rrari1

Is the seconds at 12 movement in this troublesome? I imagine it is like a daytona rep and breaks very quickly... no?

How do these gold plated watches last? I had a two tone seiko a number of years ago, and the plating rubbed away on a few spots from it quite quickly, and I have never bought another gold plated watch.

I did a search on the forum a few days ago and someone mentioned tomexton@yahoo.co.uk. I sent him an e-mail and he does repairs, servicing and waterproofing. I have not dealt with him, but would love to hear if anyone here has. He is located in London.

In a few other threads I have read that while many of the AD's advertise that you can have the watch serviced and waterproofed before they send it to you, that this should be taken with a grain of salt, and that you are better off getting the watch serviced by a local repair shop. Do you guys generally agree with that, or should I have more faith in the AD's? Is it just the Asian movements that are delivered dry and dirty, or would a watch with a Swiss ETA 2836 also require an initial service?

I dont mean to drift off topic and totally understand the reason for this rule, but do forum members think that most AD's are actually experts? Most of the AD's I have been in do not appear to know much about the watches they are selling other than the prices. A few years ago, when looking at a dssd in Selfridges Rolex, I asked what the Helium Release valve did. The salesperson had no clue, and so I had to look it up on wikipedia from home. Another AD in Ireland told me that Rolex never made a SS Daytona. The one AD where I found the sales staff to be extremely knowledgable was Wempe on Bond Street. Most of the AD's in London do not have a watchsmith on staff capable of doing a basic service, and instead ship the watches back to the manufacturers.

I am amazed that the screws on the gen are not all alligned the same way, or all facing in towards the centre of the watch. I would have expected them to look out for a detail like that. Your rep looks amazing.

I can believe that. If you send your gen rolex in for a service they charge you almost twice as much to service a gold model than a stainless steel model even though they have an identical movement in them.

Thanks guys, All of your comments have been really helpful. How would you guys rate the quality of a good rep to an inexpensive Chinese mechanical watch like an alpha? Two of my Alpha's basically failed right out of the box, but equally they did not cost very much. A $400 - $500 rep like a BK sub I am hoping would be a bit more reliable. What have your experiences been?

I agree with everyone here. gen owners know nothing about reps and believe that all reps are the super low quality Canal Street type watches. I own a gen rolex, and look at a lot of the critiques on here of high quality reps and cant really tell the difference. the person I know who I feel would most likely call me out on a rep, is a friend who I know owns a rep panerai. In fact the reason I know his Panerai is a rep, is that when I bought an Alpha watch a few years ago, he knew so much about Chinese movements, that I had to ask him how he knew so much. A friend of mine who is really a watch expert, bought a Daytona a few years ago online, and had to take it straight to a gen dealer to have it checked so that he could know it was real. his Daytona even had a problem in which when the chrono was reset, the second hand reset back to 11, rather than 12. A female friend of mine years ago pointed out to me that the best way to tell if a high end handbag was fake, was to look at the womans shoes. cheap shoes = a fake bag. Another giveaway she pointed out is if the owner is taking public transportation, the bag is fake. Another friend of mine who has a collection of high end cars told me that she only buys CZ instead of diamonds, as when you arrive in a Bentley, no one questions the quality of your earrings. The thing that started me reading these Rep forums was reading about the Hublot Big Bang watches. They have an inexpensive ETA movement in them and sell for over 10k. You are just paying up for a case, not the actual watch. Even some of the good brands like Cartier or Breitling have quartz movements in many of their watches. You are paying a lot for a shiny case with those watches.

Thanks Gran, I guess my question is a little foolish. I guess what I really mean is for a beginner, what are the really decent reps out there, that look quite good, and can be expected to be somewhat reliable. To give a bit of history, while I have never bought a rep before I have bought about four chinese mechanical watches. Over the last few years I bought a number of Alpha watches, all of which looked quite nice, but which did not really last long. One of them still works, but the bracelet broke. The others failed reasonably quickly. Problems like the crowns coming off when winding, or just generally never keeping good time. I guess I am looking for something of better quality than that, so need a better movement, but also want a watch that looks somewhat decent and is not a really obvious fake like the A Lange & Sohne reps. Is there a short list of reps I should start looking at? Thanks.

Hi Guys, I have been researching reps for a while, but have just signed up for this forum recently. The first watch that I wanted to get was a Rolex Daytona, but I quickly learned that these are terrible reps to buy, as the mod used to get the chronograph dials working is quite troublesome and so the rep essentially does not work well. I also wanted a A Lange & Sohne 1 rep, but the ones I have seen online are really shoddy looking, and I wonder if it is almost impossible to replicate, as the back of the gen is just so beautifully detailed. I learned that the Sub is the most replicated watch, so expected it to be one of the best reps, but it seems there are lots of obvious tells to experts. I quite like the deepsea, but read on here that while the noob rep is good, it is not great. Also it is a very thick watch which makes it hard to wear on a day to day basis. My question is what reps are the "super reps"? I have heard that the noob Panerai reps are almost 1:1, but unfortunately I dont love the look of Panerai watches. Are there any other watches that are replicated to an extremely high standard? Thanks.

Hi Guys, I have been researching rep watches for a while on a few forums, but am yet to pull the trigger. About a year ago when I was last looking, the sub to buy seemed to be the BK WM9 sub. I am hoping to buy a decent quality rep, that will not be obvious to others as a fake. I am interested in either a sub with the green ceramic bezel, or a deep sea. I guess the big giveaways are the shape of the crown guards, incorrect bracelets, bad/ no lume, a cyclops with no anti reflective coating, and maybe hands that are incorrect. Other worries of mine are that the watch will not be as waterproof as a $50 casio, and that the movement will not be any good and requires servicing as soon as you buy it, and I dont know who would do that work without possibly confiscating the watch. I also do not want to own an obvious rep that provides entertainment for people who are good at pointing out the flaws. Who should I go to to solve these problems. I have been looking in BK's storefront on this site, and it appears that he buys a good quality rep watch, upgrades it to look less fake, puts in a new crystal, possibly waterproofing it, and maybe gives it a service before it goes out the door. Is he the best guy to talk to or are there other people who do similar work. I noticed that many of the watches advertised in his store have been up there for 3 years, and mention WM9 who I understand is a defunct dealer. Sorry for all of the newbie questions all at once. Oh one final one. Another topic called "Who has the best submariner currently?" mentions that there is a new movement that has just been replicated, which is coming out this year, possibly with a newly improved case. Should I wait for this? Thanks