Thanks Kilowattore for your grown up input.
I'm also hacked off with the less than friendly tone in this thread ....I thought RWG was supposed to be the Friendliest Watch Forum on The Planet !
As Rolli's "silent' partner on these projects I choose to stay in the background, but there's been a pretty miserable assault on Rolli's motives and character here and that's not on.
I don't control Rolli or try to , neither do I necessarily agree with everything he says or believes. We've had disagreements but understand each other better as a result , that's how partnerships work.
I do know that his desire to make dials is because he is absolutely and totally passionate about Panerai and is about as true a hobbyist you'll find on this forum or any other.
This 000 dial was a labour of love for Rolli , not my personal taste as I have ample base dials in my collection and there is only one "King" 201/A as far as logo dials go.
He had the desire and means to do it , so he made a very very limited run and made available to those who wanted it.
There's been a few assertions that these are copies of a Noob dial , Asian made dials , large profits being made , people being misled etc etc, but as partner , I invest half of the production costs and have records of every single invoice and payment received so it's time to state a few home truths for those who are bothered to know:
- Every single step of the manufacturing of these dials is done in Switzerland , the only parts made in Asia are the Pre-V hands from Helenarou - which I purchased without lume many years ago.
- If you take the money Rolli and I have invested and divided it by the number of dials we have each received from these projects - we have paid more than double per dial than what we sell them for !
- I conservatively estimate that Rolli has invested over 1000 hours of his own time in the last 12 months to make these projects a reality and paid meticulous attention to detail every step of the way.
- In each production run , despite the highest standards and precautions, there are dials with flaws , so on these very small runs, the yield is far less than expected and as such there has not been enough dials to make a profit.
- All the money that has been raised from sales , has been re-invested in the next dial production, which is why these dials are made WITHOUT pre-orders and requests for deposits from people. We actually don't want to take anyone's money until we're satisfied we have a dial ready so pay all the costs upfront ourselves.
As FGD , I made hundred of dials and hands for the members of this forum and due to my inferior production methods was to able to offer these are far lower prices than Rolli's.
In the end though, poor yields , production problems , delays and the deluge of PM's and emails you receive made me call it a day. I just could not get the standard of dial I and others wanted this way.
Rolli took up the gauntlet and used his engineering and business skills to build a network of high end Swiss contacts and asked if I wanted to go into partnership with him.
The results are what you see today.
So there you have it .
For those of you who have been great supporters , bought dials , gave advice but most of all enjoyed these projects , thank you.
For those who want to b1tch and moan about someone's "charity" work then try Jack Warner , he's got a lot more questions to answer.......
FGD