nonskeder

Probably not!! To risky for those who still care and are worried about being banned themselves. What ever you do "Dont post a positive experience " You will be outed for not getting it. The get a rope, will be shot at dawn, public hanging will get you in the end. WHAT A FORUM!! It is OK to have a opinion as long as it is against Joe. God help those who try and show a different side to this circus. WARNING: Steping up to the plate is dangerous to your health, dont try this at home, consult you doctor before using, side effects such as banning could occur, blurred vision ect. Oh well batter up.

@azmindreader: If you and I did not have a problem with Joe "we dont get it". If we did have a problem with Joe "we are enlightened". You can cast your pearls or is it you can lead a horse to water? Oh well I dont get it. @The Zigmeister: Please note the word POTENTIAL to make mistakes. Never had a problem with you either. Your work was always first rate and you kept me in the loop at all times. Now I know that you and Joe are not on the best of terms. Dont care either way. Joe did right by me and so did you. Never ment to imply that you ever ment to "screw the pooch" to anybody. But anyone can and will make a mistake over a given period of time. Remember if it moves it will hit something, if it runs it will stop in time. I know that you and Joe do not see eye to eye on much of anything. Again I dont care!! I do know this. If I was to use you or any other person to do work on watches it would be only a matter of time until some part of it went off into a 8 ball corner pocket situation. The nature of the beast. Would I whine about it? Probably not. We would talk it over and it would be taken care of because that is the way you and I are. As a side note: Am getting re-current on the B737 and B727. Now that they are going to raise the age to 65 old guys like myself are in demand again. Spain here I come. John.

TT: What am I missing here? Some have had bad dealings with Joe others (like myself) have not. At best this is a 50-50 rubbish shoot. You send your watch, pay your money and hope for the best. Isnt this like most of the dealings in the shadow world of reps? I have had other modders keep a watch longer than Joe ever did even when he was sick. What Im saying is that you might as well call up 1-800 wheres my watch when doing this kind of thing. There are those who swear by Joe and others who swear at him. Just to clear this up. Would I ever send a watch to Joe or any other mod person to do work on again? NO NO NO. Once I done with it I will stay clear of reps in general. I went thru a phase where all the watches had to be as close to perfect as possible. Regret it but I did it. At the time Joe was about the only game in town. Again my experience with Joe has been mostly good. Would I do it again? Not a chance. Postal problems, health issues, family matters, not to mention we are dealing in FAKES. To the best on my knowledge I cant think of a mod guy that has not been taken to task somewhere along the line. Some find Joe to be abbrasive and uneducated. Dont know and dont care. All my dealings with him be it on the phone or by email have been positive. The watches came when he said they would, the work was OK to my standards, and the price was what we settled on. In the end in comes down to this. Send him your watch or dont. No matter who you send it to there is the potential for problems no matter what. Be it Joe, Palp, or The Zigmeister they are all going to screw the pooch sometime. John.

TT: Ok I will step up to the plate. As sick of the rep game as I am I still have some loose ends to tie up before I leave for good. While Joe has had more than his share of people who are dissatisfied, Im not one of them. He has done many (lost count) MBW watches for me. Some had the full deal others just a few mods done. Was it worth the time and aggrivation--probably not. A fake is still a fake no matter what. Joe always did what he said he would do. The work as OK by me and he never ever charged me more than what was talked about. He still has many of the watches I own. Two are going to people who know what they are getting. The rest will be given away or put in a box. Who knows maybe some day I will need them for something. I have found Joe to be easy to deal with, answered questions, and was prompt on delivery time (unless he was sick). The drama on these forums is about as bad as it gets as far as I am concerned. Joe is a easy target. Yes his skills as to getting the info out to members is bad at best. Yes he loves to toot his own horn, but in the end he is just another guy who loves watches and doing work on them. I have used him, Palpatine and The Zigmeister. All of them have had wobbles of some sort. Be it health issues, family matters or what ever. It really gets down to this. Would modding a watch make me happier? Am I willing to put up with delays and postal problems? Will anyone really know the difference between the stock watch and a modified fake? In a year from now will I even give a damn about watches or forums period? At the end of the day Joe served me well for the purpose at hand. He made a rep watch look more real than it did before. Was it worth all the hype--who knows. When I get my watches back I know that they are closer to being the real deal than when they left. To the ones I will give away I doubt that the people who get them will give a rip either way. Does this all make me a shill for Joe? No way but then who cares!!

From what I have been told DrmMaster is very young. No crime in that but we might be expecting way to much from him. You only know what you know and he might not have the experience to deal with this. Notice that he has come here to taunt the group but really says nothing. The problem with Klink is yet to be addressed by him. I have PMed him (Tim) in the past in ref to Klink and what I consider real bad behavior by a MOD on the darkside. Never ever has DrmMaster had the guts to answer any questions or respond to any of the issues that have been raised about Klink. If you go on the Darkside DrmMaster has proclaimed that he is "taking over". Maybe a good thing BUT he has again refused to address the real problem and that would be what to do with Klink? Until he comes up to the plate and deals with the real problem he will just be another "Bean fart in the elevator". There are two heads to DrmMaster his and Klinks. Who is the puppet and who is the voice behind the puppet? By the way Tim did you bring enough for the rest of the class?

For the record Im pulling out of the rep thing because Im just plain burned out on it--it has nothing to do with Joe. He has in the past been great to deal with and the work was good. Would use him agian if interested. John.

Joe: Please respond to my email. Situation closing in fast. Need to end this rep rubbish fast. John.

Go up and read his letter on his situation on the Darkside forum. He explains it all. Yes I know that it is a drag and lots of us have watches with him at the moment. Hell I have at least 8 MBW's with him now. I have been out of the rep deal for months and am trying to close up all the loose ends and it is impossible. Right now I cant sell or even give away the damn things as it is. Dont know if I will ever see the end of the problem--am starting not to care. As for doing something legal, good luck. This is a ghost hobby at best. No one really cares. John.

In my case compulsive, addictive behavior run riot. Bought many and I mean many MBW vintage and modern Rolex sport watches. Sent them off to The Zigmeister or RBJ for mods. They were perfect when I got them back. Into the watch case they would go and most of the time stayed there. The juice for me was getting them and having them modded. I broke the key to getting the fabled MBW's, sweated out them going thru customs and then the mail hassles of sending them off to be turned into the best fake I could. Most of the time I ended up putting on my gen 14060 and the reps would languish in the box. I can only do that so many times and then I tire of it. It was like a light switch going off for me. One day I was still trying to figure out the perfect rep and the next day it was not that important. I have sent most of my MBW's off to one the the more prolific members to be sourced out. The others I have given away to friends and relatives who would never buy such a watch but will enjoy them for what they are. I visit the forums to see what is going on with the sales end of it as I still have (or should say he has) several of the watches I want to unload. I think in my case I had to much time and money to play with. Being retired one can use up a day in some fairly dumb persuits. Now I back into building M1 Garands and 1911's for friends. Go figure.

While I am getting out of the rep game for good I have used this forum and learned a great deal. For this reason I will be glad to make a donation via paypal. Good luck to you. John. Donation sent!!

@Grinder: There, you see Klink was only trying to help you in your hour of need. And the best part of this fairy tale is that the Mod is sorry you feel that way! Oh no the other mod (Klink) will not be held responsible for any of his actions but you will be Identified as a short timer with little or no clue to what is going on. Be secure in the knowledge that you will find all forums to be trouble for you. CJ will not for what ever reason hold Klink accountable for his actions. Klink is untouchable. Life is good. Thank God we dont have to pay attention to him over here.

Pug: I think that Im the one who gave up. When you first started the thread on dealer lies I was quite jaded on the subject. Looking back on it and using hindsight, you were right to lead the charge. Still dont think anything of long term value will come out of it but we do need young turks like yourself to take on these issues. I respect your efforts in all this. I learned a long time ago that when it comes to money (there is truth in the old saying that it is the root of all evil) change is hard to come by. But the good news is you might have been strong enough to challange the dealers to a different level of communication. I hope so. As for Klink he is a non event. The "life is good" Klink is like a fart in a elevator. We all are starting to become aware that he stinks most of the time.

The last rant by Klink that I remember was aimed at The Zigmeister. Been a long time but this all has the same feel and smell. All this is vintage Klink. This is how it looks. Klink shoots his mouth off--post is deleted by him or one of the mods. It must be bloody hard to deal with him. Here he is a Mod and he has to be moderated by the other Mods. I know this to be true as I have PMed the mods at the darkside to question Klinks ethics and why they put up with all the BS that he (Klink) throws out. They respond that they have had a talk with klink and it wont happen again. Well he still runs riot with self will. As a mod for a rep web site (darkside) I think he is a model of what not to do. The Darkside is less because of him. Oh well none of this matters in the long or short haul.

@By-Tor: There is no honor among thieves. If they will lie to person X they will lie to person Y. You either tell lies or you don't. Selective truth telling is part and parcel of the "way it is" in life as we know it. From buying a car to job interview the art of the lie is alive and well and salesmanship will thrive into oblivion. This particular hobby is fraught will deception. We try and buy the "perfect" lie. If that is not good enough we send it off to RBJ, The Zigmeister, or Palp to make the original lie a even better example of the the "perfect" lie. To expect the dealers to tell the truth is like waiting for the tooth fairy to leave the perfect whatever under your pillow. The fact is this whole deal is a lie or deception if lie sears you conscience. From front to back it is FAKE. To expect the truth from all this is a exercise in futility.

Right on!!! What you are asking is a compass not to point north. The whole rep process starts as a lie and ends with a lie. We mod our watches to further the lie. We demand better products to lie with more conviction. The dealers are here for one reason and one reason only. To make as much money as possible. I too am tired of the process of trying to figure out what is true and what is not. It is all a definite maybe. When I was in college a thousand years ago we called optomistic advertising "harmless trade puffery". We all knew that the slogan or claim was total BS but we winked at it and bought the product anyway. Same thing about this with one big difference. This is illegal from the get go. It is like asking a counterfeiter to to make the perfect bill and tell the truth to what ever official is near by. Will never happen. This whole thing is like a carnival and boy you had better let the buyer beware! Pug, I applaude your sensitvity on the subject but think you are pissing down a well. You are asking a merchant who decieves for a living to tell us (the shill) the truth about what he is going to lie about. Oh well none of this matters in the long or shor haul.

Does anyone dive with a watch on these days? The last dive I did everyone on board was using computers and most had two. The need for a watch is long gone. Now having said that I live on the beach and use a watch for taking the kids out to do the tube thing or skiing. Some of them do have time constraints and there is a need to know sort of what time it is getting to be. All of my reps have been good to go for casual water tasks. Clean them with soap and water, surface swimming, boat chores ect. I NEVER swim in the pacific or any other warm water place with something that shines like lures do. Big and little fish that eat flesh are attracted by them period. For general goof stuff reps have worked well for me. Only had one flood and that was a MBW Comex that failed in the Caymans. The rest of them have worked well out of the box. I know that it is a luck of the draw situation but then again they are only reps.

The TW SD is a great beater watch. I have two of them. A EL and a MBW. Did the CG's, bezel insert and left them alone. No use for me going any further because of the bad HE valve that screams "FAKE" for both watches. I use them both for goofing around. Water sports, yard stuff ect. I dont think they would take the constant pounding a serious dirt bike ride would produce. I have doused mine with gas (over filled a boat by accident) dunked them in salt water and treated them fairly rough. They are fun watches for sure and I hope that they can get the HE valve thing down as I think a lot of members would buy it. Take care, John.

@ Thanks for all your hard work and effort This was one project that was going to be tuff with the material and machining work to be done. There may be some good news about modern SD's. While talking to Maria (MBW) he mentioned that a modern SD would be ready in about 2 months. Correct case, bezel, HE valve ect. He is well aware of the problems with the SD's that are available today. If so then Watchmaster and George will have them as well. Till then we will have to wait. Hope this helps, John. PS: As a side note I think the "right" SD will be available to all of our dealers. The right combo with all the correct features is probably closer than we think. The rep world has changed a great deal in the last year just think what it will look like next year at this time.

The Zigmeister: Super post! I know you are to modest to say it so I will. It is because of guys like yourself that we enjoy the high quality we have. You have been a "go to guy" since I first heard of reps. Your knowledge that you have passed on to us has made a huge difference in the data base of quality. Your reputation and work ethic has long spoken for itself. I think that the days of having a rep heavily modded are closing fast. The quality we can get now just doesn't need the mods we used to have to do. There will IMOP always be a need for quality workmanship that you provide. Servicing, replacement parts ect ect. Thanks for all the work and dedication that you have given to all of us. John. PS: Waiting for the "near perfect" modern Sedweller that I know is right around the corner. I will have it sent to you for servicing and a relume job for sure. Thanks again, John.

OK OK I give up. I had no clue that it would be this hard. To all that answered--Thanks for your time and input. John.

Nope not a joke. Did not know you could not buy parts from a dealer.

@bruce79 AD=authorized dealer. Was wondering if you could source a gen dial and make it work in a TW sub case? John.

I think I remember Eddie Lee having classic subs with the lug holes still for sale. Would a correct dial be available from a Rolex AD and would it fit in a TW classic case? If that were all doable a great watch could be made from a doner TW classic sub, CG's done, gen dial, and case drilled out and your about done. I would love to do this project as it has the very classy but understated look to it. Great knock around watch too!

Ubi if I had your talent that is exactly what I would do.

This is one of my favorite subs. I have the gen Rolex but now am looking for a good rep of the same. I have been up one most of our dealers sites for a look see but really cant tell from the pics if it is ok or not. Anyone have any thoughts on this! I know I know this does sound like "who has the best sub?". Thanks is advance, John.