Devedander

Good point... maybe if you have someone you go to and would be willing to be an intermediary (ie receive watch and take it to the shop when convenient for you, possibly for a small fee) then you could list yourself?

How far is so far (timewise)? I got one just because I had to have a Daytona... I figure it will break sometime inside year and my daytona fetish will be over. Either that or I will get a seconds at 9.

I think I saw something similar before but I can't find it now... just seems maybe if you have a watch repair person or shop you know handles reps and is decent, would it be a good idea to make a list of them? This way maybe people could get repairs done more quickly and easily when things go wrong. I don't know if it's ok to list their info, but I don't see why not unless it's illegal to work on reps in your country. Just a thought to help make things easier on the community...

I think selling anything in general is much more complicated than people give credit for... glad to see things get sorted and sounds like SQL is doing his best to be a stand up guy.

This is an unfortunate and, I think, under represented part of buying reps, which is I believe normally dealers do not pay return shipping to fix problems... may want to ask if dealer has a watchsmith in your country that you can send it to for work and have dealer pay (or pay you back) for it... might be cheaper and would avoid running customs twice again.

No what I meant was, what's to take someone from getting a cheap 21jewel asian movement, stamping "Swiss 27 Twenty Seven Jewel ETA" on it and sticking it in watches? Sure some people would know, but I personally would probably be fooled... I mean at this point in time all I know about spotting ETA is that it should say ETA on it.

That sucks.... hope whoever you bouhgt it from can help you out

Don't know if anyone is interested but I just noticed a spot for next Mondays CNBC: On the Money where they will look into Beijings black market. Looked like mostly leather goods but who knows...

Careful, I hear Swiss chocolate is really made in China and just formed in Switzerland

I have always wondered... what's to stop some company from making a cheap movement and stamping ETA on it? After all if they can stamp Rolex and Omega on watches, why can't they stamp Swiss ETA on anything and stick that in a watch? I mean from what I have seen, if open a caseback and it says ETA on it, it's ETA.... but what if it's not but just says it is?

Laser and grappling hook and I am sold at pretty much any price.

I can't change my own oil (well probably can but never tried or learned how). I can't cut my own hair. I can't wire my own house. All these things are probably pretty easy for those who know how to do them... heck there is not much out there that is really hard to do. I bet if any one of us looks at ourselves we will find out that we cannot do numerous fairly "easy" tasks. For instance people regularly pay me $40 to unjam their computer CD drive when I tell them all I am going to do is stick a paperclip in that tiny hole and they can do it themselves. But they would rather pay me to. Install a DVD Drive? Unplug 2 cables, swap 4 screws plug cables back in, maybe move a jumper. I will draw you pictures for free. People beg to pay me to come to their house and do it for them. It's good to step back and look at the big picture

Seems most common issues are: Missaligned dial/face which can usually be fixed with a jaxa tool and a little turn Chipped dial around the endges - seems very prevelant, check if dealer will replace watch if you get a chipped dial or just send you a new dial (in which case you have to figure out how to replace the dial) Broken clasp weld - some came broken, some say it breaks easily on it's own after a while... this is most scary because it can send your watch flying to the ground or out the car window... however a jewler should be able to fix it for you with a quick weld after it breaks...

You could try to ask The Zigmeister to service it I suppose... but according to him his faith in a seconds at 6 7750 even after service is not high....

Hmmm... I could have sworn I read about markers that fell off because they were double sided tape and it was weak or had worn out... If they are posts it seems like it would be almost impossible to get them wrongin the first place? I will have to start tinkering inside some of my cheapo watches to get a feel for how delicate thigns are I guess... Damnit... when I started getting intersted in reps I told myself I would just be buying watches, not adding another to the long list of things that make my whole house into a workshop table... and now here I am wanting to dig around inside watches... *sigh* I should just go back to drugs... at least they are a more accepted addiction.

Yes it helps very much... the Bullova method also sounds very reasonably priced and desireable... I assume the testing compound is easy to clean off? This is excellent and I thank you very much for your help!

This is not good news... Did you include any info in your payments that could clue PP in to what you were buying? I would think the best way is to send as service and include absolute least info (like maybe your email address from which you sent the details of the order).

If you have markers that are missaligned on your watch face, is it usually possible to pull them off and stick them back down? I am under the impression often they are stuck on with double sided tape, so it sounds like it might be possible, but wonder if it is likely to damage the dial?

Shower and wash hands is what I am shooting for... Hopefully I will have a basic toolkit early in the comming week (apparently still need a rolex tool though) so would it be adviseable to open all the watches and apply silicon lube before hand anyway? I figure it can't hurt... Also are other options safe for the watch besides sun (hair drier, "warm" oven setting etc?) I ask becuase around now where I live getting a watch significantly warm in the sun is not going to be an easy task... Thanks for this pointer! I sounds like it's just what I need... BTW if the watch does leak in this test is there anything to do to reduce risk such as open it and try to dry things out? Or is that a loosing battle?

Any color will be fine... as long as it's black. And I don't know... leather on a divers watch seems wrong to me...

@tvt Yeah Chinese are sensitive about being photographed in many circumstances, the least off of which would be while selling counterfit goods... last trip over I was taking pictures of a coffee shop that was decked out to look like an American coffee house (not that there really is such a thing as aChinese coffee house) and even though I was at the far end of the block some lady came running out to wave me off and tell me no pictures... @2005sub maybe if you would save enough you could use the savings ot offset an upgrade to 1st class... that would make a 10 hour flight much more bearable I would think...

I was looking at bergeron testers and they are all in the hundreds of dollars... taking watches to the shop to be tested (if I Can find one that will do it on reps) could add up fast and if I start opening watches to tinker with them it will be very expensive to test every time... So I was wondering are there any inexpensive alteratives to do water proof testing at home?

I find it odd that on the gen Air King the dots appear to not line up with the sticks (althought not as pronounced as in the rep) at 2 3 and 5... It looks like on the rep the dots are off place (not centered between the tick marks) and on the gen the sticks are actually a little bit off while the dots are perfectly centered on the tick marks...

Well damnit we better start arresting Janitors, mall security guards, Mc Donalds workers... cuz I don't know a person who says I want to grow up to be one of those... and if you don't think McDonalds is exploiting it's customers with the wages it pays and the hours it demands of some of them you got another think comming. Want to see jobs full of drug addicts who have had rough lives? Check out waiters and almost any restaraunt (I work as a restarunt a few days a week and lemme tell ya even at the nicest restaunts the employees are probably worse people than most prostitutes - myself excluded of course ). I actually have a friend who went the prositution way (started as a stripper and made the natural move). No one forced her into it, she is not being exploited anymore than we are buying our watches from dealers (she has a "body guard" type setup who charges a good chunk of change but it's part of the expenses of the game) and she didn't have a rough life and she isn't forced into it... quite the contrary, she comes from a very nice upper middle class family. It's amazing what kind of power lies and stereoptypes can bring...

Ones that are labled 2GB but aren't are obviously vake, but how are you testing the write speed? It's a hard thing to test due to many factors playing a role and the higher rating may be burst instead of sustained write speed...