Tim

It would have to be something that no one could conceivably ever want to buy like the book "George W. Bush on God and on Country : The President Speaks Out About Faith, Principle, and Patriotism", George W. Bush author, which could be our code for a watch missing some screws and running 100 years slow. >>>>running for cover<<<<

Probably on the basis that it is an illegal enterprise. It may or may not be illegal to buy these products, but everywhere on earth it sure as hell is illegal to sell them. I hesitate to add this because I kind of like the protection and convenience that using P*ypal offers, but P*ypal has an option to send a "Cash Advance" (used to be term Quasi-cash as well) that I think circumvents this entire issue. The problem is that we are paying for "Goods" and hence the type of goods becomes relevant. With "Goods" P*ypal still furnishes buyer protection in the amount of $200 for non-delivery. Cash Advance circumvents this entire chain of events and the transaction becomes the equivalent of a cash transfer. Someone would have to go through the P*ypal user agreement in detail to figure this out for sure one way or another. But I've seen this used as a method to also shield the seller from chargebacks on eb*y. I don't think P*ypal advertises this too heavily because there are grey areas with the whole thing. In particular, CC companies may treat it as a cash advance on your account rather than a regular purchase. The sellers might also consider not accepting credit card payments -- only payment from checking account transfers or P*ypal account balances. This would be cheaper for our sellers as well since they can sign up for a no-fee account and not pay the P*ypal Credit Card transaction fee. /Tim

Paranoia run rampant.... You all better watch yourselves before some guy in a black tuque, not speaking Canadian, knocks on your door to rendition your a$$! According to U.S. Customs, the devil wears knock-off Prada. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financing Terror Profits from counterfeit goods pay for attacks By Kathleen Millar, Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Customs Office of Public Affairs Anti-terrorist organizations in the U.S. and abroad are homing in on the close connections between transnational crime and terrorism. Before 9/11, law enforcement defined both as strategic threats but tended to approach each problem separately, constructing one set of responses to criminal activities-like money laundering, IPR violations, and drug trafficking-and devising other tactics to combat terrorism. Today, in a post-9/11 environment, agencies like Customs and Interpol understand that the international underworld is a breeding ground for terrorism, providing groups like al Qaeda, Hammas, Hezbollah, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) with funds generated by illegal scams, and with opportunities to launder millions in terrorist dollars. Behind the army of hijackers, suicide bombers, and terrorist gunmen stands an even greater number of "company men"-criminal entrepreneurs and financiers in suits who understand the best way to bankroll Armageddon is through the capitalist system. They run what look like legitimate businesses, travel to "business meetings" in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and New York, and pay fictional "employees" with money that feeds and houses terrorist cells. They run computer manufacturing plants and noodle shops, sell "designer clothes" and "bargain-basement" CDs. They invest, pay taxes, give to charity, and fly like trapeze artists between one international venture and another. The endgame, however, is not to buy a bigger house or send the kids to an Ivy League school - it's to blow up a building, to hijack a jet, to unleash a plague, and to kill thousands of innocent civilians. Interpol and Customs join forces against IPR violations Financing terrorism is a topic that Customs and Interpol are taking seriously. Last year, soon after the attacks on New York and Washington, Interpol hosted the 1st International Conference on IPR in Lyon, France. Enforcement and security experts outlined the relationships between global commerce and global crime - instances in which profits from counterfeit merchandise funded terrorist activities - and participants agreed that Interpol needed to create a Group of Experts on International Property Crime. Interpol hosted the first meeting of the multi-agency, IP Advisory Group on July 23. The group met again on October 3, and law enforcement officials from U.S. Customs, Finnish Customs, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police joined forces with the corporate community to hammer out concrete responses on an international scale. The World Intellectual Property Organization, the Motion Picture Association, the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, Procter and Gamble, the World Customs Organization, the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry, the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group, the European Union, and REACT Services (UK) all had representatives at the table. "Our objective," says Erik Madsen, a crime intelligence officer with Interpol, "was to raise awareness, to create a strategic plan to fight this kind of crime, and to take action." In the end, all agreed the evidence was indisputable: a lucrative trafficking in counterfeit and pirated products - music, movies, seed patents, software, tee-shirts, Nikes, knock-off CDs, and "fake drugs" - accounts for much of the money the international terrorist network depends on to feed its operations. New York's Joint Terrorist Taskforce reported a counterfeit T-shirt ring had used sales profits to subsidize the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. In 1999, an International Chamber of Commerce official reported the IRA was financing its operations by selling pirated videos, including a copy of "the Lion King." In 2000, a naturalized Paraguayan citizen born in Lebanon was charged with selling millions in counterfeit software out of a headquarters operation in the notorious piracy haven of Ciudad del Este; allegedly, the proceeds went to the militant Islamic group Hezbollah. Last year, Microsoft officials based in London charged counterfeiters were using the Internet to sell pirated software, an effort they described as one designed to support drug running and terrorism. Losses from counterfeiting and piracy outstrip 9/11 impact on airlines For years, legitimate manufacturers have cited huge financial losses, the run-off from IPR violations, as a primary reason to pass tough IPR legislation and enforce anti-counterfeiting laws. What policy-makers sometimes failed to note was the sheer enormity of those losses. After 9/11, leaders in both the public and private sectors described the loss to the U.S. airline industry as "catastrophic." While the airline industry accounts for about 10 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, copyright industries generate more foreign sales and exports than the aircraft and aircraft parts industries combined. The new link between commercial-scale piracy and counterfeiting has redirected public attention in 2002, and law enforcement agencies like Customs and Interpol are going after the organized crime syndicates in charge of what was too often viewed as a "victimless crime." September 11 changed the way Americans look at the world. It also changed the way American law enforcement looks at Intellectual Property crimes.

Hummm.... which member among the various boards would have a reason to be [censored] recently? Any firings or disciplinary action been taken of late to cause a disgruntled individual who thinks they've been done wrong? /Tim

Does anyone have a feel for the current crop of bezel inserts and how they fit? I am looking for something that doesn't need to be modified. The first rep I bought (from goreplicas before I figured out how everything works in the rep world) has always looked wrong to me and I couldn't figure out why. It was a kermit LV Sub. It is a nice rep overall but I had to go over just about every edge on the thing with a dremel since it was sharp enough to use as a weapon. **...it was reported that the attacker was killed by a Rolex watch** The hands definitely looked wrong, and I just ordered a set of maxi hands from Andrew thinking that will do the trick. I also ordered another LV at the same time--mostly to compare and probably to give away to a friend. The price on the sub is so reasonable these days for the quality. Once getting a look at a really good rep, I see the exact problem. goreplica took what was the standard black bezel rep of the time and stuck a green bezel insert on the thing. So actually the hands and dial markers are good, just good for a standard submariner instead of the LV. So instead of sticking the new hands on the thing if I stick a black bezel insert on it everything will be copacetic. I read the threads I could find in the forum about sub bezel mods and they mention that all of them need to be modified to work. Are there any out there that don't require modifying? I want to keep this sub as a reminder to myself to always do my research before opening my wallet. That and I put so much work into it already smoothing out the edges and some other things. /Tim

I was looking more at "LANGELES". Where the hell is that? Is that in France somewhere? "We are from France." At least the Patek has a period which is bad enough on a watch like that. /Tim

Boys and their toys.... /Tim

Oh my, you and strange do walk together! You sure you wouldn't be happier in Northern California? I hope that everyone here calms down a bit. Too much animosity bubbling over. We have enough shared interests and I am sure everyone here is decent people. Perhaps we should remember that this is like a small town, and many times to keep the peace with people you get to know well and spend a lot of time with, many things are simply left unsaid. When you get down to it, each and every one of us are weird in our own ways with many idiosyncrasies. The whole cyber format gives an illusion of anonymity, but there are people on the other side of that keyboard. I don't believe many people would talk like they do on a bulletin board to another in person in real life. /Tim

Very nice. I like Dave Matthews. /Tim

Telegraph keys????? Isn't that a little obscure? If there are people involved at all it will be like that. We can be a very contrary species. It's a wonder we've survived as long as we have. Not to drift off too far afield, but I was watching this show on PBS a few days ago about Bonobo monkeys. They compared them to Chimps which apparently are a ruthless and nasty little group. Chimp males run the show and frequently go around killing each other, eating their own babies, and generalized mayhem. With Bonobo monkeys the females run the show. Their answer to everything is sex. If two Bonobo's are mad at each other they go off and hump each other and everything is right again. Makes you wonder sometimes.... Of course the moralists among us would never tolerate the situation because the Bonobo's don't care too much about the sex of the participants or the age for that matter. (Not that I am advocating any such behavior mind you....) Can you imagine having to hump Klink????? The only picture I have of him in my mind's eye is his avatar (howls of laughter!) /Tim

Good grief! Unnecessary drama.... I started avoiding RWI because it seemed a little rough-n-tumble lately. /Tim

Well first remember that it is not illegal to buy or own a reproduction, at least in the US. It is only illegal to convey (i.e. sell) the replicas. Not sure what it would be if you tried to convey it as a gift....hummm. Your biggest risk is that Customs will impound the merchandise and you loose your purchase price. But that is not even a consideration here, because the dealers we use back up their sales so that if a watch is impounded they mail you another. Big deal. A suggestion if you are worried about Credit Card fraud is that a couple of my cards have something called "Shop Safe". A neat little feature and worth grabbing an extra card to get it if necessary. It used to be an MBNA faeture but I think Bank of America is running Shop Safe now that they bought out MBNA. In any case, you tell it to create a new card number for yourself and you load it with the amount of money you need and voila--a one time use credit card number with a credit limit you set. I used it a lot. But to be honest, I really wouldn't worry about any of the dealers here offering to take CCs directly. If you read back they've had an uncounted number of opportunites to swindle people out of their money. They have been nothing but above board and honorable. /Tim

Yeah that was a nice one. I bought one as well. Hard to find one that will work well with a bracelet watch and this seems like it will. /Tim

BTW, is there someplace that I can read about the collaboration watch? I wasn't around for it, but it sounds like a hoot! The best of BBS flame wars; I have such fond memories of some of mine. The indignity, the injustice, the IDIOTS! /Tim

I am hoping to go this route too which was one of my original reasons for buying some reps. I want to lern how to work on them. If I could learn how to disassemble, clean, and adjust a watch and have it work again I'd be very happy. I figure that when I retire in another 15 years or so, it would be a nice skill to have to keep me busy and earn a little extra since I doubt I'll be able to use my retirement money to buy watches or computers! A suggestion I found is that you can find some watches on eBay with ETA 28XX movements for as little as $30 brand new. I bought 5 Gruen pretenders (nice way to sully an honored name in horology) for between 30-40 bucks each and am going to use those as guinea pigs shortly. The shame is that the darn things keep perfect time, better than most of my 100x more expensive genuines. /Tim

That thought has struck my mind as well. When you get down to it the majority of gen watches are a fancy case of some sort stuffed with an ETA movement. Early value adds were things like perlage and geneva stripes added to the movement. Now however you can buy the ETA movement with perlage already done by machine at ETA. Dials are another example. Guilloche use to be added by hand as a way to add value. Now they just stamp them like a coin or, at most, laser engrave the dial. Not the same thing in my mind though most think it looks the same. The problem is the brand name. Watches have a distinct relationship to the fashon industry and most of the value adds today are in how people value a brand in their minds. That Chanel outfit is worth about $20 in materials and $200 non-sweatshop labor. But Coco will sell it for $10,000 and people will not even blink an eye. Watches have their own set of label fanatics. I'll give you an example. I bought my partner a Dunhill piece of sh*t quartz watch for $250 which I thought was still overpriced for a glorified Swatch watch. It had a nice band though so I made allowances. Dunhill wanted close to $4,000 for it originally. HA! So my partner wears it to a party we go to, and I hear people nudging each other saying that guy over there is wearing a Dunhill watch.... oooouh. All I can do is think "You idiot! I could wear something nice like a Glashuette near you and you'd be oblivious!" So if you wanted to make a watch and call it Biffs Spezial no one would buy it and you'd be lucky to dump them for a price that gets your original investment price in materials back. /Tim

That is one progression. I, as usual, took another path. I started out with Vintage, to me most of the watches worth anything are pre-'76 at least. Basically that period between the late 50s and the mid-70s is the sweet spot for me because there were so many innovations tried during that period. I targeted my collection on what I termed early electrics or the ones right before the quartz watches. A lot of Hamiltons, Accutrons, and F300s in my collection. My holy grail is the Omega Megasonic. I then started buying some gens to wear because the vintage watches are mostly for looking at. I have three Accutons that I will wear and all the others are tucked away in a vault. I got quickly disillusioned by modern gens however since almost all of them just shove an ETA movement into a case. The only gens that I will buy today have something special about them. My last watch was an Alain Silberstein for the overall design but the thing just has an ETA movement in it. I guess my problem is that I cannot afford a truely innovative gen these days since most are $15K+, ++, +++++. I think my next gen watch will be a Benzinger from Germany because the guy tears apart a watch and skeletonizes or engraves every single mm on the movement. /Tim

How can you tell from just a face? I seen Drag Queens that were more female acting than most women. It is usually the wrists and an adams apple are the only reliable "tells" without undressing them. /Tim

Good grief, I didn't even notice until you pointed it out! Everyone posts so many pictures generally I usually just pass over them.

I didn't see where this was discussed before (if it was point me to the thread and I'll gladly read), but does anyone have an opinion about dealer serviced watches? Do you believe that they actually perform the value added services as described? I know some like TTK state that they QC every watch closely and make minor adjustments before shipment. Others sell a "perfect" version of a watch that has been pre-serviced, lubed, water tested, and whatnot. In some cases the servicing would be worth the extra money to me, but if the only difference between the $300 serviced watch and the $200 unserviced watch is the price and a gullible buyer--well I'd obviously pass. Opinions? /Tim

Happy Chinese New Year to our applicable dealers! Saw pictures on the news of the fireworks in Beijing. I wouldn't want to clean up that mess. All the streets had fireworks debris inches thick. That and my ears hurt just looking at it! /Tim (Phew! Luckily I got my orders in on time to beat the New Year shutdown.)

Maybe if the smaller more specialize dealers are having a hard time with the noobs wanting and complaining too much, maybe all if this should migrate to the VIP area. I haven't upgraded my membership yet, but think the VIP area is a good idea and will probably do the upgrade. I think there will always be a place for the smaller dealers if the offer some added value to the equation. For instance, doing some standard mods to the run of the mill reps I think will always be a winning approach. Stuff like a QC inspection, perhaps knocking off the sharp edges, or doing a regulation service on the movement. I know I've paid a reasonable premium for those types of things. Of course I am just a small time collector for myself and just do the onesy-twosy orders. I know there are other like that around here, but there are also probably a number of members who consider themselves professionals and are buying large lots of these watches to resell. /Tim

Oy vey, you sound like me. I did the same thing. Unfortunately, I did bite on one of those sites. I fell into the replicacenter.com trap and got a watch from goreplicas.com. What can I say, I was a dumb noobie. I thought I was getting a great deal on a good Submariner for the special sale price of $800. It is a good rep, but a $200 model from any of our guys would beat it hands down. So what can you do? I was upset for a while, but now I just look fondly on that $800 Submariner and think about how happy I am about the path it led me onto. ..... It could have been worse. Far worse. So it was a suitable learning experience. I just feel sorry for the people that still fall into those sites and wish I could holler to them "no don't do it!" Over here! I do remember how I found these sites (both RWGs, TRC, and RWI). They were all listed on the replicawatch100.com list which I wish I found a lot earlier. I don't know if that list is still around. /Tim

I think it could be interesting if they did destroy the watch. You take them to court, and say for them to prove that it was a fake. Produce the watch and show me the fake bits. No watch? You destroyed it? Fine, give me another; and it was the 18K gold model by the way.... Course they might say produce the bill of sale. Wonder if "I won it in a poker game" would work. Well gambling is illegal you know? Ha! I was in Las Vegas at the time! Well then, you obviously declared the winnings on your taxes? But I just won it in December and I haven't filed my taxes yet. Gimme my watch damn it! /Tim

Always found the military stuff like Marathon overpriced because all the wannabes drive up the price too much. Do just as well with a rep and spend a little extra to get a good water seal on it. Oris gets my vote. /Tim