archibald

Percentage all the way... My formula would look something like this: My subjective judgement of the reps accuracy + the degree to which I covet the watch - the hassle of having the watch modded = the % of the lowest cost of a used gen I will shell out. For an already modded, ultra-accurate rep that has the same base movement as a gen I absolutely love I can see myself spending 35% of the lowest used gen price. For an accurate but not mindblowing rep that I have to source parts, pay a watchsmith, and wait I'd never go over 15%, which sadly will probably exclude watches like the SFSO from my collection forever. I just bought a rep which, after a final mod to make it not-even-a-wis-could-call-me-out accurate, will end up costing about 30% of a used gen, When you convert that into absolute terms, I got the watch (what does it mater, rep or gen, when nobody can tell the diff w/o opening it?) at 70% off the lowest price it's probably ever sold for. Ain't reps great?

An A 7750 essentially turned into a 7751...I'm kind of a fan of the A7750, but buying that one would take cojones.

There's a guy on ebay who has many breitling dials--don't know if any are correct for the Navi but it would certainly be worth your time to take a look. BTW, Does anyone know where it might be possible to find an 18k bezel? I'm thinking it wouldn't fit the rep case, though, in light of the dial mods needed.

So I can't stop staring at the my new MBK Patek Nautilus Jumbo, which is as amazing as everyone says, except whilst staring I am bugged by the seconds hand that should not be there. I'm sure a watchsmith could work some cannon pin magic to make the watch work w/o a seconds hand, but since I can remove and install hands, uncase a movement, etc, I'm thinking I could do the fix myself if there is an ETA movement w/ the same diameter, thickness, and hands size as the 2836-2 but does not have sweep seconds. Just drop that baby right in, which may even be cheaper and easier than a mod in the long run once you figure sourcing the parts, labor, and maybe even selling the 2836-2 if the movement is swapped. Now that I think about it, I guess an asian movement would work, too, provided the size/hands issue doesn't come into play, since there will be no choppy seconds hand chopping away. If there is such an animal maybe a small group buy for Nautilus-Jumbo-owning anal retentives would be a good idea?

If I ever saw someone w/ a VERTU phone, which I haven't, despite living and working in the most image conscious city in America, my initial thought would be "Poser." Then again that's probably what people think when they see my "Patek." That being said, I'd bet the Chinese could copy the functions on the OEM VERTU (which are undoubtedly also made in China) 1:1. You could always pretend to be talking to the concierge.."No, I said the chef's bar at L'Atelier, not a table....OK...Does that suite have a view of the Park?....OK...Cool...thanks." If you carry VEPTU phone, though I'm afraid you will look like a poser...a poser without a concierge.

Only if you've been going by that pic for two years now--they do look too short in a couple of those pics but I did a pretty detailed side by side w/ a rep & a gen in hand and the only differences I could come up with were font & mag, cyclops size, brushing aggressiveness, AR, the "A's" and CG fit and finish. I don't know when they improved the font and the mag, but both are definitely better than the 51 I bought when they first came out.

I've always thought of IWCs as "gray w/ gray highlights" watches in general, but the standard steel aquatimer chrono is literally gray w/ gray highlights so I'd definitely go with the blue and orange.

Personally, I'd much rather see them do the "standard" tonneau shaped Muller King Conquistador Chrono, rather than the Cortez (square) version for a number of reasons. 1) OEM dials are easy to find for the tonneau version, which will instantly solve any flaws that remain on the prooduction version's dial (which has no cyclops on the men's version BTW) 2)The cortez models are much rarer in steel--Muller makes most of them w/ precious metals. 3)They are more instantly recognizable as mullers thanks to the curvex case--which is probably why the tonneau "standard" conquistador rep outsold the cortez version by a wide margin. 4)It just looks better, IMO. Personally, I buy one cortez version and three tonneau versions--one steel to make a special edition I have the dial for and one each of steel and rose gold also to match oem dials and straps I own. Check out the pics, especially the side view pic below to see what a friggin' massive watch this is... To answer the questions: The general rule of thumb on Muller hands is this: The subdial hands are always blue and for the other 3 hands: white dial=blue hands silver dial=blue hands gray, black and jewel tone dial=color of case The dial has a sunburst pattern w/ concentric circles on the subdials. The numbers are C1 lume or non luminous depending on the dial color. PLEAE GET THE COLOR BLUE RIGHT on the BLUE HANDS. If not, I'd bet my house the white dial versions won't sell nearly as rapidly at the price these will be offered at. Straps: Rubber is the "standard" strap. Croc is also readily available. When you buy the gen, please note the unusal padding on the strap. Of course they also come w/ bracelets. Naturally, the chrono version would be more desirable, since the rep will probably cost the same even though the gen chrono costs several thousand more. Since you will have to use the tricompax A7750, it's essential you get the date font right, 'cause the only fix would then be swapping the DW for one specially made. Please PM me if you need to know the correct font. Anyway, I'd be happy to answer/ research any other questions. Thanks for repping another muller!!!!!

Looks AMAZING! They were pretty strategic with their pics of the bracelet, but it may be correctly tapered and the crown looks better than the previous version. The mag and font are definitely better. If this has AR and individual #'s, it will be the best out of the box PAM rep of all time--with my OEM guard it will be "AD perfect." The only flaws I can see are the "A's" and (I think, because I just swapped cyclopses on mine) the same 5.5mm cyclops (gen has 6mm), neither of which will be noticed except side by side. Nice catch....

Wow...totally surprised by the responses. Personally, there's no way I'm going to AR my 63 when I get the mods done. It's one of the only 2 or 3 PAM reps we're able to truly get to 99% perfect, and adding AR would mean adding an instant tell. Not gonna do it after spending more than a grand to get even smaller details right. Phoband's point is well taken, but IMO the point of reps is to replicate and unfortunately the 063 didn't have AR. I like AR crystals much better than non AR but, hey, accuracy is accuracy.... BTW, I'll be able to report soon what happens to the watchmen cyclops w/ AR--as I type, I have two watchmen cyclopsed crystals in chieftang's single sided run.

Another archibald Profile in Stupidity: I confused this w/ the Chrono Avenger and ran over to ebay and bought two bezels--one for me and one for our pal Kruzer00's B-day. So I open the package, and say to myself man that F***er's big...I put it up against the PAM on my wrist and it's like friggin Hula Hoop. I'm going to give Kruzer his bezel anyway, so he can use it as a weapon on the mean streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Thank god all my friends and colleagues can't even say messershmidttt, let alone spell it.

Like the general population, watchsmiths can be roughly divided into two groups---those who are cool and those who are di*ks. Cool watchsmiths couldn't give a [censored] about repness or genuinity, they just dig watches, and sometimes tend to marvel at the ingenuity of our Chinese pals. Di*k watchsmiths get all snippy when you present them w/ a rep. Since I find it pretty easy to play dumb, what's always worked for me is a don't ask don't tell policy--I just bring it in and say, "can you work on this?" The cool guys say, "Sure." If the guy's a di*k, you will observe the beginnings of the that-watch-is-fake sneer form around the lower east side of his grim Tutonic mouth. I reccomend you say, "I guess you're not cool enough to work on fakes" before he says, "I do not work on fake watches" but then again I've had four Makers Mark and gingers and you may not have. I use two local watchsmiths--one of them secretly loves reps, I believe. The other guy, sort of a partial di*ck, has never acknowledged any of my watch's fraudulence and unhappily works on them because he knows I will overpay him to do work on crystals which nobody else I know about in the US (yeah, except you know who and the booked 'til forever Flav) will do it.

It wouldn't be the first time I was 100% wrong, but I'd bet the el primero would be much harder to rep than the FP 1885, but sadly it probably doesn't matter since both will remain a dream.

The first mechanical astronomical "complication" is at least 2000 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism Also a great New Yorker piece on it a few weeks ago.

I understand you're [censored] and I would be too, but you've got a practical problem to solve--2 non-funtioning watches and your having expended your only real leverage--posting publicly. I would still politely ask Andrew for another watch, which you should have serviced immediately. Jos probably will not replace this late in the game, so this might work for that watch: 1) set the time on the watches when the running second is @ 12:00. 2) let them run for a few hours 3) if the second hand is where it ought to be and the time is very slow, you've likely got a typical A7750 problem, a cannon pin malfunction. My watchsmith will service a A7750 and fix the cannon pin along the way for about $100. The Zigmeister also does A7750's by the boatload (he is a little more expensive for the service but does a service like you would have done sending your watch in for a factory restoration--my local smith uses a slightly more thorough version of "The Technician" approach which is not as good). You can probably have the cannon pin fixed w/o service for $50 or so. I know spending another $100 is not acceptable, but it's less unacceptable than throwing a watch away.

Absolutely....

If you guys want a DW from that movement, I have one. ON EDIT: i had 2 watches w/ the same movement: a 090 and a 222, both powered by a 2530. I know this because my watchsmith used the drawings I gave him. I believe I posted about this movement w/ a link to the Seagull site when the 222 came out. My watchsmith said it was the best Chinese movement he's seen to date. He also charged me twice as much for the DW removal as usual because it is more difficult to get to than "standard" movements. I don't know if the latest models are a different movement since I purchased both of my watches nearly a year ago.

Be advised: the 111H has a brushed bezel and guard..[on edit: thanks for the correction sssurfer--got turned around] BTW, unless someone has solved the dial and pin problems, those watches are instant-tell gens.

I'm sure there ar far more than 4 of us.... I trust jay to make it right, as well--but sending a silver dial three weeks from now so I can spend another 40 bucks just ain't gonna cut it. I'd do that for a mistake, but not for borderline misrepresentation. To answer your questions. Yes, I think it's safe to assume he's "temporarily out of stock on the Silver dial" and yes, the hands are the same.

If you've got 75 grand to spend on a watch, it's everything resistant.

They sell these for $35 on every street corner in DC. But hey, if you play your cards right w/ GF and Gramma, you'll be sporting a Platinum Muller 1200 Long Island soon....

LOL! that would make the coolest $50 rep of all time!

It's from their haute jewelry line, each watch custom made to the customers specs, bling-wise. That's a 50-100 grand watch, depending on the weight and quality of the diamonds. The ebay watch is listed at $35k MSRP, but this one looks like it has a good number more diamonds.

Sorry, but I may be off the Jay reservation. I ordedered a silver dial Overseas and an extra black dial. I recieved a black dial Overseas and an extra black dial. I would chalk this up to an oversight if I didn't know for a fact that two other members also recieved the same combination, which leads me to believe that Jay was out of Silver dial models and instead of informing his customers (and risking having to do a refund) he simply shipped black dial watches. I also ordered a Muller and was shipped a completely different model, I assume because the watch I ordered was also out of stock.