Stephane

@ Pug The black monster, I finally got it on eBay today for a reasonable price. Took a while. Is there a steel bracelet for it ? I know there is a Nato obvioulsy @ All, it's Pugs picture ;-) Ze Black Monster Cheers Stephane

What you said so far make sence, all of you. I think I didn't clearly explained my feeling and decisions though. It must be because my english is froglish ... Who said "Funny things is since the booming of ems, fedex, dhl, ups.....people no longer think the old fashion "REGISTERED MAIL" is safe". Well that is my point, exactly and I am asking to all the dealers I'm ordering from to use this shipping only since a while. What I also mean is not that if a watch is seized allthough shipped by registered mail that I request, I will ask for a refund. I share the risk with the dealer of course and none of the ones I'm dealing with will tell you the contrary. But, if knowing I only want registered mail and no "courrier", the dealer is shipping with a "courrier" then, sorry, but I will ask for a refund. Again, I will not post my negociations with my dealer here of course; it's our private business and not a public matter. But I sincerely think that if I ask for a cheap & safe way of shipping, it should be done that way. After all when I order a MontBlanc, I'm not ordering a Panerai, am I? Shouldn't be different for shipping. Narikaa: "And regd Air Mail.....is negated by the perverse obsession of most peeps wanting 'by the minute' tracking!!!!" Yes, you are right on two things: 1. shipping from UK is safer (sorry for the CN only based dealers). 2. customers that want instant tracking will get their tracking toghether with the risk of being inspected much more often than if they patiently wait for a couple of weeks and use registered mail. So, please fellows, do not missunderstand me. I will never fight with any dealer or ask for refund (even partial) as long as my request for registered mail is fulfill. If a dealer does not want to ship that way, he should let me know, and that's it. My only statement in this thread is: good old registered mail is inspected 1 time out of 100. "Courrier packages" are inspected probably 25 times out of 100 or more. EMS in the countries where the main postal service is owned by the state is inspected 100% of the time if it comes from CN with a low value declaration like electronic parts, 25$. That is how I experienced it in my country. Hope I did clarify what I meant and, on top of this, help some of you to make a desicion in the choice of shipping. Cheers Stephane

Hi All, Please do not ask me who's the dealer, I won't say. It's a private matter and I feel like I must NOT share my problems with you. However, there is one thing I must share, it's our community that must be protected after all and thus be aware of what is going on: my visit at the customs. The country where I am is not important. I'm in Europe. In France EMS is Chronopost, in Belgium Taxipost and so on. EMS is nothing else but the state postal service. I received TNT, Fedex, DHL packs from China or Singapour without any problem. But, suddenly, my China watches coming thru EMS were seized. I was asked to go to the customs to declare why I bought fake watches. I tried to be as friendly as possible with the guy and he started to show me his files of the day, some replicas aswell...nice atmosphere thus. In the files he showed me, there were waybills. Ok, now were these waybils from Fedex, Tnt , Dhl, ...NO I can assure you that 100% of the 10 files I saw were EMS sendings. So, my conclusion is that the state (customs) work with the state (post) very close. I thought I should let you know that for me, only registered airmail will be accepted. If a dealer persist to ship something using any kind of trackable delivery (Ems, Fedex,...) and the item is seized, I will always claim 1000% of my money back from now. Cheers Stephane

I ordered my overseas at PT (Precious Time). It should arrive within 2 weeks. Cheers Stephane

I got one and you can find pics and comments here... http://www.rwg.cc/members/My-So-Called-Bes...00--t21180.html Cheers Stephane

Ooops, sorry. I'm not an Elvis fan myself and only reproduced information gathered from the Tissot book...

That seems to be clear to me... We should protect our eyes guys...otherwise how are we going to read RWG several hours a day

Flame does not educate...so why not forgive and teach... I have been receiving some great advices myself...I wanna share them

Hi Pix, You want a VC ? What about this one: That is the one I ordered... Cheers Stephane

Niaklah, As a noob myself I would like to let you know the rules here as I experienced them before . 1. Get a membership (and pay some $ to support the board because if you cannot pay some $ to the community how could you buy a rep !) 2. On the top right of your screen you have a Search link: click it and type "best sub" . You will see hundreds of posts about best subs. The question your are posting (about who has the best sub: where they sell best sub?) has been answered several times and pisses off long term members because there is no long term or permanent answer. It depends on what is available NOW. A best sub of one year ago is crap compared to the one of 6 months ago which is crap compared to the one of 3 months ago and so on...You will also discover after the fact that best sub does not exist, that there are MBW/WM/TW subs that are even better than "the best sub" but have other flaws... So, don't take it bad when someone says: www.rolex.com, it's true that the best sub is the gen ;-) all others we buy thru this board are great but are reps. Hope this helps, Cheers Stephane the noob... CONCLUSION Please follow the 2 above mentionned advices and you will perhaps enjoy it here. If you only post questions instead of spending hours of reading, you will hate this place very soon.

Thanks guys for the QP. Seems great. Will probably go fot it. However it's only 6 times a year ...what am I going to read waiting for the next issue ? Stephane

Dear All, I was wondering if one of you could recommend a great magazine (or severals) ? I'm looking for something where I can read reviews and get nice detailled pictures. In other words an RWG like magazine but with gens... Many thanks for your recommandations. Cheers Stephane

@ Ken and Chief: thanks for reading and commenting. Funny that Paul Tissot was the only non Brandt familly member that was tolerated at Omega...kind of Swatch group spirit long before N.Hayek came. @ Monty: an Alfa 166 JTD 2002, Nero Vulcano...my 6th Alfa and never again another brand...Congrats for your V6. I hope my next one will be one too. I'll have to wait for the 169 though. Cheers Stephane

Wow thank you very much for your nice comments Merci beaucoup ! Very much appreciated. Cheers Stephane

A PRS 516 @ 250$ with Swiss Original Eta 2836-2 Hi All, It's been a while that I wanted to post a topic about this watch. I simply love it and wear it very much. I have been chasing it on eBay for months as I decided I would not pay more than 250$ and it always went for over 300. But patience pays and I got it ! Pictures of mine are at the bottom ...I hope you'll like it as much as I do. Cheers Stephane What do I like? - The great Eta 2836-2, visible behind the nice sapphire case back, that runs 10 seconds to fast in 24 hours only which is the worst adjusted watch I have with that movement ! - The fantastic day-date feature which can be read easily - The indexes that are suspended over the dial - The beautiful 70's look SS band - The heavy wait of the thing on the wrist - The deployment buckle From www.tissot.ch PRS516 AUTOMATIC GENT Reference of my white dial : T91.1.483.31 size: 40mm (but feels larger than a sub in example) case material: stainless steel water resistance: 50 meters glass: sapphire dial: silver hour indicators: index (I would say flying indexes as they do not touch the dial) bracelet: stainless steel grey movement caliber: 2836-2 mechanical automatic function(s): day/date power reserve: 42 hours. guarantee: 2 years

OK I'll shoot: the PO I got comes from PT and is Eta...

oh yes, by the way ...my name is Buy, Group buy

ah ah, well my goal wasn't "hey pls confirm I have the right eta or I'll start a fight with my dealer"... And, Richard, yes we all prefer positive threads...aren't we ? You do, I'm sure

Richard, Am I missing something ?

Hmmm yes this is really great that you discovered it. I didn't think about taking a closer picture of that part of my PO but on this one it seems I'm lucky, am I ?

Richard, Generaly speaking I agree (if nothing to do with this particular thread). What I try to express as a Frog is that this board should try to stay a community where any and all member behave nicely ... If one start to insult others it's never going to be different than real life of course. At the end we will all spend more time in these kind of threads than in the ones saying "Yippeee I got my new blabla" or "Can you tell me how I can get a jhgdtyf/15874/op/56 crown for my 32547-IT post 1995 BlaBla watch"... ...Imagine all the people, living life in peace ... Cheers Stephane

Hey guys, I feel sorry saying this: 85% of the topics here are fun and instructive but they are spoiled by 15% of crap making me think of a permanent couple dispute between members and dealers. A noob spontaneous comment: - What I love to read on this board: real reviews (short or detailled) of reps I don't have (yet) or shots of reps that members did receive "today" - What I hate to read on this board: all the crap about dealer/customer intimate relations... - What I love to read about dealers: positive experiences from customers or vice & versa - What I hate to read about dealers: negative experiences from customers or vice & versa And, for sure, if a customer has a problem with a dealer he should act exactly the same way as he would with a close friend, collegue or member of his familly and TALK IN PRIVATE. Same comment for dealers having problems with customers of course. Talking about Neil, I'm part of the MBW group buy and yes I'm seriously anxious and looking forward to get them in my house instead of my $ travelling the world. But why the hell should I post a topic with a daily update saying "Oh, I cant' wait, Oh, let's hope everything is going to roll, Oh I was expecting them yesterday, Oh I doubt I'm gonna get them..." It's not gonna help me, Neil or any other member of the board. So that was my noob spontaneous comment: I love to learn about reps...I'm not here to learn about humans; I see my Psy once a week for that Cheers Stephane

I would be your first customer ;-) It's a pain in the *** her in EU where I am. I tried several by phone and mentionned "nice ETA blabla, but not gen"...none would touch them. As my PO was a [censored] to size, I even went to a low profile watch shop and the girl wanted to keep the watch for the day before she ask her "watchmaker" to remove links... I ran away.

I too agree: thinking dealers are here for anything else than business is stupid. Can you establish a friendly relationship ? Sure ! Time passes and helps humans we are to know each other better and eventually aprreciate each other. Ask full refund for illegal goods having "too much flaws" is even more stupid. How accurate is accurate in the rep world ? Gen only are super super accurate The only situations that should be "negociated 50/50" to my opinion is loss in the mail or seized by customs. The rest is obviously not very objective as a customer could not bother about that flaw where it's completely pissing off another customer. The CG issues on the subs in example are a great example of flaws that everybody should be aware of before buying any of them. We cannot call in a Judge can't we ? Cheers