Stephane

Chrono: in Brussels, forget la gare du nord (or gare du midi). It's the wrong part of the town unless you want criminality, girls in windows and porn cinemas Of course, if you stay in your Sheraton room...no risks! The place to be is what we call "le haut de la ville" wich is around avenue Louise; and I'm pretty sure there are "cheaper" hotels in that area too. You have trendy bars, restaurants, shopping all around that area and watches (ADs and Second Hand). By the way, I voted for Brussels, my town, but I'm ok for Madrid too...a little sun is fun. BTW 2: plenty of communication with Brussels: trains and ariplanes of course but also splendid highways from France, Germany, UK, Netherlands...

Well BT I love it. You were right saying it's a underestimated watch. It's in my TOP 3 with the SD and the GMT Master II (coke). And it's a "bargain"; second hand 16570 are foundable at much less than 3K !

Well, Pug, I'm absolutely 100% in agreement with you: AR coating makes the watch more real! Beautifull pics once again. Go for the PO, I just got mine back from Jakub. Stunning.

Happy New Year to you Admin and to all your crew !

Crazy fools ...

@ ALL: thanks so much for your nice comments. It takes time to post such a thread but I sincerely hope it helps all of us to see close up of a gen. At least it shows that super reps are very rare if not a wishfull thinking. I would love to see all genuine owners post reference pics of their piece. I think it's the only way we can improve our common knowledge and make the right decisions. @ RepAustria: If you learned something about Rolies in this thread, then I guess I'll need another life to be close to your knowledge! Yes the number inside the case back is a surprise !!! Na, I won't remove the sticker. It's another lesson here. Genuine stickers are so thick compared to our reps !!! Remove your rep stickers right away guys. It's the first obvious flaw Thanks for being so helpful in 2007; most of my knowledge about Rolies comes from you my friend. That is how I decide to go genuine for my modern Rolex. @ Freddy: yes, I agree with you completely now. It took me a year and lots of $$$, but I know I won't ever try to get the best sub anymore I know what you mean in saying you're not knocking reps down. But genuine modern Rolies aren't an impossible dream. They are really affordable and have lugholes!!! @ Mezzanine: it make sense to create vintage reps. In example a 1K single red, double red or great white like mines are close to the real deal. I would never have the balls to put 20 or 30K in a watch even if I had the cash. A single red is not even foundable anyway. The bracelet: I'm afraid that my English is too poor to describe what I feel. Let's say: - removing a screw is easy like cutting butter in summer (I tried all of them, none stripped) - sizing the pin in the clasp with the tool is so secured: you do not scratch the clasp by accident as the tool of the SD fits the cavity ot the pin in the clasp very firmly. - the edges of the links are nicely rounded and so smooth - putting back the end link between the lugs: I do it with my nail. No tool is needed. You hear the click right away, no need to shake the thing between the lugs and hope it will click. It's straight. - The colour and shine of the metal is completely different too. - The clasp is easy to handle and doesn't make that cheap noise like our reps. - The only point is that my diver extension is hard. But I guess the previous owner never used it. It's 7 years old so

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL I sincerely hope everyone will have a great 2008 with good health and lot of happiness. A little homage to By-Tor and his great Explorer II review to end this year 2007 :biggrin: Warm regards to all Stephane

Hi guys, Simply wanted to say I got one from AJS and it was a pleasure to deal with him. I should add : as usual ! Cheers Stephane

A quick "thanks" to the first reactions to my thread. I have to run away now but I wanted to say I appreciate very much !

Rolex Sea Dweller 16600 Dear All, I thought I might post photos of a genuine SeaDweller 4000 for reference purposes. We recently faced the hype again with a Super rep, the Super Sea Dweller. Why not have a look at a SSSD? Preambule Please don't misunderstand this thread. I'm not saying reps are bad, they are not. I will continue to buy reps and have them modified. I still love our hobby. But since it's been 25 years I'm looking at Rolex without buying one I decided to give the real deal a go. I sold all my Swatch and hope 3 genuine Rolies will land on my wrist at the end. The first one that arrived is the SeaDweller 4000. Watch ID This is a P serial from the year 2000/2001. It was originally purchased in Amsterdam on December 12th 2000. I am the second owner and got it from SubGmt.com It came with the box, the papers, the toolkit. It's the lug holled case and lumi dial. The dial The first difference I noticed with our reps is that the gen dial is very shiny as opposed to the mate one on our reps. Another difference is the quality of printing and the bigger height of the hour markers. The hands I didn't really see a huge difference in the hands size but what is obvious is the lume is much more crispy The date & Date Window Here too, the printing is much better of course, but believe me, sometime the date is off center vertically! The date window edges are also smoother and reflect the natural light nicely. The bezel, insert & pearl No big surprise with the insert & pearl: we have genuine on our reps too isn't it. The bezel rotates perfectly: it's firm but still easy to handle with two fingers. The bezel feels very consistant on the gen; teeth are sharper and it seems to me that it's 1 or 2 mm wider. (I didn't measure it, I have no tools for that, might be an impression only). The crown and crown guard Here again, we have the experience of genuine crowns/tubes and beautifully shaved guards. Some more shots for you to check the untouched crown guards. Look how the date is misaligned! (RepAustria is right when saying it happens) The caseback This is really very different: higher teeth, very easy to unscrew and screw back! I used my usual Bergeon hand tool and didn't scrath the case back at all. And the inside. The Crystal, the rehaut, the rehaut tickness The crystal sits clearly higher above the bezel than on our reps. I hope that on the next photos, the rehaut and tickness are clearly visible. The HEV I'm not a diver and thus don't really bother on how this works. But, having hold reps of the 16600, I can tell you the HEV are completely off. First the colour is NOT grey on a genuine: Second, on the following pictures, you can see that the HEV is a fraction of mm deeper in the case The bracelet With the dial, this is probably the biggest difference between this genuine SeaDweller and our reps. The genuine bracelet is smooth, very well finished and gives a solid feeling even with the hollow mid links. The end links. The clasp. Look at the pin to size the bracelet into the clasp. There is a cavity to receive the sizing tool which avoids scratches on the side of the clasp. The reference of the bracelet is printed here too. The flip top. Very secured. This one will never pop by accident. The diver's extension. I must say that it is not easy to deploy. Even very hard in fact. I should put some WD40. The lume This is not a Tritium version, but a newer one. It glows during the entire night and doesn't even need to be charged at all. This picture has been taken in full auto mode (as you can check the second hand doesn't move). It was resized in Photoshop and I used the AutoColor and AutoContrast only. The movement It's a modern Rolex in house one: the 3135. It has never been serviced but still runs at +2 seconds a day. It's a little dirty of course. Pitty that Ziggy is in North America. I will have to go to an AD. Oh, and don't think that because I opened the case it's not waterproof anymore: it still is! It screwed back perfectly! Conclusion As I started to do a while ago, I am now concentrating on vintage reps that I will never find and will never be able to afford anyway. But for modern Rolex, I seriously think that putting 1K in a super modded one is not worth when a second hand gen can be found at 2.5K. Our modern Rolex reps, including high end ones like MBK, and heavily modded ones will always be missing the following: - The crystal - The dial - The bracelet The quality of these parts on a genuine Rolex is absolutely different and much better. Adding them into a rep would make it so expensive that it is a total non sense. I hope you had a good time! Thanks for looking and reading. Cheers Stephane Visit my other Rolex: 16570 ! Rolex Explorer II 16570 - Review and pictorial of a genuine

No surprise here: BRUSSELS ! I could join any Brussels area in less than 5 minutes using the tram :laugh:

Wow

Have a great holiday ZZ. Pls allow me to send my best wishes to you and yours. Cheers Stephane

Sounds like a new babe arrived :ohmy:

Sorry if I'm hurting anybody. Didn't want to. It's a matter of taste of course but I really dislike both the "big" Casio and this AP.

I do agree with you Pug. If we were the driving force we would have 1:1 Rolex since ages !

@Raymond: Thanks Raymond. I'm sure yours will be fantastic too. @Pix: JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE

Winner of Best Sports Watch: AP Royal Oak Offshore Alinghi Team Chronograph. :ohmy: Cool, AP managed to create a very expensive Casio. AP should merge their design dpt with Rolex :yucky:

This morning going for this babe!

Wow, that must be a SMBW The ultimate we're looking for probably

Hey Rosnik, I must say something. I bought a TT sub on eBay once (sold it since as it was long before discovering RWG). The case back was engraved Shitinerand though! Do you think this was a MBW? I seriously doubt. To bad I didn't check the space between the lugs back then. I would say that Polex between the lugs is the best way to identify a MBK/MBW

I understand Ros ...but come on. Most of them bought several subs and hoped that one was better... At the end of the day, no rep watch is "better". All have their frustrations when it comes to gen parts. Look at my next post about shitinerand case back...

My 16610 MBK (formerly MBW) has a gen insert, a gen crown and tube, a Noobmariner dial, the rehaut has been worked on too...and so on. It has been modded by Tribal by the way. You might want to click here to see a Rolex Submariner 16610 MBK Tribalised I do believe Tribal knows what he's talking about and so far I couldn't see true comparision picture of all our modded babies and a gen 16610 but the MBK is very close in my opinion... The SSD in example is poor: I ordered one and it landed on my desk the same day I received my genuine 16600 (ok, it's a 2000 with lugholes but still..gen). No doubt the SSD is a very cool watch...but it will never be close to a genuine at all like a MBK 16610 is in my opinion. Unless Tribal changes almost everything in his SSD and we can have a meeting to shoot some comparision pictures that show that the SSD is 1:1 after hundreds of $ mods, the SSD is cool but nothing more. Cheers Stephane

You are not agitated mate...you are right ! Same with WM9 Sub in my honest opinion. There are hundreds of MBK (formerly MBW) out there and thousands of posts about them. I'm not surprised that some want to surf on the wave of their success. We all dream of a 1:1 watch...but they simply still do not exist. My two cents, Cheers Stephane

It's not going to happen but let's dream : ZENITH Plus By-Tor's Zenith choice. Jaeger Le Coultre and of course: