archibald

Anodized it is. PAM1A are you speaking of the technique similar to what people do to darken the Ti on their 192's?

My business card says I'm the Senior Political Advisor for a lobbying and PR firm, but I'm proud to be just an old fashioned fixer/bagman, since it means that unlike lobbyists and PR guys I always have to be 100% honest.

The ONLY watch I regularly wear from my "40% Accurate? Cool, I'll buy it!" period is the non-chrono version, which is actually pretty accurate. Yellow is great. The Le PLongeur is great. I'd buy the chrono to go with the standard but I have two reservations: possible trouble w/ the tranfer geared 7750 and the longevity of the adonized bezel. I noticed Picot makes a non PVD bezel version--anyone know how hard it is to remove rep-black?

Slim cut, two or even one button, no shoulder pads, cuffs on the trousers are what's "in" these days, which is sort of cool because excellent suits w/ those characteristics never go out of style as long as you stay away from some of the more exaggertated peak lapels and ultra slim cuts some designers are doing. I'm with you-- taking advantage of the classic trend and going out to buy a few nice suits this year to replace all the 3 button/shoulder padded closet decorators. Start w/ the basics and the classics: a solid blue, a medium gray subtle windowpane, and a charcoal chalkstripe. Then you can move on to the variety patterns if you need to. I know you don't want brand or store advice, but I love outlet malls and discount websites. Just bought a couple of absolutely beautiful Corneliani suits on sale @ Off 5th, which the salesman said are identical to the suits Corneliani makes for Ralph Lauren's purple and black labels. I paid $1225 for 2 super 150 suits w. sewn button holes and pic stitching on the lapels that retail at $1095 each. As previously recommended, better to save money w/ an H&M or off brand suit and go out and get a nice pair of shoes. Carmina, Pakwood, and Alden make nice handmade shoes at not very insane prices. Expensive to be sure but 1/3 of the price of the super famous brands. A $150 H&M sit and a $350 pair of shoes beats a $500 suit and a pair of Florsheims any day of the week.

Rocket754, you gave it a great try! Would you be willing to provide the graphics file of your dial if one of us wanted to try to take the project in a new direction?

I certainly have no moral authority to offer advice but I'm 100% certain of 2 things: 1)If you invest enough to possibly significantly improve your family's financial situation , you dramatically increase your chances of getting caught--which will definitely harm your familiy's financial situation. 2)Just by virtue of the fact you started this thread, you won't be able to enjoy any money you do make. If you were greedy you would have just skipped to the broker-dialing step.

Casebacks are odd things. They're either Lets say you have reps modded identically so that they are on the wrist near-perfect. On one you put a gen caseback appropriate for the model. The other has the standard rep caseback with a known rep serial (like the 127 for example which for all the versions that have been done have only have 2 serial #'s, and one of them is on 80% of the reps) or a wrong series letter, etc. That OEM caseback might double or even triple the price of the rep because, though that watch may say 061/3000 it is a 1 of f'n 1 franken. Now lets say you have two reps which even with all possible mods still have a big flaw--a bum dial let's say. IMO, that caseback would be nice to have, but it's not worth a heck of a lot of money because a knowledgable PAM collector is going to call you out before he even gets to the caseback. Really the only reason you want the caseback is just in case the next version of the rep has a good dial. Then the caseback becomes priceless!! I can even think of a couple circumstances where you might pass on a gen caseback. For example if I had a gen l-swiss 02 dial and someone offered to trade a gen 01D caseback for the $80 rep 02B casebacks that are available (some of them w/ rare serial #'s) I'd have to think long and hard it, since I believe that the an l-swiss 2B is worth a little more than a 2d. On the other hand, if a gen caseback makes a watch a rare series or model, it's even more priceless than one that just fixes a serial number!! LOL! Was that convoluted and poorly written enough for everyone?

You got it, Uncle Jay.The only thing I would add that is that frankens either have a gen dial or more than one gen part. For example IMO a rep w/ an oem crown or hands would be a modded rep, but a rep w/ a gen crown, CG, and hands would qualify as a franken. It's a matter of degree.

Wait, Hitchens is one of us now. In his place I nominate William Connolly, CBE

I like British intellectuals- Gordon Ramsay, Posh Spice, Christopher Hitchens, etc.

You're right, and that's why I wish the chinese would stop making $400 reps of $1800 watches--you're at amost 30% of gen before you do any mods. They want to rep watches that are well advertised, I know, but there are many just as easily repped watches that would have a rep/gen ratio just like the old days--5%--even if the reps cost $400.

Beanyboy, thanks for your kind words--ranting is one of the great pleasures of online life. It's also a pleasure to meet a Republican who recognizes that soul-looking isn't all it's cracked up to be. To answer your question, in my business, it'd be hard not to meet Obama and,on the record, I'd say have a pretty good working sense of the "thinking of the Obama campaign." But neither of those dubious honors makes me think I can predict how the Obama administration will govern. Lot's of years and lot's of fights in this town though, make me certain that his administration will look alot more like Clinton's than LBJ's (in more ways than the obvious). Without boring and patronizing you with some message board OT forum version of Early 21st Century Special Interest Politics 101, suffice to say that Obama knows he'll have to pick two or three areas to spend his political juice and operate in the margins on everything else--and the war is going to be expensive. Plus, he's deeply moderate by temperment. I'm sure the 72 Convention thing is a hot topic among the GOP illuminatti, but there's no there (or hoffman) there---except for conservative wishful thinking. The plug will be pulled on Clinton (more slowly, I guess, since she got close enough for mediawhore purposes to 2 digits) but it is being pulled as I type by people that know how to pull plugs, and the lights will be off long before Denver. Obama will tick noone off by cutting deals w/ "the man." No New-Left-vs-Daley-esque intreague. There will be no delegate seating fights. It will be all coronation all the time. Your subconsious though has hit on the main issue of the general: what kind of leash is(can) McCain going to put on the Bob Perrys of 2008, and which faction of dem operatives will get Obama's ear when hit comes time to rumble. My guess is that there are too many skeletons ranting and f****ing and cutting deals in John McCain's closet to make him dangerous. I'm thinking Lapel Pins are the rule, rather than the exception. So, as the circular firing squad that is the GOP readies and aims, I say to you: all the best of luck in '08 and, of course.......Fire!!! @victoria: seems like a reasonably polite discussion to me, especially by online political discussion standards. Maybe it's an American thing but we tend to beat the crap out of eachother when we talk about politics nd then leave the heat of political discussions behind when they're over. Heck, I think Rush Limbaugh was James Carville's best man.

or Super Muff Avenger Divers Chronometer 3.5"/0.0889m

I used to live in Hattiesburg, and I vaguely remember getting a watch fixed there at an old jewelry store downtown, but that was a while ago andHattiesburg is a bit of a drive for you.I'm thinking if you need reps fixed you should call a few of thelarger pawn shops. They have or use watchsmiths, and I'd bet a pawnbroker would be less likely to be apalled by your reps than a jewelry store owner.

Also, is that the gen he has it pictured next to the rep in the other thread? Notice the low A's? If one is gen and the other a fixed-A's rep, wouldn't they both have good A's? I can't believe I'm writing about the A crossbar on some guy's watches I don't really care about. Can someone shoot me now?

Who knows? What I can say is the dial pictured in this thread has been either shopped, has had nothing done to it because it's gen, or it represents the most amazing mod job I've ever seen, bar NONE, with exactly the same "bleed" on the crossbars as on the rest of the letters. I've used the "zoom and sharpen" techique for years to judge the quality of lume jobs lume jobs, DW printing, etc and I've looked closely at many examples of The Zigmeister's masterwork on markers and l-swiss-l's. As good as The Zigmeister's work is (undetectable even at 2x or 3x usually) it's impossible to paint a screen printed dial without the changed parts looking clearly different at high magnifications.

He doesn't. But those A's got fixed somehow if it's a rep, didn't they?

The can't give away used gens, but I'd love a rep so I don't have to worry about used resale!

Nice crown, too, Rocket754!

Yeah, I was thinking full 18k--I figure the rep gen ratio is a little high w/ TT since I see them on TZ for 7.8k sometimes, and the value of the parts I already have is over 2k. At first I was going to buy 1 of the ubi-sourced cases and plate it, then thought that would be cheesy and considered having one of those same cases and casebacks induction cast in 18k using a few inherited kugeraands sitting in my safe for the gold content(I figure if I'm going to store gold I might as well do it in a watch I like) but then learned that while the casting can be done relatively easily, matching the gold color of the bezel would be a btch. I may actually make a try @ the casting thing when I run out of the projects I'm already doing. But I bet I end up fantasizing about the day gold prices drop to a sane level and someone decides to come out w/ an 18k rep case.

No, this is the same second attempt at the dial that came out a couple years ago. The pressed pattern is not correct and the numerals are still way off. And, sadly, rocket's dial project did not materialize. DSN couldn't get the job done.

Looks like they could do the 3-6 version. What's interesting is that UN uses some kind of transfer gears or module, too, judging by the deeply recessed date at 6.

Happy to explain: I asked him how he fixed the a's on his dial, then looked at the pic zoomed and sharpened in photoshop and realized no work at all was done on the dial since that would have been easily discernable at 40X. Assuming the watch was a rep, I could only conclude that the A's crossbar was "fixed" in photoshop which would not be easily discernable if the clone tool was used, which is how I would have done it. So I wrote "never mind telling me I see how you did fixed the A's" not having much interest in fixing the A's in pictures of my reps. I guess I could have posted directly that I thought he photoshopped the A's, but I though that was clear in in my reply to PAMman's post. So...i can still confirm if the watch is a rep, it's been shopped. If it's gen it hasn't. Either way, I guarantee no A's have been fixed on the dial.

Even if he fed the dog and let it go, he's still a [censored]. The worst part about the whole thing is that it was done for such obvious, unimaginative, crappy "art," even by conceptual art standards which usually ranges from the avant garde equivalent of Bob Ross to the avan garde equivalent of whatever they hang in the rooms of the local W hotel.