fraggle42

Thanks Offshore, I've registered at your shop. Had a look around, but annoyingly the pound is so weak against foreign currency at the moment I can put together the same items at 2/3rds of the cost (or rather the postage takes the cost upto that point) so have ordered from a UK watch supplier. When the £ rallies again, I'll use you. (hmm, that may sound a bit wrong lol) Cheers, Richard

So I thought I'd pick up a few old movements, "for spares or repair" kind of thing, get some suitable tools and see how many I break before I figure out how to put one back together Got the movements sorted, there's loads of people selling job lots of them cheap on the bay, just need the tools now. Before I spend £80 or so on ebay, I thought I'd ask if any people trading in here sell the tools required? Basically a whole starter set, screwdrivers, holders, case openers, tweezers, bracelet link tools, oil pens, oils, grease, hand removers & locators, etc, etc? Richard

Right!

So what is the smallest movement that has ever been made? Type 101 movements? 13mm round movements I feel for the people that put them together! I suppose if you've *very* short sighted with very steady hands it'd be a good dayjob. Richard Listening to: Marillion - Afraid Of Sunlight on 1600W RMS of power over the Epos speakers + 15" 400W sub

Agreed. Either inform the mods who will deal with it, and let them suspend / ban the member and inform the rest of us, or if you're 99.999% certain it's a scam, post full details, but post JUST the facts with no emotional influence whatsoever (then if you do happen to be wrong, you haven't called them a scammer, you've just posted facts about the transaction / whatever) This thread should be locked or deleted.

Hah! I've been waiting more than 25 days, but the TD isn't Andrew.

Hehehe, I never even thought of that, but now you mention it Richard

Here you go

I really fancy an automatic winder or 8. Having a look on AliBaba.com there are a lot of manufacturers of them in HK/China at all sorts of price ranges, but the one thing in common is the smallest minimum order seems to be 50 pieces. Has anyone done a group buy of these before? Has anyone done a group buy that extends across RWG, RWI and Rep Geek? I suspect to get 50+ buyers it'll have to be done across multiple forums, and also choosing which one to buy to make all 50+ happy could be a lot of fun! Richard

Well they didn't have the PVD Omega in stock, so offered me a normal one. Refused that and have asked about a couple of nice looking IWC skeletons, see if they have them in stock. I have visions of a place that has one Rolex Sub and one Pan in "stock" Richard

Rolex Pro Hunter, black with black dial + white and red. Absolutely love mine. And had no problems with the secs @ 6. Richard

I bought one of these a few weeks ago http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LARGE-LOCKABLE-20-WATCH-STORAGE-DISPLAY-BOX-CASE-CHEST-CHERRY-WOOD-FINISH-/221146768386 Nice finish, proper glass, nice cushions and lining. I like it Richard

Thank you ubiquitous, always love learning from someone who knows their stuff and obviously likes their hobby / work. That champleve dial is fantastic, such obvious craftsmanship and skill went into making it. Richard

The morning watch, Seiko 5 gen I got yesterday:- And I received this in the afternoon:- Richard

I see 9 fairly easy to spot differences in the close up dial shot. A lot of them are the spacing from the numbers to the lume blobs, the most obvious is the difference between the 7 and the 5, on the gen as you'd expect they're uniform all round the dial, on the rep the 7 (like lots of others) is almost touching, and the 5 is far from touching. Also the Bret logo is clearer on the gen, and most of the text below it looks a fraction smaller font on the gen, it just looks "right", and the date wheel font is also slightly too big on the rep, making it more difficult to read than the gen. Lastly the bezel numbers and markers, on the gen they have a dark look at the bottom of them, a matt finish, on the rep they're glossy, they look pressed rather than milled. Also the quarter hour markers on the bezel, they look as if they're part of the bezel on the rep and look as if they're separate items on the gen. Just my views of course

Any EBay auction that is a private auction (one where you can't see the bidders at all) I always avoid like the plague! 99% or 100% of the bids will be shill bids. I have to laugh at the bar poking out the side of the watch that you have to pull out to set the time. Just a bit of bent steel with absolutely nothing holding it in! And that "Longines Ingenieur", isn't that a big crack running along one side of the movement? And it looks like an automatic winder has gone walkies too.

Joshua (Perfect Clones) also does triangular shipping via the UK.

Telling people a fake is a gen says something about you. What it says really depends how old you are, young people like to try to impress others in their peer group and will do lots of daft things to do so, older people have grown out of that and just do things to satisfy themselves. I'm middle aged, and have never really tried to influence what others think about me, I come as I am and that's it! I love reps because I love them, not because I think they make me look good. I know I can't polish a turd (those of you who have seen that episode of Mythbusters, shutup!!) I tell people they're fakes, show them the watches, chat about how the rep market has vastly changed from 20 years ago, chat about the good points (exterior, looks, price) and the bad points (un-serviced movements, stopwatches that you have to remember never to reset when running, never change the date between 10pm and 2am, customs, etc), it's all good. I've only just got my first few reps in the past couple of months but I've always found the people have been interested in what we chat about.

Ta, I see. Not that this is ever going to be a problem I'll have to face really! I like the sig. by the way

So if an owner swapped bracelets of two Rolex they owned neither of them would be classed as original? And I suppose even if they swapped the bracelets back, because the work was not done in an RSC it's still be officially classed as a franken? Blimey, that's a bit harsh isn't it? I suppose it's a bit like the way car manufacturers in the UK tried to force new car owners to use their own service centers, saying that if anything non-OE was fitted, or was fitted by a non-OE garage, it would void the warranty. That was thankfully outlawed here.

Ah, sorry I didn't read your first reply properly. So you've bought from one of those 4 sites and it went OK? I thought you mean you'd bought from some other non-TD dealer! In that case I'll bite the bullet and see what comes in a few weeks. Will post pics of course, to the horror of the original PO lovers

Thanks, I know for that money it's not going to have a decent movement in it, and may be quartz (I'm happy with quartz so long as the price is right), but I like it, it's different, and cheap enough that even if the movement dies soon, I can stick another movement in it. I don't want to spend $150 and get nothing back though!

I was mainly curious about the 1940s watch, that amount of "dirt" (I really don't think it is dirt though) would only get there after months of handling. I'm guessing its just the 1940s light paint on the dial reacting to the dark metal or paint of the numbers. Good to see the progression of the design over the decades, like the crown wheel going from thick to thin and back to thick again Richard

Thanks Freddie, I'm now wondering if their namesake was created to be as close to human as possible, but I can't remember enough of the original book to know. I think that was the idea, but of course it all went wrong! Well I now know to look out for other fantasy watch fans and not franken fans Richard

Frankens confuse me a little. Reading about people's frankens they all seem to replace rep parts with gen parts, some just one or two bits, others the whole watch it seems. I (mistakenly!) thought a franken would be a rep changed to be a "fantasy" watch that the gen maker had never produced. Whilst I can see that doing the former you're getting closer and closer to owning a gen, there's very little personalisation you can do. With the latter the only limit is your imagination and budget and as soon as you start you'll have something unique that only you through of. Do people do both? Or is it all getting as close to gen as possible? I did see the lady doing the hand painted dials which look gorgeous and are what I'd consider a step to a nice franken Richard