Arctos

I wouldn't know anything about that ... *cough* If you want to get a rep for yourself and wear it knowing fully well what you have, I don't care. Trying to rip off a buyer is a completely different matter, and I take a dim view of that

As I see it, there are two groups of people that are hated: -- the ones who wave their rep around, going "Look at my expensive watch! Look how rich I am!" -- the ones who try to sell a rep as a gen If you don't fit in either of those groups, you don't have a problem

A tip as far as "passing": Find out who sells the gen in your area. If someone asks you "where did you get that?", have an answer.

I use a $5 springbar tool m'self. That pliers thing looks like it could come in handy with solid endlinks.

The Monsters and the 007 are major WIS favorites. So are -- further up the price scale -- a lot of the Japan-only models: the Sumo, the SARB series, the Marine Master.

I have one of those. It's got a 19mm lug gap, which makes it a PITA to find straps for.

What's with the hour markers? Looks like a four-year-old applied the lume dots.

Unless the watch has multiple complications, and it's a PITA to reset it every time, there's no need to keep it wound.

The top picture is the special edition Big Pilot that IWC made for the German national team. I have seen Low wearing that watch in other pictures, but in the second pic here he's got something with a subdial at 6. No idea.

My 007 is my beach watch and my swimming-laps-at-the-gym watch.

On that second one, the $3,355 is the BIN price set by the seller. Obviously nobody has bitten. Personally, I wouldn't drop that kind of cash on something like that.

Looks nice! Does the flyback function work? (Can you reset the chrono while it's running?) I would assume it doesn't, but you never know.

"Refinished dial" = zero collector value.

30mm non-COSC ... A$3,400 is probably on the high side, but it's not outrageous. It looks like it's in good shape. Definitely ask if it's been serviced lately.

There's always the white Explorer II.

One other thing I spotted: the gen has "Made in Germany" at 6, while the rep just says "Germany". You'd have to be *really* familiar with the gen to catch that without a side-by-side.

Looks to me like the outer bezel is a click off. It's a diving watch, you know.

IME, what people on gen sites are mainly concerned with is getting ripped off -- paying the gen price and getting a rep. That's fair. If I'm paying gen money, I damn well better be getting gen merchandise.

If the case has lugholes, a straightened paperclip is all you need. If it doesn't, you'll need a springbar tool. Lots of strap-sellers have them; I got one from thewatchprince.com for $5.

I have no interest in impressing other people. I wore a plastic Swatch well into my 30s, and I'm wearing a $50 Alpha as I type this. I bought a gen Rolex because being a Rolex owner means something to me. Knowing the company's history, and how it operates, and what goes into their products ... I wanted a piece of that. (Harley owners are the same way.) What other people think when they see me wearing it is irrelevant. As you get into WIS-dom, you learn about the various companies and how they work. There are some you respect and some you don't. I wouldn't buy a rep of a company I respect, like Rolex or Patek. OTOH, someone like Panerai, who charges $7000 for a bone-stock 6497, and even more for BS "limited editions"? I have no problem wearing a Panerai rep.

1. There are lots of German Catholics. Like, say ... the Pope 2. Didn't you read All Quiet on the Western Front in school? Written by a German named Erich Maria Remarque.

When the company was taken over and the production was moved to Switzerland, an Italian investor hired up all the workers in Florence who had been making the pre-V's and started Anonimo.

We get spoiled here with our trusted dealers and their Super Ultimate 1:1s. When you look around in gen forums, you see what kind of absolute garbage is being sold -- and worse, bought. Take a look at this: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f23/real-fake-659600.html If the owner paid $50 for that, he got ripped off.

No. COMEX divers were using the 5513 when they first reported the problem with the helium, but I don't believe any of them had the logo on the dial.