atomic_doug

It looks pretty good and it's a good rep. If you've never seen a gold watch that large, though, be prepared: the only way it could stand out more is if it made a constant, loud buzzing noise. Also, pretty much any gold watch larger than a small Cartier says "fake!" Is it waterproof...yes, in that none of the components will actually dissolve in water. Otherwise, not really. Don't take it showering or swimming. If you treat it like it is not at all water resistant, then you'll never have to worry about it. If you have to run to your car in the rain, it will be fine, but that's about it. (The gen Big Bangs aren't that water resistant either, quite frankly.) 5 mil gold plating means 5 microns. The gold won't come off on its own, but any scratch will show the metal underneath. Of course, a watch that large is a magnet for doorways, so bumps and scratches are inevitable. For this reason, the Ice Bang, All-Black or the full stainless Big Bangs are preferred. Also, they cost less and you can parlay those savings into the initial service that reps need.

It seems like starting a "Trusted Dealer X scammed me" thread is almost a rite of passage in this forum. What it really indicates is the somewhat harsh reality of the rep game: it's not a perfect copy and it came from a factory with far less than perfect quality control via a salesman with far less than perfect English. A balance must be struck between how much inaccuracy you're willing to live with and how much work you're willing to put in to make a watch "perfect". For what it's worth, I've dealt with DSN dozens of times and, while I haven't always been happy with what I received, he's always been very quick to make things right and he's always gone out of his way to do so (up to and including sending me an entirely new watch and letting me keep the first one for parts.) It's why I continue to do business with him. Guys like DSN live and die by their reputation and reputations such as his can only be earned. If he really was a scammer, he would lose so many customers so fast that it would cripple his business.

To me, it sounds like either the balance wheel is not properly installed/secured or the entire movement itself is not properly installed/secured. The movement of your wrist while wearing the watch is likely causing some components to drag quite severely. It may need a new movement or it may just need a few screws tightened. If you take the route of replacing the movement and you really like the watch, why not replace it with a gen ETA-made Unitas? As movements go, it's not that expensive and any watchmaker in the world can service one. (Odds are, he or she was probably even trained to service movements on that movement the first week of watchmaker school.)

I think a 45mm Classic Fusion does wear a lot more comfortably than a Big Bang. My own wrist is 6.5", but very flat and I found the CF to be pretty comfortable, even more so than a Panerai. It's thin and spread-out without the lugs hanging over the wrist.

Damn. ...well color me surprised. Is it just the gen 232 and other 47mm Rads that have actual 'points' at the corners of the case? A good friend of mine owns one (a 232) and its case's corners are far pointier. In any case, it looks like my Panerai collection is growing by one.

Doesn't look bad. A little filing down the corners to points and the case will be good to go. How is the Radiomir so difficult to get right? The dial's still not there, though. The print thickness on the sea & sky logo doesn't look right to me. Very good, though. This is one I've wanted for a while, now.

I don't think the 41mm Classic Fusions have been repped yet.

The GST Chrono was very good, but has a massive tell on the dial: on the gen "Schaffhausen" is lined up with the day-date apertures, on the rep, it sticks out. I think the Mark XVI is the closest. Get a gen datewheel and it's 98% there. Gen crown and an AR job and it's basically perfect. Even out of the box, though, and side-by-side with an owner of a gen, it's close enough to where the gen owner wouldn't notice any tells unless he was specifically looking for them and, even then, he could chalk it up to minor variations in between model years. If you're looking for something out of the box that you don't need to do anything to, I don't think there's any watch in any brand that is that close. It's all varying degrees of how much inaccuracy you're willing to live with.

Boy, you really DO like Subs. I don't blame you, they're pretty rugged pieces. I've got a gen T-Dialed 24, myself; it gets a lot of wrist time. If you want to stick with Subs, but want to expand your collection, might I recommend the original Sub: the pre-V 5218-205/A

It's a nice piece, to be sure, but getting it to as gen-like as possible would be an exercise in futility. If you like it, have it serviced, but I wouldn't put any money into it. Keep it as an exhibit in the 'History of Panerai Reps' museum. In another twenty years, people won't remember the minutiae of early Panerai models.

The new Hublots are nice and all, but the one that really sings to me is the original. I've seen the gen in the wild and even at a small 36mm it just exudes an 80's roguish playboy charm. To me, it's one of those power watches that is super-impressive despite not being very large, like the PP Nautilus or the Cartier Santos. Long story short: back in the 80's, Carlo Crocco founded his own watch company to make his idea of what a good sports watch would be. Back then, the idea of a rubber strap on a good watch did not exist...and certainly not when the watch was made of gold. Inexplicably, European royalty seemed to enjoy the Hublot and so it was a sales success until the company couldn't come up with any other designs and were eventually bought out. I think the company actually still makes this watch, but doesn't advertise it. I don't think it's been repped, though other MDM-era chronos have been. (Not that well.) It seems like a piece of cake to rep. Simple shapes, quartz movement. They made it in steel too and a bunch of different sizes. 36mm was the classic size (80's watch.) Does anyone else feel the same way? How many of us need to beg and whine before it's made? Just look at those clean lines, the alternating brushed and polished surfaces. It's casual-power, right there.

Thanks for the pics. I did see the versions with the more accurate movement. I'd probably have one of those popped in. The dial could also be spray-matted a little to cut down the carbon's glossiness. It doesn't look like too tricky a project. I'll go for it, thanks!

Since a thousand Gauss isn't actually all that much, any metal case with a solid caseback is itself is pretty close to shielding a watch to about that. The little anti-mag shield insert that they add does create a Faraday cage effect even if it's not made purely of iron, so in that regard, the Milgauss is "shielded". Is it shielded as much as gen? Probably not, but can it withstand a thousand Gauss, sure. A thousand Gauss is much less than the strength of any MRI machine, the smallest of which usually run about 1.5 Tesla, or 15,000 Gauss.

Lovely work. The "sloppy" work by the original Italian crew gave every pre-V piece a personality all its own. I've tried that effect on some of the test dials, but I'm only using acrylic model paint, so it's probably much easier than what they had to work with.

I'd go with the 127 as well. You've got a good-sized wrist, so 47mm isn't a problem. I think the 127 is a little more accurate, since the factories can never seem to get sausage dials quite right. The open caseback isn't really a problem for the 127 since the current rep movement is very good. For me, the 127 is one of those classic models that will always be given reverence (the destro version as well.) The 390 never really appealed to me as much, because it's "just another" dial-hands-case combination of the Base Luminor, while the Fiddy was completely unique for Panerai at the time. As for strap length, it depends on how much tail you like. (Not that kind of tail...get your minds out of the gutter. ) The typical strap length for an 8" wrist is 130/80; however, if you get a strap made of a thicker material, you'll want to go with something longer, like 135/85 or even 140/90. The fashion is to have considerable tail showing, since historically, these things were supposed to be worn over wetsuits, so a standard issue strap would be very very large on a bare wrist.

Hi All, The Hublot Classic Fusion. My wife browsed past the gen in a magazine and decided she needed to have it. She'd prefer the 38mm version, naturally. I know the 45mm version doesn't have the date window far enough out on the dial. It's available from the usual sources like http://www.1-pc8838.com/hbfsl01011-classic-fusion-cerru-a2824-p-10610.html Is there anything particularly glaringly off about it? I'm not a super-educated Hublot guy, so I don't know. From the looks of it, it would be a matter of getting the more gen-like movement A2893 popped in at the factory (which would also make it possible to do a swap for a Sellita SW300, which is what the gen uses, and use the rep's rotor weight.) It looks like the carbon dial could stand to have the date aperture cleaned-up a little and beveled. Is there anything that I'm really missing here? Thanks!

It's not a bad rep. It's not perfect or anything you'd call an 'ultimate' but it's an uncommon enough model to where it's not as big a deal as it would be with a Santos or something. It is decidedly not a large watch. Being rectangular, the narrow width doesn't mean it's as small as the number would suggest, but if you're used to a normal 38-40mm men's size, it will seem small.

A-bloody-men to that! I've got a fair mix of gens and reps (as does my wife, who lurks here) and this forum is so much more inclusive and a hundred times more informative than any other watch forum I've ever encountered. This is truly a forum for watch lovers, not a rich men's er...tool-measuring contest. As to the original question: no I don't think the increasing accuracy of the reps will cause too many ripples in the second-hand gen world. Outside of this forum I don't think too many 'Ristis even realize how scary-good the reps are getting. Since Paneristi actively suppresses any and all talk of reps, their own knowledge of the subject is lacking. I would venture that your average user here could ID a rep with greater accuracy than your average gen-forum-dweller.

Very cool-looking...except for the fake patina. It's one thing for people like us to simulate the look of an old watch because we're actually trying to re-create an old watch. I realize some of the hypocrisy inherent in my opinion, but fake patina in a production model just makes me unreasonable. Companies (like Panerai particularly) are just trying to trade on the desire of some collectors' desire for a vintage watch but who don't want to deal with the potential headache of owning a vintage watch.

I have lusted after a 42mm Mare chrono for years. Ten or so years ago, I had one available for sale in my hand thinking, "Nah. I like the big ones better." Oh, how I kick myself today. I would be an easy case to make. There's really nothing particularly unique about it. The case plans are all readily available online. The dial is no more or less complex than any other dial and the movements used in the gen are easily obtainable. Alas, it will probably never be made.

Depending on how nit-picky you want to get, there are either no differences or a world of difference...or something in between. The shape of the lugs is a big difference (in addition to, of course, the double-screw-end lug bars) as they are shorter in length but taller in height. Another major difference is the pre-V case is also "softer" in terms of having edges that aren't as sharp. The shoulders of the case also flow into the lugs more fluidly. I don't think anyone sells an already coated pre-V case that is particularly accurate, so your best bet would be to re-shape a case yourself or buy a re-shaped case and have it coated.

Yes, they used the normal low-beat Unitas. I kind of like the the orange-yellow dial. It's very distinctive. Orange-faced watches don't look bad, see DOXA for example. The black-seconds-hand one looks like a parts-bin special, (more than pretty much all the later pre-V Panerais were parts-bin specials).

A lot depends on your budget. "Vintager" (Micah straps) seem pretty popular with the owners of the gen and he uses ammo pouches from WW2. They're not cheap, around two bills, but they look pretty darned cool, especially with a flat sewn-in buckle. It gives the whole watch a real rough-and-tumble look appropriate to its military bearing. If you're willing to spend that kind of money on a strap, perhaps you might also consider making a couple of improvements to the watch itself. For example, while the hands and dial are excellent replications, DSN's Radiomir case is pretty far from gen. The 232 available through the normal trusted dealers has a much better case, but worse dial and handset. Combine the two to make a super rep.

Damn! That looks great in orange. I might have to get one of those for myself!

Yeah, the "City of Sails" edition is a fantasy piece but, to its credit, is a really well-done fantasy piece. It doesn't use a seconds-at-12 dial, so you've got a little extra reliability and makes an ETA 7750 swap trivial since (I believe) it also uses the low-beat A7750 movement. Plus, there have been SOOooo... many variants of the ROO, who's really going to say, "Hey, I don't remember that one?" FWIW, I actually think it looks better than a lot of the real editions.