By-Tor

Oh I remember you. Cheers man. I was away for years. Now I try to pop up every now and then. Let's put more pictures. This was the freakiest rep I've ever had. Not very accurate as the subdial spacing can't mimic the Breguet movement they use in BTR's but the build quality was amazing. I loved the rep so much that I bought a gen of this too.

Thanks. Here are my franken Explorer II 16750's. Now I have the gen but these were DAMN good.

Nice work. But once again it's pathetic that the factories screw up things like this (if it was already done well in the previous versions).

Hey I found a folder in my hard drive that has some classic replica pictures that I've taken back in the day. First there was this "ceramic" GMT that came out. It was pretty damn good rep. As a watch it's boring as hell though. Third picture it's next to my gen 16710. Fourth picture has a NOKIA phone. The phones were a bit different back in those days too. Cheers. I'll post more later.

Yes the cgs are always the biggest tell. This can be spotted as a rep instantly and I'm not even an expert on 1675. But only because of the cgs. Other than that it's a beautiful build.

Hey Robertk, you're still around. Amazing.

Yeah and the fun was that the reps were dirt cheap. Paul sold EVERYTHING for $100 in his CARZY SALE. Yes some of the reps were shit but some were really good... like the Bond Seamaster that even had gen-like bracelet with authentic construction (that tricky tube & pin system). Bought this Noob TT Sub for $150 from a dealer. Amazing quality. Here's my gen 16710 and Noob GMT Master. These were about $200. Wrong hand stack but who gives a shit. They were cheap and FUN. Here's gen 16613 and the old Noob 16613 (these were going for $170 back in the day). I paid $150.

Haha Palpatine. I had forgotten about him. He lived in Germany and modded our shitty reps. He did good job but the Subs were fundamentally wrong and no amount of mods would change that. I bought a few watches from him too... one MBW 1680. When WM9 came it was HUGE. That was amazing and changed the standards of reps... and it still is. I have my gen 16610 and WM9 v2 with gen bezel and crown and I can't tell them apart unless I look REALLY close.

Yeah I always loved Neil. Amazing photographer, great character. But we had our little fights, too. He once flamed me in private message and told me that I'm a shitty admin. I replied that I know some of his "super intelligent" patent insults were actually copy-pastes from a site that provided flames and included that site link with a question "Do these look familiar Neil"? That shut him down. But RIP. I miss Neil too. It's not the same without the grumpy old man.

Paul screwed up the CARZY SALE (sic) badly. I think he just wasn't prepared to that kind of flood of orders. Then someone flamed him because he never got his watch (or received a bad watch) and Paul replied that "I don't care about the negativity. I just drive my Porche (sic)." And what about the BigRedJoe scandal? Now that was something. He had like 100 watches in his possession, stopped responding to emails and got mysteriously "sick". Ziggy called him out. Now that was drama. Haha.

Who remembers Paul's "CARZY SALE" (sic)? They were all $100. Then there was Kingwatch, Eddie Lee and River (who got the "better" TW stuff). And of course Neil (RIP).

What is with the factories that they can't make a proper vintage Rolex / Tudor? Very simple watches. How can they put Submariner crown guards to a GMT and have balls to ask $400 for that piece of dog turd?

We used to have an "unwritten rule" that you always have to sell the rep cheaper than you invested. Or maximum get your own money back. In the old days I bought this franken-Explorer for 350 Euros from a fellow member. This had a GEN DIAL, correct hand stack and brilliant Noob case. He just wanted to sell it to me because I probably helped him in some other issue. Can't remember. But it was all about friendships and moving cheap knockoffs for cheap prices... and HAVING FUN. At some point it changed and standard out of the box reps didn't get much attention anymore. It had to be "perfect" franken and a lots of money invested. And the dealers increased their prices significantly. That's when I started to lose interest. Why buy a $1K franken when you can buy very nice gens for $2K? I bought my gen Bond Seamaster for 1000 Euros. People invest more money on franken-build vintage Rolexes that still don't fool the experts. What's the point? Trusty Time is asking $368 plus shipping for THIS. I mean really, I can understand paying that much money for a WM9 but this is a JOKE. And very bad one at that. I wouldn't pay $5 for this piece of shit. Let me see... they have installed spiky Submariner crown guards to a GMT and thick GMT-like crown guards on a Sub. That's just pure genius. Blind people could tell this is a fake... from another planet. This is just laughable. And $386 plus shipping. You gotta be kidding me!

Not really. I have many nice gens of all models that I ever wanted (and more). But if I see a reasonably priced good, used rep, I might go for it. Only those WM9/TC Subs might be worth a bit more than standard reps but a rep Daytona for $658? That's just absurd.

Who would pay that kind of prices for reps? $658 is a laughable price for a Chinese knockoff. You can get a nice used vintage Omega for that kind of money. Personally, I just stopped buying them. They are fun watches for $200 or $300 but that's where the limit is (for me). Reps are fun but they have no real value and even finding someone who services rep Rolexes can be tough. And while some of the reps are very accurate they will never have the details of a gen.

I see plenty of modified 1675 GMT Masters. Expensive mods. Yet the crown guards look like shit on most of them. What is the point spending so much money to a base which looks fundamentally wrong? Every Rolex guy can detect them as reps from thousand miles away. This is among the only ones I've ever seen which actually has good looking "boxy" crown guards. Very impressed.

904 steel is just a gimmick. When I put my gen 16610 and WM9 side by side I can't see or feel any difference at all. The difference comes from the smoothness / roundness of the bracelet links. And those you can modify on a rep. Just put the bracelet into a motor oil can for 12 hours, wash and use a nail file to make the bracelet edges rounder. Voila... after that it's 90% like the gen.

Oh yeah... for me it's still difficult to justify more than $300 for a rep as there are plenty of nice vintage watches you can get for that money. I never understood the expensive frankens, either. So many things happened to me when I disappeared. My son was born, I changed jobs and I sold one rep to Italy where the Italian customs supposedly stole it, etc. I think I compensated the loss fully (or half, can't remember). Never, ever send anything to Italy!!! I just got tired of it and I already got all watches I ever wanted. I also made some reviews which never really grabbed much attention anymore so I thought it was a good time to move on. Yeah I have those gens but I still wear my reps. Watch is a watch and my rep WM9 and SMP Chrono are almost as good as the gens anyway. WM9 is so good that sometimes I have to double check which one I have on my wrist. Haha. You can tell from the dial as my gen has different "S" on Submariner. PS: Anyone in EU has that Datejust (smooth bezel + oyster combo) and wants to sell?

Movado brand has always been non-existent in the Europe. I've never seen anyone wearing one.

Hi Alligoat, nice Type XX. Neil had that full gold version, remember? This is what I read at WUS: "The movement started life as a Lemania 1340 (aka Omega 1040), which descends to some extent from the Lemania 1873 (aka Omega 1861). They are lever-action chronographs that nevertheless have very smooth pusher action and operation. Breguet uses the same movement, finished to about the same level, in the Type XX and XXI, with the additional of a flyback function. When Ebel started developing their version of this movement, they bought exclusive rights to the movement design from Lemania, with rights given to Ulysse Nardin for the base plate (which UN used in their calendar watches) and to Breguet for use in the Type XX."

Awesome work. Boxy, decent looking crown guards, even. Wow!

Haha my hardcore lifting days are long gone Nanuq. I'm a slim fit guy these days.

My old franken white 16570.

I paid 80 Euros for this YM with Asian 21J movement back in the day (from Narikaa). This was the REAL Noobfactory version which was only ever surpassed by the WM9 version. But this was awesome rep. I'd probably still have it but I never cared for the YM personally.

Nice. Are they with smooth bezel and oyster bracelet? I want that exact combo.