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No - that was the pie bill....

So funny, and so true It wasn't a classy outcome, but when Totti netted I felt a sense of justice. South Korea 4 years ago.... the 'golden goal' Trezeguet scored in Euro 2000, the final against Brazil in '94.... I have had too many heartaches, so I hope the tide of fortune has finally turned our way.....

The watch on the left is the much sought after SMP case with the correct He valve placement!

This is one of those 'get them while you can' reps as they are just too good. Stuffed in a genuine box set there are very very few people who would not take them for the real thing. I have a non-Senna one with grey/mushroom coloured dial (check out the rep v gen section). The datewheel can be an issue on some days (!!!) but the only other visible flaw is the caseback model number (one digit out).

Helloooo!! Am I invisible or something?? Did I not say that?! PS. There is a 17j version of the 2846 also...

That's the ones! There's actually nothing wrong with the movement per se, and it is actually a good choice for a vintage rep which requires the lower beat frequency. Pretty stinky though if you were expecting a 28,800bph 2824 though....

And there was you trying to convince myself and JTB that you didn't take a drink.... Anyway, if it has to be NoChex of FastPay for UK buyers either suits me fine, although I'm buggered if I can remember my account details........

This looks suspiciously like the 17 jewel movements that were popping up in Subs from Abay (now Aspire) and Silix about 10 months ago. They were identified as an ETA design that had been out of production for almost a decade. Silix stopped supply immediately when they were alerted and refunded/replaced watches already shipped to customers, and Paul offered to exchange the movements for 2824's at the time.

The issues with the 2836 when deployed as a 'GMT' movement were covered directly here, and have since been brought up in other threads. In a nutshell, a 2836 ETA GMT movement does not exist - it is a day-date movement that has been taken away from spec by the rep factories in order to visually approximate a GMT movement. The problems are many and varied, such as the hour hand not being independently adjustable, or not adjusting by precise one hour increments. This is what I mean when I say it is crap at impersonating a GMT movement as without the forementioned functionality the GMT facility is compromised. In addition, the GMT hand invariably starts running out of sync, with no means of regulating it.

Mmmmm. Nice heavy rotor! It's called centrifugal force! PS. The (Asia) 7750 in the TAG I got from TTK is now officially the best time keeping mechanical auto I own. It gained 20 seconds in the first 5 days of wear (within COSC) and hasn't gained a single second since! Beats the (Asian) ST-25 in my PAM 090 which has settled to running three seconds a day fast. My ETA's (2824 in SMP 007 and 2836 in Roley Day-Date) have settled at 5 seconds fast after 18 months' ownership and wear. Have you guessed yet that I am turning into the forum's champion of (good quality) Asian movements!!

20mm

So called 'ETA reliability' is purely subjective, with little or no basis in fact. With the sort of quality of reps we are buying you can expect the same level of accuracy and reliability from any movement you may receive (with the exception of the known problems caused by third party modifications to movements). 99% of problems come down to poor quality control and have nothing to do with relative movement quality or design.

This little nugget of information will get through to people in the end... The Omega Co-Axial movements have had the beat reduced from 28,800 in order to increase the power reserve of those particular calibres. An ETA 2836 (as well as being crap at impersonating a GMT movement) will actually beat TOO SMOOTHLY compared to the gen. IMO the Asian GMT movement is by far and away the best choice for this watch. OK, so the ETA one comes with a display back, but it'll be putting what is very obviously the WRONG movement on display (and the fake dressing on the rotor will carry the wrong calibre number to add insult to injury).

Excellent pics. The best close-ups of this model we've had so far. A couple of comments... The lume is at least the correct colour. Most SMP reps I have seen with raised markers have been too green looking. Also, whatever movement they've put in there has permitted them to fit a more accurate, shallower caseback. The 2824 based reps are too 'fat'. One of the main selling points of the old 'close factory' SMP was this accurate caseback (thanks to the 1mm thinner 2892/ST-18 movement) which looks to have made a return.

Just as easy as (easier, in fact than) printing Rolex/Omega etc. etc. on the front, I would have thought....

Huh? I don't know where you are going with your point, but my point is that you were fishing for some dirt on these excellent movements. Why exactly were you doing that? Is it so that you can confirm your 'acquired knowledge' and go with the ill-informed consensus that all Asian movements are suspect? The fact is that many of the Asian movements on the general market (and in some of our reps) are the equal or in fact the equivalent of the so called 'Swiss' movements that some of us pay a premium for in order to achieve a misguided sense of peace of mind. The contributors to this thread are going some way to dispel these ill-founded fears. I'll go one step further and say that often the thing you are paying extra for is the very thing you believe you should be avoiding, and you have no way of knowing for certain the provenance of any movement, 'Swiss' or otherwise, and neither do the majority of the dealers selling these watches. The only people who do know are those who work on the watch movements, and those people are the only ones you should be listening to. As I said, the classic example was the manual chrono 'Lemanina' movement that people were paying extra for in the misguided belief that it was a superior 'Swiss' movement. It was an Asian Venus copy, but it took a strip-down and detailed analysis from one of our members here to reveal that. The sudden discovery that it wasn't what people thought it was didn't however turn it overnight into a 'pig' It remains one of the most reliable and well constructed movements currently in our reps.

OK, so let us go back to the question then.. How about the experiences of several thread contributors who own these moevments, one of whom has dismantled one and compared it first hand to a genuine 2892? Was that not good enough for you? Apologies for the exasperated tone, but I really don't know what there was further to discuss except that the rest of your question (not in bold) seems to just be digging dirt that isn't there. What does it take to convince somebody? If the movement factory get their little 'ETA' engraving stamp out and bump one on there for you will that make things instantly better?

Is that the James Bond theme you are whistling there?? The trick is to be wearing the watch constantly in the run-up to the movie, and then when everyone has seen it and recognises the watch you've been wearing for the past 10 months, you acknowledge their powers of observation and change model just as they are rushing out for one.

Two questions for you.. 1) What do you define as a genuine ETA? This issue has been touched upon above. "Swiss"? "Swiss Made"? Built to an approved ETA design by an authorised sub-contracotr but not actually marked as such, or does it actually have to carry an ETA marking (and we all know what value we should place on authentic markings on our reps, don't we...!)? 2) Why be unsure of a movement that people here have testified to being as good as what you are expecting it to be? I guess some people will never be convinced. Am I the only person who sees the irony in someone trusting the description 'Genuine Swiss ETA movement' on a product that is carrying a load of countefeit logos, even if it is said in good faith....? Many of our movements have been mistakenly described or named to suggest they are 'of a quality' eg. Lemanina that we know now is the ST Venus copy (although some dealers still persist), and the Chinese handwinds were in error described by even some of our most 'trusted' dealers as swiss when they first appeared. All the movements used in our reps are designs going back 20, 30, 40, 50 or more years, licensed to countless manufacturers and produced and assembled in hundreds of locations, and it ridiculous to believe that they are manufactured to one exacting standard in one single place - there is no mass produced product on the market with such a long history that can make such a claim.

Weasel words CC. The above comments come from people who have owned watches containing these movements and they are relaying their (good) experiences. Heck - Marickvilleboy has even worked on them. You know these movements are good because people who have them are telling you they are. Who is it has been telling you they aren't?

It just occurred to me that if the Co-Axial SMP 300m breaks cover in November and is 'retro-fitted' to the movie, or has in fact been used in filming, then upgrading our existing reps will be a matter of a simple dial swap (plus a movement exchange for a 2846 if you want to be really pedantic).

That doesn't surprise me. Street rep quality in Italy is terrible!

I have little doubt that Seagull are probably a subcontractor who have in the past manufactured the parts that ETA and others use to assemble their watch movements, and have gone into assembling complete movements either 'under licence' or with their own branding (as per AMD who started their PC CPU manufacturing days making processors under licence for Intel - which is how AMD acquired the rights to the i386 instruction set!!) The micro-regulator design on the 28xx line is something I am pretty sure ETA patented, so seeing it there on the ST-18 makes me think this is more than just a 'copy' movement. We've seen movements dressed to look like other with non-functioning micro-regulators (Asia 7750, CN Unitas with swan neck etc), but this one actually works! Incidentally - the ST-25, based on the ST-18/2892 design, is the movement used in the PAM 090 power reserve reps, and that particular watch is the best timekeeping rep I currently own...

My initial information came from people on and around the set who saw the watches that were being used while filming. Obviously if some digital jiggery-pokery is going to be used in post-production then their info cannot be faulted. One thing I knew from the start was that Omega had made it a priority to showcase the Co-Axial movement, which is why the PO was a good initial choice for filming while a decision was being made on the SMP - the upgrade to co-axial movement for the 'Bond Blue' has been an open secret since before the whole Casion Royale hoohaa even began. Oh, and apparently Daniel Craig turned up at his unveiling press conference wearing a DeVille on a black leather strap, adding even more to the confusion....

Surely not! This guy's got 62 posts and has been here since the place opened. Someone is bored and poking the fire methinks....