to do this on anyone's watch without asking. I certainly would have waited and if he felt his profit wasn't enough I could have ordered it from any dealer. So I get the watch and it was the worst glue job I have ever seen. The hands were so bad they were cockeyed at almost a 20 degree angle and the glue was visible to the naked eye. Just terrible. I bit my tongue though and told him I was unhappy with the results of the broach job not to mention that it was done without asking. But I told him all I wanted was a replacement and if not to just send me a number of lower priced watches if he couldn't make that one happen with his contacts. I sent that email to him maybe 6 times over a two month period and to this day I have never heard from him again. BTW, if anyone would like to see the email trail I would be happy to share it with you privately in case he feels like weighing in here and lying to the contrary. I have it all in black and white. Anyway, I have since sourced another set of the correct hands, modded the dial, had vac lume it and it is one of my favorite pieces after all, but with no help from the great Angus master of replica service and QC. My nephew could glue hands on better than he did. Anyway, the point of telling the whole story here as well as the positive Josh stuff is to ilustrate that obviously dealers do not treat everyone the same way, not to plug Josh and trash Angus, but both stories are 100% true and non-exagerated nonetheless. I think each purchaser needs to just shoot from the hip initially. It seems like all dealers have customers that they treat like gold and others to a lesser degree. I don't know why it is but otherwise we wouldn't have such differing stories. The problem is that I think people tend to go only on their own experiences and are guilty of thinking incorrectly that if someone else has a different experience it must be because they were rude to the dealer or whatever. Everyone need to get past that. On many threads that talk about negative experiences they many times turn into others posting to the effect of "...No way, Angus is the best...I know because that never happened to me...you must have emailed him too many times and pisssed him off"...or whatever. IMO people have to get past that and look at the offences themselves for evaluation and not get hung up communicaton specifics. What I just said did happen and our communication didn't cause a crappy broach job. He did that on his own and it was dead wrong - period. That showed me that he was willing to do whatever it took to protect his profit even if it meant delivering a inferior product. So anyway, both experience showed that at the end of the day I need to judge my dealer's actions only on what they do, not on what they say to me. That said though, I wouldn't want to be talked down to either. It is strange though how dealers seem to choose who they give the best treatment to and it certainly has no connection to the number of watches you buy from what I can tell. But even if a dealer literally hates you to the point of insulting you in emails he should still deliver quality service despite that as it would seem that it could go a long way towards polishing or marring the dealer's image in the small worlds that are these forums. That said, given some poor Angus stories lately I have seen other than mine, I can't imagine it didn't and wouldn't affect his business at least somewhat going forward, but maybe these boards really are a tiny part of the biz as they say. But then one has to ask if they are, why to the dealers watch these borads like hawks and spend so much time here?

This pic really shows that dial shine I am talking about. It looks like this in almost any light and the rep dials don't have this at all...

The color of the whote is perfect although there are still the two slight problems. One is that they all have this iridecence to them Like when you move it from side to side in any light it is alive almost like metal flake paint would be. Beyong that, the rep dials have this kind of a gloss to them instead sort of like an enamel type finish which becomes imperfect near the indices which are srot of recessed from too much application pressue. Of course all this shows with extreme inspection. Havin said all that my guess is that the whit ewould be most accurate and the blue the least accurate due to the completly different color, with the black in the middle. Let me give this statement its own paragraph though. These reps are amazing and even the fine details of the reps, accurate or not made me want to get the gen. That isn't going to happen for me unless a rep is way beyond just a little nice. These reps are really, really nice and besides, it isn't the most popular watch in the world either so unless there is a gen in the room noone would ever think to call a guy out on it IMO.

Actaully the gen is just slightly lighter and yes, the watch is very obviously a rep next to the gen - mostly because of the dial execution which is not so great. The rest of the rep watch is pretty great though I must say...

Well I hope it works out that way and I beleive he is on it. What I can't figure out though is how he will deal with this situation when it comes up. A watch is made out of one factory only as are many 1:1's, and that factory only sells watches with rep ETA's. So he will swap them out himself in that case. The dealers are only the smallest part of this. The factories are putting whatever movements in the wateches that they are able to source. They are who will dictate what goes in your watches and the dealers will have no control of it. They say these forums are a tiny part of their market and I dout anyone outside these boards will know the difference. If this is the case the factories willcontinue to save money by using rep movements as the new standard if there is a cost benefit. That said, if Eurotimez is offering a swap service that should be worth a premium to him and I hope he gets it.

No doubt...now THAT is an issue worth discussing. Some of these watches are all about the AR and they will lose alot of biz if they don't start offering the best versions of any watch with any movement...

Call it what you will, many people did not get what they paid for. To think this isn't going to be heavily discussed here, or be upset that it is seems silly. Isn't that what we do?

Yeah, that new Asian SFSO with the updated second hand has way more flaws than yours. I think yours is the best version by far having had it next to my gen.

Well as the party responsible for stirring up this latest round of ETA stuff I would like to offer this: There is no way to try and pin this down to price. I mean, this whole "Get what I paid for...deception" angle is just not working and you are never going to get anywhere with that. Lets consider attacking it from another angle as this debate is more than tired at this point. If you are looking to get watch prices to drop because the ETA's aren't real it ain't gonna happen, and I for one don't blame them. Their costs are already ridiculously low and even the fakes are of a high enough quality to justify a $200 price point. I mean come on guys. Too much of this is motivated by people wanting or other wise thinking they are due a refund because the watch didn't have a real ETA, they were lied to, etc...It isn't going to happen and it doesn't solve your problem going forward so what is the point in continuing to talk about it? It is well documented that even when the default was that most ETA's were real ETA's, they were still many times suspect and bastardized from parts of many sources. Look, am I the only one who thinks that if the movements were taken completely out that these watches are the best value on the horological planet? A Noobmariner is $200 with the highest quality movement and $100 with the lower one. That tells me the watch is worth a little under $100 empty. What a deal! For $200 you are getting a great watch and if it breaks so does it really matter if it is a real ETA at that price? How about $300? $400. Again, you can't buy better watches for this money anywhere even with name brands that put Asian movements in them as a standard and sell them at department stores! So if we can agree that the base watch is worth a hair less than the dealers price with the worst movement here is what you do (and what I intend to do with my watches from now on). Contact your dealer and tell him you want the watch but you intend to transplant your own movement in it. You will need a set of hands that fit the ETA's in some cases, but in many cases the lower quality Asian movements hands will fit. Maybe The Zigmeister can clarify the deal on hand sizes for 2836's and 2824's which are the culprits. You can then buy the lowest quality Asian watch for $100, your own 2824 from somewhere. I found this one just now on the bay for $135 which is 100% Swiss and cased - http://cgi.ebay.com/ETA-Automatic-Movement...Q2em118Q2el1247 Then you can have your modder swap the movement out for you for probably $50 or so. Or if the dealer won't sell you the hands and the Asian's don't fit they can be broached quite easily. So for a total of what, $285 or so you will have a true Swiss rep. Without a doubt. Otherwise you can just take your chances with whatever dealer you choose, but keep in mind that I doubt many dealers can even tell the difference any more with these so called ETA's. Again, as Pug said they are so bastardized many times it is hard to make sense of. This is the only way to know for sure The bottom line is that this movement crap is here to stay in the new China. The truth is they probably need to raise prices but feel the market won't sustain it so they are saving money instead maybe by using the rep movements because they are cheaper. But again, who cares. All that is going to happen is that the websites will change and say replica Swiss ETA instead of Swiss ETA and the price will not change and it will be biz as usual. So please, can whoever do us a favor and not say "yeah but I paid for a Swiss ETA and they lied..."? Please, for the love of God...You paid $200 for the best quality watch the dealer had. If you must know that it is an ETA beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are going to have to start treating this as a necessary mod just like your datewheels, AR CG's and whatever else. Welcome to your new hobby...

Oh - just FYI, the Aquatimer in Steel is unlimited in production. I just checked th exact list and it is $7300 but it can be had in the mid 5's from most discounters. Typical 20-25% off pricing. Most AD's aren't discounting them though as they are still too "new". I know some AD's are still just getting them in this month so they are trying to get full price where they can...

I have ordered the Aquatimer for myself from the vintage line. A little pricey but worth it IMO. Price is in the 7's. These watches are just beyond cool...

Gents, I guess I'm getting bit by the Breitling bug. I never liked the brand much personally but I have had a series of such nice surprises. I started with the rep slate grey Ultimate BCE which I transplanted a Swiss 7750 in. Then I decided I hated the bracelet on it and was going to sell it but when I put the OEM style calf with white contrast stitching on it I really started liking it alot. Both the black and navy blue OEM straps work nice with the slate dial BTW. That watch is now getting the final touches of lume and a rehaut swap. So then I'm looking for a blue dialed sports watch as I didn't have one, got the rep SFSO and fell in love so much I bought the gen. I felt for the price of just over two grand I paid it was just such a great value compared to other watches in its class. This has become really a three piece set too as it works equally well on bracelet, leather and rubber. So today I finally get a chance to check out the all new Skyland today and I'm blown away almost beyond words. The black dialed version is absolutely stunning. The polished case and bracelet just sets off the stark contrast of the pure white indices with C1 lume against the jet black dial accentuated by the deep AR. Finally the little splash of red and the textured crown just wrap it up so nicely as does the perfect size and very substantial thickness. Again, it works so well at transforming itself into three really different watches depending on the choice of shoes. I'm polishing up the credit card again because if they don't really nail this rep down to the details I'll end up getting the gen again, but the price, just as with the Steelfish, is so completely fair compared to the compettion it is hard NOT to justify getting the gen even if the rep is really good. What I really wnated to punctuate in this thread though is that I see both sides of the Breitling debate in that I used to be one that thought that the line was convoluted and saw nothing totally unique or special about the watches either. But I now see that that isn't what they are about. It is all about the details and they are small and easy to miss if you are looking in the wrong direction. If you are looking for uniqueness I think it is a set up for disappointment but if you look to the fine details and the value you get for those you may see it in a whole different light as I have. I mean what more can be done with a 7750 chronograph? They aren't supposed to blow you away. They just need to be timelessly nice with a touch of something different IMO. I also kind of missed the Avenger craze to begin with because I for one have never felt that Breitling's execution of Ti was up to par when compared to IWC and PAM. I feel that Breitling Ti feels and looks a little toyish and cheap in comparison. But not the case with steel. I am just really coming to appreciate how well Breitling works with steel. As an owner of several gen Omega and Rolex steel pieces as well, I have to say that Breitling is leading both of them in the steel chrono category for fit, finish, design and execution now that I have spent some time with the Skyland. If you haven't yet, I urge all the Breitling fans to get on down to your AD and check one out. For me the black dial is the only choice for the detail reasons mentioned, and I would have to place it as the #1 watch in the line right now in terms of being an everything watch for anybody really. Pure bling with the bracelet and pure dive on rubber. Everything else with croc or calf. It does it all. Plus, due to the price I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think it just might be the nicest and most flexable 7750 chrono for the money on the market today. I will love to hear some other thoughts on all this. In the meantime, here is a link to the best pics i have seen which capture what the Skyland is all about I have seen yet on TZ. The first pics in the link are the best and of course of the black dial version... http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=msg...410#msg_3710200

Did you wear the canal street yachtmaster rep with the pink MOP dial and diamond indices like I suggested Millster?

Nah, the watch is not so new. I do love the watch though . The real draw is the photography. I must confess I do love taking, prepping and posting pics watches in general. I'm already in heaven...

For the record the gen pic you posted here is mostly the AR. The first rep pic is what it really looks like not the AR. Although in your comparison here they look very similar these two pics don't compare apples to apples. The first really shows the color of the rep dial pretty well which looks nothing like the gen. Although I really do like the deeper blue color of the rep, I just wish it had the texture of the gen. There is an iridecense to the gen that the rep doesn't have. The following pic shows the true look of the gen dial without the AR getting in on it. Sorry to say but for those looking for accuracy the rep dial looks nothing like this in color or texture really and side by side it jumps right out at your in person...

Sorry, but I don't have the rep anymore. May I suggest downloading the pics from By-Tor's shoot and then doing the same with mine. You could then paste them into a document easily and compare side by side. His shoot is of comparable quality and with similar lighting characteristics. From my experience with the rep his pics are also very accurate color wise which is one of the major differences. In addition, the more rounded case, dial texture, applied marker shape, indices, lume application, etc. are all very clear in his pics: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showtopic=45341

Someone asked in one of my previous Gen Steelfish posts for some more detailed inner and outer clasp pictures for comparisons. I hope these help and are what you were looking for...

Yeah the blue is VERY different for sure, but sadly this is not possible as I don't have the rep anymore.

Funny you should ask. The rep bracelet edges are actually LESS sharp than the gen. The other thing that stands out is the rounded edges on the rep case. The genuine has sharper lines on the case. That actually is one of the things that makes the gen nicer to me. Other than for bracelets which need to be comfortable, in fine watch making one of the ways makers are judged is in the ability to execute sharp lines with precision. Many times, a mark of a cheap watch is overly rounded case edges which can be a way to hide sloppy manufacturing tolerances. However, having said all that let's say you gave the Pepsi (no Bytor this is not a GMT thread - LOL - just kidding brother...) challenge to someone who didn't know Breitlings. If you handed them both watches and asked them which was fake while blindfolded, even a lot of watch guys would pic the gen as the fake. Every component of the rep is smoother and overall the rep has a very luxurious feel. Most people equate smooth edges with quality. Not to get off track, but Rolex would be in trouble in any blindfold test with those bracelets. LOL.

Very nice. Enjoy it Brother.

I finally had a chance to do this one. As I said in the previous post, I fell in love with this watch by owning the rep first. This was one of those pieces that I passed by at the AD over and over. I had no idea how cool it was until I got the rep. It really is elegant and understated, yet bold and substantial. Such a nice surprise. It took half the day just to clean the watch, but I think the overcast light today did a good job of capturing the essence of the piece. The colors in particular are very accurate for once. Enjoy...

To each their own Frank. Personally I don't find anything in life more rewarding other than my loved ones - and I don't consider them jewelry...

Good question...One could certainly make a case for that for sure. Thanks for that as you have made me give some thought to some things again that I haven't spent time thinking about for a while. Why? This is what I can come up with in the most simple terms: I guess I really like to patronize the original designer of the watch and the genuine brands when I can. I know a lot of folks on rep boards think gens are overpriced and a ripoff and not worth the money and all that if a rep is close to perfect. I get all that, but I guess I'm just not one of them. I have a deep respect for the history of the makers and their achievements and I take that stuff reallt seriously. It is a big part of collecting for me. I enjoy being a part of that stuff. For example, did you know Breitling invested the first chronograph pushpiece in 1923, the return-to-zero pushpiece in 1934, and the first self-winding chronograph in 1969? That is just so interesting to me. Anyway, I like to try and contribute to stuff like that in the hopes that my money may help go towards future horological improvements. As good as our friends in GZ are at copying things, they will never be innovators. LOL. There is also an emotional connection for me and a hard to decribe intangible quality that is just not quite there in replica watches. Can't explain it really. No matter how accurate a rep is they are just not made "with love" for lack of a better term - or with the skill and it does show up in the final result as we all know. The stuff that turns me on are things like how a perfectly seated crown and tube feels when you wind the watch, the lack of that little stock ETA grinding sound when winding, the sound of the clicks in the bezel, the flawless execution of a dial seen at extreme magnification. In short, it is all in the details for me and for my money, those always seem to be missing from the reps. So I bite the bullet and buy the gens more often than not. Most people could care less about what I speak of and hats off to them cause' they get to save a lot of money. LOL. Obviously though I love the reps too or I wouldn't be here. There are many watches that I get a great rep of that don't knock me out enough to want to own it forever so I don't get the gen, but I still may love the rep. Hard to tell what I will do. At this point I have only four reps in my collection and I love them all and wear them a lot - just not enough to want to get the gens of them at this point... That said, your Steelfish rep is without a doubt, along with the Chronomat (one of my 4 reps ) , the finest quality replica I have ever seen. Enjoy.