panerai153

Almost all the trusted dealers have fairly similar inventory. you have to go to their websites to see what they have. Very limited numbers of their watches show up on the "Collectors/dealers page. Also read the reviews on the dealers before you buy. You may be more comfortable with one dealer over another. All of them are "Trusted" however some can ship more easily to the EU for instance, some are a little longer shipping, some have a full guarantee for delivery (Should your watch be seized by customs) others have a partial refund plan, some can easily supply spare parts, others can or won't . So read the information, choose what you want to buy and then find a dealer that fits you. Some members swear by a particular dealer, others another, so it's who you feel comfortable with after reading the reviews, etc. Arthur

Welcome to the forum. Lots and lots of valuable info here. Wheaton is right your going to be like a kid in a candy store !! Welcome Arthur

Thanks for the photos. I think the GMT Master II is a great watch. I have one and I really like it. Super accurate, keeping time +1 second per day. Anyone who wins this one should be a happy camper Good Luck to all who entered. Arthur

PeteM Mine was 927 Arthur

Thanks very much to all who have posted. I agree and disagree with some of the things that were posted. Firstly I do believe that we "pick the nits" here almost to the point of convincing ourselves that nothing short of perfection is acceptable. I believe to that when dealers promise something, they should deliver. I realize too that having virtually untrained people do your QC is probably a lesson in frustration. Remember the folks who are doing the assembling and QC, are not Swiss watchmakers with years of training and long apprenticeships . These are workers who are probably given minimal training and do an excellent job for their training and experience. Remember too that genuine watches are not without the occasional

Just remember guys if the dealer is a scammer, he is going to offer you all sorts of guarantees to hook you, then BAM you get some sorry POS watch and he's nowhere to be found. One thing to post photos on a website, another to deliver! Second caveart we all should live by "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true. Just my Dos Centavos Arthur

@ thinkBachs, I'm not offended, and certainly I defer to those of you who are Rolex experts. I realize that this one has soome issues. My only problem with this is Eurotimez DSSD's are all over the place with quality control. I'm not sure how they will correct the problem, short of just sending the watch back and getting a refund. I noticed after you brought it to my attention the SEL on the top is very loose. I played around with it, and in the process I discovered that the springbar was not seated in the hole on one side. I replaced it properly and it looks fine now. this is just another example of their non-existant QC. Anyone looking at the SEL's from the bottom would see the problem, I was in a hurry to take the photos last night, and I missed it, but they shouldn't have. As to the Gas Escape valve Ring Lock I don't know how that can be corrected, as it is obviously a font spacing problem. looking at several photos of genuines it's easy to see that the E in" Escape" lines up perfectly with the 12 marker, and on the bottom, the K in Lock" lines up with the 6 marker. this version as you explained is off by almost a full "Tick". I think that it would look better if it were rotated back to where the E was lined up. as you said, this would put the K off about half a tick, but it wouldn't be as apparent. This would also bring the O in line with the 10 marker, which looking at a genuine photo as I type this isn't correct either because in the photo of the genuine, the O is between the 50 and 51 tick. Not fixable correctly unless they respace their lettering on the reps. HEV:I just looked at the genuine on the Rolex website, and I can see one glaring problem. the HEV on the genuine is centered. mine is not centered. this would be a dead giveaway that this is a rep. Anyone who knows the watch could see that from 10 feet away. This is a BIG flaw!Anything else wrong with it, besides it's not the correct "open from inside" configuration" this one depresses from outside, so a warning to all who have this watch. Seal off the HEV from inside. Certainly this watch illustrates what we have been saying about reps from the beginning of these forums, One step forward, one back, two sideways. Also I want to correct what I said about the lume. It wasn't charged with a bright enough light. I went back and charged it for about 20 seconds with a super bright LED headlight, and it was still readable in a dark room for several hours. Still not up to genuine or The Zigmeisters lume jobs, but better than I reported. Sorry for the misinformation. There are never going to be perfect reps, lets face it. as long as the dealers keep coming up with slight upgrades every few weeks or months, they have us hooked! If they corrected all the problems in one fell swoop, we would all buy one and never need to "upgrade" Obnviously, Eurotimez needs to either do one of two things, either really face up to the problem and have real quality control, or abandon that concept and just let everyone take their chances on what they get, like some dealers in the past have done. You just can't keep saying we are doing better and our QC is working when in actuality it isn't. Arthur

Well I suppose this is the one for me this weekend.Just came in today, andi have a review with photos up in theRolex forum.Eurotimez Ultimate Upgrade DSSD Have a great weekend everyone.

I'm having the same problem on our computer at work. It's a Dell running Vista with IE 8. I'm getting exactly the same configuration with the reply box as everyone above. Editor splits the Reply box in half. This is going to make it difficult to compose a long post with several photos. Anybody have any ideas as to a fix. this obviously popped up after the upgrades. Arthur

I finally picked up my DSSD from the PO this morning. I have to admit I opened the package with some fear and trepidation. After seeing some of the DSSD watch photos that have been posted recently, I frankly was almost afraid to open the package. First off, it was well packed in a well sealed soft envelope, but inside was a styrofoam box and inside that the watch wrapped in bubble wrap. My first impressions have been very positive. I'm at work, so photos will have to wait until I get home this afternoon. Not having any loupe or magnifier to magnify the face, there may be some slight defects but if they are, I can't see them. The bezel pearl looks great, the bezel/insert lines up nicely and the lettering looks good. From what i can see, the dial lettering appears to be straight and correct.However it will be easier to see with some magnification and good sharp photos. The Glidelock clasp adjuster looks like a really neat and fast method for micro adjustments. Have to say this is definitely a substantial watch, weight looks to be about comparable with my Ocean7 ProPlof. OK folks here are the photos and a brief commentary about the watch. First of all as everyone who is interested in the Deep Sea knows, it is a massive watch.Not for the faint of heart! Overall, I am impressed with the quality of the watch, however there are a few things that I'm a little unhappy about, but they will be explained as we go through the photos. The plusses far outweigh the minuses I will say. I just returned to the forum after a pretty long hiatus, so I am not very familiar with the previous versions V1-V5. I have seen photos and some comparisons but never had one in my hand to compare. The Watch Here is a photo of the dial face on. As you can see from the photo, everything looks straight, the 12 marker lines up with the crown.The bezel pearl is very nice it is translucent, amd really has a very different appearance from previous pearls, actually changes in different lighting similar to a real pearl.The dial printing is crisp,with no print bleeds that I can see. the Gas Escape Ring printing is good and well filled with black paint. The only flaw that I can see is the 6 marker is either a tiny bit crooked (leans to the right) OR the printing is crooked. I can't tell which is which. The funny looking double print around the top of the Gas Escape Printing is a reflection off the crystal. In this second photo, you can see the reflection is not so obvious and has moved.The bezel clicks correctly and smoothly,with no slack.Insert is uniformly inserted, with no high or low spots, "10" is correct paint is OK, and the correct off white color. Here is a close up of the date window. It has the correct bevel, but it does not have the 2 layer "sandwich" appearance of the DSSD Lani reviewed from another dealer. Honestly, the date window is so small, you would never notice this difference without magnification. Here is a side view of the HEV (Sorry, didn't remove the Blue stuff before the shots) It is recessed as it should be, although I'm not certain it is as recessed as the genuine. Crown side view, crown screws in very smoothly, no roughness or catches, sits very level on the watch,and is almost in the correct orientation with the crown up. Case guards look good. Back view looks as it should, the outer ring printing is very crisp,The second E in Dweller had a little extra paint on it which shows in the photo, but I removed it with my fingernail, so that isn't a flaw. The paint used on the inner case is a little light compared to the genuine, I would expect that this is a problem area with all of these DSSD's with the "Fake" titanium inner case. I can see this eventually wearing off with lots of use. Possibly in the future someone will offer a real titanium caseback for these watches. The Bracelet/Clasp The clasp is very elegant on this watch, and as Lani mentioned it harkens back to the old Doxa subs with the rachet adjustment on the clasp. the clasp is longer than most fliplock clasps and offers quite a bit of adjustment with the ratchet adjuster. And finally The LUME ! As you can see the lume glows brightly and is the correct blue color, unfortunately, the lume disappears in a few minutes. The Rep manufacturers obviously skimp on the amount of Superluminova they use on the dial and hands. This was after a 15-20 second exposure to a halogen light. I took the photo and within no more than 5-7 minutes I went back into a completely dark room with the watch and ..... nothing! This one will be going up to The Zigmeister for a correct lume job very shortly. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with this watch. Right out the box it's wearable and very accurate to the genuine. After years of buying Rolex Reps and then spending more that the cost of the watch on modifications to make them close to the "real thing" it's nice to be able to unpack one, set the time and date, and wear it right out the box. It isn't perfect, The dial still needs some attention with the lettering and 6 marker the caseback although correct in form will not be correct until they make it out of titanium. The Lume, like almost every rep leaves a lot to be desired. However remember if you want the perfect DSSD, you can pick one up for a mere 6-7k. If your budget won't allow that, then I would certainly recommend this one as a very suitable alternative. there you have it folks, The Ultimate Upgraded Eurotimez V5 DSSD Arthur

Initial contact by PM. Arthur

Quite a few, I won't say most, of the posters on the genuine forums are the most inane, self centered, egomaniacs on earth! I visit some of them on a fairly irregular basis, but the high end watch forums are the worst. The majority of posts are

Don't get excited. Everything will be fine. It's Christmas season, the mail delivery system which in the USA is nothing special, slows to a crawl during the Christmas rush. I ordered a watch on the 26th of November; tracking showed nothing except Accepted for dispatch and left China on the 27th, then nothing until yesterday, when it showed it was at my local PO. Of course our local imbeciles don't deliver to my home, so today I got a notice in my mailbox. I'll pick it up tomorrow. That makes 14 days from shipping to my local PO, which probably isn't too bad. Everyone worries about delivery, but for the most part, these watches seem to get through with no problems. I would venture to say that now is probably a good time to ship, as the Post Office is overwhelmed with packages and letters. With lots of packages, the screening gets pretty cursory. Unless it looks like a bomb or the food sniffing Beagles or Drug sniffing Labs get a hit, it moves on through Arthur

Beautiful watch. I really like the "New" service dial and hands look.I agree, with you about the vintage lume, It's really hard to get the hands and dial to match. Congratulations on a great project Arthur

Beautiful watch. I just checked my tracking number and mine should be out for delivery today. From what i'vwe seem, this is the best thus far. Now if Eurotimez could get a handle on their QC and all of them were like yours..... That would be great. Arthur

If you are going to build a really high quality "Franken" using a genuine movement, I would buy a Yuki case and go from there. Starting with and inferior case is just going to create more problems in the long run. Buy a case that is designed for a 1560 or 1570 movement, Source a movement, genuine dial, crown /tube, Bezel inset and bracelet and you will have a really quality watch. It will be expensive, and more than likely if you decide to sell it, you are not going to get your money back! What I learned several years ago, even with high quality reps is that they don't appreciate like genuine. Good luck Arthur

Pete, I know you are really bummed out by this deal. I would be too, and now look forward to receiving my watch with some fear and trepidation. I think Lani has some good advice however. It will be very much to Chris's advantage to make this right. He risks a real PR nightmare if he just ignores the problem. Potentially lots more damage in loss of future sales than the cost of a watch. After your first posts with the photos, I'm a little surprised that someone from the dealers staff hasn't posted a preemptive post offering to replace your watch. Good luck in sorting this out Arthur

This is indeed a very interesting article. I believe what the researcher is saying is essentially the same as what some of us tell folks that ask about pulling off wearing a rep of a very expensive watch.If your job and income level are somewhere in the range of one who could afford a genuine Breguet, then you can easily pull off a rep. If you are a 18 year old working part time as a Pizza delivery person, pulling it off is going to be more difficult. Just like the people survied in the study, they had a much easier time picking what they perceived as genuine handbags, if they were being carried by well dressed, prosperous appearing models, as opposed to sitting on a shelf by themselves. It's all about perception, if you see a movie personality carrying a 2K Gucci bag, your first thought is WOW! that's a really neat bag. If the checkout girl at the local supermarket is carrrying the same bag, your first thoughts will be , nice bag, but it's a fake! In actuality, the opposite may be true, the movie personality may have picked her's up in Chinatown, the checkout girl saved for months for a real Gucci, but that's not the general perception. Same as watches, it's all about perception. Just my Dos centavos Arthur

Lani, You are absolutely right. FedEx or UPS is great for genuine. With Reps unless it's parts such as a dial, case, movement, etc I wouldn't use them. They will pass parts on, because they don't have a way of valuing them, but if you ship a DSSD by USPS or FedEx, likely you are going to get hit with a big customs duty fee.UPS and FEdEx will value the watch according to what they have in their system for a Rolex DSSD, so you may get a bill for 500-600.00 USD in customs duties if the watch is coming in from another country. Also they are much more aware of the counterfeits coming out of china, so they will be very suspicious of a Swiss watch being shipped to the USA from China. This is not a really big problem with Reps, but I have a terrible time sending genuine watches to certain areas of Europe. Many of the countries have very regressive and expensive customs duties. Naturally, the buyer wants to get around the duties by valuing the watch at a much lower value or shipping as a gift, etc. Unfortunately for the seller, you can only buy insurance up to the declared value. So if you value a 3000.00 USD watch at 500.00 USD you can only insure for 500.00 USD. If it gets lost stolen or damaged, they would only pay 500.00, but the customer expects to receive a working watch. This is one of the reasons that many watch sellers will not ship overseas. The customers want the watch down valued, but you are at risk If you do. Another facet of the perils of shipping Arthur

Happy Birthday, I faintly remember 48, I think, then maybe that was 50!! Congrats Arthur

Tiffany is another company that watches their retailers like a hawk. Any hint of price cutting unless it is authorized by Tiffany will result in severe reprecussions. Possibly a very large retailer like Neiman Marcus or Saks can cut a deal with Tiffany to discount items that are not selling ,"last season", etc. I can assure you anything on Ebay that sells for pennies on the dollar is not genuine Tiffany. Arthur

Great Article As usual Lani. I would like to add for those who are not exposed to the US Postal Service a few things. According to one of our local postal workers (We are in a small town and consequently know all the folks who work at the PO. What he told me was the difference between UPS,FedEX and the USPS related to tracking is this. The USPS is notoriously bad for not scanning packages. Sometimes it's sheer laziness, sometinmes their crappy scanners/computer systems are down, but long story short, lots and lots of packages do not get scanned. UPS and FedEx being private make it a point to tell everyone along the line ,failure to scan packages is a serious job deficiency. Most folks are not going to put their job in jeopardy by not scanning packages. At the USPS that's not and issue. So if you order something that will be shipped via the USPS, don't get alarmed if your package scanning either 1.Never shows up as being scanned, or 2. Somewhere in the process the chain of posession gets broken, and your package appears to be stuck in limbo half way to you. More than likely, it's still moving along through the mail system, it's just not being scanned. Here is what I have thus far for a package that left China on November 27th. as you can see it has either never gotten out of China, or it didn't get scanned at the port of Entry into the USA. I would probably lean toward the latter scenario, considering that this happens all the time.Here is my package and as of 1530 CST this is all that is on the USPS website. Foreign International Dispatch, November 27, 2009, 12:11 am, GUANGZHOU EMS, CHINA PEOPLES REP Foreign Acceptance, November 26, 2009, 8:05 pm Origin Post is Preparing Shipment At this point, I am expecting to get the package within the next few days. Since this is Express mail, it should be expedited. Should I not get it or receive a tracking update by say this Friday, Which would give it at least 10 working days, I will Email the shipper and alert hinm that it hasn't arrived. These are some of the problems we face with the USPS. I'm sure lots of other countries have the same or similar problems. If you want assured tracking and the ability to see where your package is every step of the way, then you will have to use one of the private shippers such as UPS or FedEx. More expensive, but good tracking. Arthur

@Rolexmaniac88 I would utilize all the resources. Two good ones that I have used in the past to sell genuines are TZ (Timezone) The usual Caveats apply. Buy the seller!! Ask for references, make sure you have a reasonable return privilage if it's not up to snuff, and by all means use a credit card or PayPal.If they demand Western Union, BEWARE!! The folks at TZ police the site pretty thoroughly, but scammers slip in on occasion. The second good source is the Military Watch Resource (MWR) Trading Post it's a smaller group, but some very knowledgable folks on there. WatchNet Also, like TZ also WatchUSeek Post a want to buy on all of those, you would be surprised what may turn up.Ebay would be my last resort, as any watch posted on tghe other sales forums if the least bit suspect will come under very close scrutiny. On Ebay, with the anonomous bidder thing (initials and couple of numbers) it's impossible to warn off bidders if the item is fake. @ Red, I think what he is trying to say is he is looking at this one. He mentioned in a post above a price of 2800 Euros, but could possibly get it for 2500. Arthur

Sharkman, Every noob that comes on the board asks he same question. We've heard it 1000 times! Who has the best-------? Please spend some time in the Rolex area on the forum. There have been pages of reviews on the DSSD. Lanai did a comprehensive review of the Perfect Clones DSSD. By-Tor has a modding review about modding a Version 3 to a Version 4 .The newest version of the Eurotimez DSSD hasn't been comprehensively reviewed as of yet, as no one who is interested in writing a review has received this latest version. As you will find, all of them have flaws. If you want the best DSSD, do as Mahler said, Get thyself down to your local Rolex AD and buy a genuine. They are the best. If you want a Replica, then you need to do the research, find the one with the least flaws that you can live with and buy it.One of the problems with Reps is the flaws are different with different sellers. One has a bad bezel pearl, another has crooked lettering on the dial. to make any of them close to the genuine is going to require some after sale modding. Usually one stand-out problem is the lume. It just never seems to be up to the genuine.The second biggest problem with subs and SD's is the bezel insert/pearl. They never seem to be able to get them just right. So to achieve that, you have to send your watch off to one of our master watch modders and get things done. Don't ever expect to get a replica "out the Box" that will stand up to a side by side comparison to a genuine. Good Luck Arthur

Welcome. Looks like you made a good choice. I believe that WM9's are the best out there, but as the photo from Rosnik shows, they still don't have it right.They are making cases to fit ETA and ETA clone movements wich have lower stem positions than genuine movements. Until they 1:1 clone a Rolex movement and make the cases right, this will always be a glaring defect. But for now they are the best. One step forward, one back two to the side, line dancers and rep makers are dancing to the same tune!! Cheers Arthur