archibald

Carl, looking over my wifes shoulder, I see they're very politely discussing cupcakes over @ marthastewart.com. BTW, I'm trying as hard as I can to figure out what's "culturally offensive" in th OP. I'm thinking it's the word "retard." But wouldn't most of your fellow PC policemen..er..sorry...law enforcement officers call that a "pejorative label?"

Oh, C'mon. That's different and you know it. In fact it's the opposite. You're being very generous, not greedy and frankly a little smarmy like the sellars georgio's talking about. I think gentle thread crapping is appropriate, eg. asking the seller to elaborate how they arrived @ the price.

What time is it @ 3900m? Time to get your a$$ up to the surface.

I saw the initial post, but none of the resulting contoversy, if any. Clearly somone either thought or assumed the watch was a rep or is taking the "panerai discussion only" rule to an extreme. Or maybe they're [censored] that an 09 is only worth 6 Omegas?

Bottom line: If you stay out of AD's and don't buy reps you couldn't or wouldn't plausibly own, you'll never get called out. If I ever do get called out my question will be "why do you think it's fake?" And believe me, they better know their [censored].

I think jealousy is an ugly, selfish emotion which I strive to avoid. So no, I am not jealous of anyone. But I would like to say a word about OEM parts. I deserve them more than you and I deserve all of them. In fact, you guys shouldn't even have one. I should have them all, 'cause, you know, I deserve them.

To perchance own an infamous watch, I bid $150; to own a watch that has lain upon the famous countertop, I raise my own bid to $170.

ah....i remember the days when I expected $500 watches to function like $3500 gens. Those days were oh so fleeting... Believe me, there are lots of defects worth avoiding dealers, waiting three weeks for a replacement, and/or risking the bigger nightmare of losing a returned watch to customs, but a three minute job for the guy at the mall kiosk isn't one of them.

Personally, I can't honestly say I've seen a seiko w/ better fit and finish than the top 6 or 7 reps I own, but there may be many seiko's I don't know about that do surpass them. The jimmy comments are dead on accurate: I sunk 1165 into a PAM 03 w/ OEM crown, custon tube, and jimmy everything else. Granted, this is a rare bird but it keeps time as gen, is as durable and gen, excedes gen water resitance ratings, and is indistinguishable from the gen w/ serial # 1167, which for all we know is the one for sale for 7 grand on Paneristi as I type. My takeaway is that not only is it far more satisfying to spend a bunch of time, effort and money on a top notch rep than driving to the mall to pick up a Jazzmaster, but also that it's possible to end up w/ a better watch, too.

Depends on the individual watch: Today some guy is going to walk into a jewelry store and plunk down $2800 for a PO and think he got a good deal. Any UPO owner knows he didn't. But the other day some guy picked up a used JLC master hometime for $2800 on TZ: Manufacture movement, near-Patek fit and finish, a rock bottom resale value of say $2000. What rep can you get for $800 that even comes close, quality-wise? If by low cost gen's you mean Seiko's, Hamiltons's, etc. a good rep of a high end watch is always a better deal in every respect from fit and finish to resale value to brand cachet and on down the list. Unless a warranty is the deciding factor of your watch purchases, they just don't compare to the best reps.

That rep has quite a rack--those pushers look about 25% bigger than the gen. Ditto w/ the crown, which is probably from a larger rep.

Very nice lume job on the 63 dial;perfect font and mag, AMAZING rep! Congrats!!

It's swiss "registered" e.g: The Seagull engineer regisered at the Basel Hilton before snapping pictures of all the tourbillon watches. That is a very, very nice watch. If they ever produced enough cheaply enough to be used ina run of top quality reps, the world will never be the same

Not yet, and it's probably a long shot. I'd like to have one, too, and they certainly wouldn't be any more difficult to do than any Muller. Best chance would be one of the $100 asian powered, not too accurate version they sometimes do of less widely known brands.

I still think I'm going to pick up both versions of the 229, combine the best parts and sell the remaining parts at a steep discount to a sane person who would correctly assume that even a rep consisting of "castoff" parts would be assumed to be gen by 99.9% of those who see it. Even if the resulting keeper is 8 or 9 Franklins worth of Ti, with an oem crown, AR, some lume, a little cyclops magic and a DW we're talking about a watch you'd have to compare side by side w/ a gen to call out--at less than 1/8 the cost of a gen provided you could ever find one. The only nightmare scenario would be explaining to some Paneristi that the watch he's slobbering over is...uh...even rarer than the watch he thinks it is. Actually that should be a standard line for a highly modified rep or franken: Paneristi: Is that a real 229? You: Ha! 1 of 250? Hell no! This baby's 1 of 1.

I like the vintages but every time I consider building one, I always end up concluding that everyone who doesn't know what it is will think I'm doing some lame ironic "super-ugly @20 flea market find thing"and everyone who knows what it is won't believe I own it.

Try Tritec, SA.

The other collectors' casebacks blow away DSN's (eg, the rough 229 engraving and the wobbly 2 in the 104 SN) but his dials are better, I guess, in that the l-swiss-l is lower. Needs a relume, of course, to get rid of the green. Mag looks about the same. If you combine the 2 versions--not worth it on a 104 since you'd be all in to the tune of 30% of gen by the time you relume, AR, fix the mag, add an OEM crown, etc. but you could have a pretty good looking 229 if you could plausibly wear it anywhere.

They sell these @ the big seiko store in one of the tourist malls out here in DC--the fit and finish is very, very good, but $2500 I was quoted for a gold plated, quartz powered watch, however complicated, didn't seem like that much of a bargain all things considered.

UncleJay, I organized the group buy on this and if you like, I would be happy to contact the three or four buyers who don't come around here that often anymore to see if any would be willing to part w/ their watch. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like me send out some feelers.

Great review, as always. NowI don't know which one to get. I like the black dial better, design wise, but I know the lack of pearlage on 5% of the visible area of the movement is going to bug the s*** out of my subliminable brain. I just may have to get the silver, if only because of the "factory collectors" using the serial numbers to protect their "trademarks"

I love it when my bros start "guess what I have" threads, because it must mean they're happy to share their source! Thanks in advance guys!

Exactrly what I thought when I tried them on two minutes apart at the AD. I was sort of hoping they'd rep the FF so I could buy the rep rep of the 10k watch and maybe a gen bronze dial of the $2500 wwatch but that would make far too much sense for our repmaking pals. On edit: looks OK, but there's definitely going to be better versions of this. This one has the usual low-end/first gen flaws--a horrible crown, bad dial print, rough caseback engravings, etc. But if they do a spot-on version for $300 bucks or so, it's a must buy.

This point has been moot for some time. ETA has already stopped making their movements and ebauches available to repmakers via export restrictions and pricing, so whatever is going on now is how it's impacted the rep biz--insane prices for "swiss" powered reps and the birth of the high end chinese movement making industry.