archibald

Love the new format, etc. But on my laptop I can't see what the hell I'm typing in the black loogin, Topic, and subject text boxes...blue on blue. Can I change the color scheme to fix this? Otherwise my typing will be evem more atrocious than it is when I can see what I'm doing...

In the desktop properties>customize desktop>web menu there is a checkbox to lock the size and shape of the desktop items...just uncheck it. I need a supergeek: I hate the way the white background of the clock looks against my desktop image--can the color of the background be changed?

LOL! My favoroite watch/women analogy of all time, and so true!

I'd be down for the cholcolate version--TTK, I think, had a quartz version, so I believe the parts should be there.

That's exactly right. Mis-aligned markers are not the #1 tell of a rep. Usually, the person wearing the watch is a #1 tell of a rep. I could wear a gen Sky Moon Tourbillon and 99% of the people who know me, or what I do for a living, etc would assume it's a rep--a Sky Moon tourbillon, or any watch much beyond 5 or 6 grand or so, just isn't plausible on me. IF you can pull of owning and wearing a gen sub, 99% of the people who know you won't see past the "Rolex" and will assume it's a gen, misaligned markers or not. If you can't pull off wearing a gen of the reps you own, you might as well head down to the corner and buy a $20 day-date "daytona" because everyone is going to think you're wearing a fake anyway.

Another shot of Tequila, to be precise. Precision. That's what mods are about. And the satisfaction that precision brings, or at least the satisfaction that striving for precision brings. For me, one of the pleasing aspects of my gens are the thought of some grim-faced Teutonic craftsman hunched over them making sure everything is precisely how it should be. When I look at my reps I certainly picture grim faced people hunched hunched over them, their grimness more likely a result of sub-standard working conditions than their determination to make sure everything is precisely how it should be. Modding allows us all to be grim faced Teutonic craftsmen without having to be grimfaced or Teutonic, or, in my case, a craftsman. In other words, it gives us the satisfaction that comes with the knowledge that we or one of our pals has cleverly and skilfully come up with a way to make our shlocked together watches into the products of real detail orientation, or more precisely, of the determination to make things as precise as possible. Nobody is deluding themselves (I hope) that their reps will suddenly become "real" or that a WIS wouldn't notice any remaining flaws in 1.3 seconds. Modding is all about...modding.

Very interesting thread. To be sure, like most noobs, I used I expected a rep to be, well...a replica, an exact copy of the overpriced watches, you know, Panerai, tricks all their customers into shelling out waaay too much money for. Sooner or later we all find out that reps ain't...replicas. They're cheap watches masquerading as overpriced watches. Some of them manage a chameleon act that is truly amazing, but I can count the reps that have indistinguishable-from-gen fit and finish on half of one hand. So, yeah, misaligned thingamajigs and maybe even a nickiepoo or two are to be expected. That being said, it seems a little glib and a lot too easy to write off the OP's dissatisfaction as noobian misaligned expectations. Every rep collector should expect to receive a watch that's at the very least in good working order, and it's certainly not unrealistic to expect a watch that is reasonably similar to the obviously best-of-the-batch piece in the dealers' pics. IMO, most of the OP's complaints represent pieces not reasonably similar to the pics he saw in the dealers' albums. Drop shipping....is definitely not WJWD, but it is a fact of life in the rep biz....but we can t really defend drop shipping, can we...let's face it, drop shipping lends itself to more wrong and defective watches than hand picking does which is not to say that hand picking results in 100% Customer Satisfaction no matter how many reasons there are that hand picking is better.

I wish more watches did this--sure, anyone who knows what a tourbillon is is going to laugh their asses off, but at first glance it's a much better homage than the usual exposed balance wheel. In fact, if they ever took the time to replace the 3 triangles with a ring w/teeth like most center tourbillon's have, IMO, there would be no need for a "real" $1000 tourbillon.

If...and it's a big if...the repmaker can do the dial and the date indicator, the Picot is the obvious choice. Sadly, though, I think the world will have yet another IWC not to buy.

Would you mind explaining why you want these? This is one of the great mysteries of rep collecting I have never figured out...

My God...this thread is funny, but the price thing should be clarified for the noobs: Since there are a number of people who will pay a huge surcharge to recieve a rep first, for various reasons, whichever dealer "gets" those buyers makes a lot of extra money. PT came came up w/ a better schtick this time. That's why the high blood pressure, not anyone getting credit. My reccomnendation is never to buy a rep until Paul does his volume buy and drives prices down...IMO the BB is going to settle at about $249-$289 depending on the dealer.

AP Experts: Is this swiss version the same swiss version George posted @ TRC?

I got "the call" yesterday....the redo (yes, guys, I double checked to make sure I sent them the right file this time) will go into their workflow this week. As I posted previously, we also used the lag time caused by my screw up to make a little change that will make them even easier to install, even though I think ubi's took him all of a minute to pop in his watch. When they arrive @ ubi's house, he'll pull a few random samples, test them, and then we're good to go. Over christmas we also finished the preliminary graphics files for wheels that will improve the fonts on a couple of models of watches that need improving... bad. For now I'll let you guys guess what those are, since we refuse to release anything unless it's absolutely 100% spot on.

It's in the offer thread for his latest 111. I sent him a vector file of the dial text w/ fixed a's and I know another member did as well, so maybe the next version will be A big improvement.

No PM from zig, so I assume he knows my piece he's had since 1968 is awaiting the top secret part, for the betterment of all mankind, to arrive, but would someone please leave a MBW vintage with him for 91 days? Thanks...

This watch lays to rest the intentional flaw debate, IMO. They do real antracite and fix the "A" and they just happen to forget the marker @ 9:00. Yeah right. Also, it's hard to tell whether or not the subdialhas the concentric circles on the rep. As far as the Ti goes, the only thing I can think of is to try putting everything into a 36 case. In the unlikely event everything fits, you'd have a Ti version that would be perfect as long as nobody sees the SS back.

They say in my business, you can't spin the obvious. Miss understood, who understands the way "elections" work, has it exactly right....The fact that the IWC and Tag are slugging it out for first place is prima fascia evidence that they're inoffensive, middle-of-the-road, and "safe." For Jay's sake, I genuinely hope that the same"usualness" of the IWC and Tag that made them the top votegetters is not also causing the community-wide lack of enthusiasm that richard is concerned about...but I also hope a repmaker reads the thread anddoes Picot if they can get the two-level dial and date indicator right. The interest in the big bang project convinces me that a watch that we all don't already have 6 versions of might be the safest moneymaking choice of all.

Why do guys with tiny little wrists need to wear great big watches? Ummm...guess I just answered my own question....

BTW, does anyone know what color the hands are supposed to be on the gold version?

Democracies get what kind of leader they deserve. Watch poll respondants will get the kind of watch they deserve, which in this case is yet another IWC...or a Tag, probably. Like I do with all elections, I exercised my responsibility to vote, and like in all elections the plain vanilla candidate is going to win.

I think the confusion may be between solid gold (or gold and whatever exotic material they use to hook geeks) and the TT version--My local AD has 2 BB's, one of which is mostly gold and has gold hands. God help us all if we run into one of the 13 members of the BB engineering team, but guess what? I bet they're the only people on earth that are 100% sure what colors the BB hands are supposed to be on specific models. And slay...are you aware that you're getting all worked up over the color of hands on a watch?

I would just like to thank the swiss watch industry for ensuring that there will always be reps in my watchcase. As long as they insist on charging $5000 for watches that can be copied and sold for a fraction of their margin in "emerging" economies, there will always be reps, whether they're made in China or anywhere else.

Sounds great. And, pardner, we'll give reviews by a guy who's proud to pay $450 bucks for a $120 watch every bit of the weight they deserve.

I don't think it has anything to do with the "RWG" dealers. The guy who sold your watch has had some mixed reviews to put it mildly, and I think the mods are discussing whether or not to keep a exception-to-the-usual-experience review up..I bet the thinking is somewhere along the lines of "We'd love to keep this guys review up, but we'd hate it if 5 noobs subsequently think this guy is a great seller 100% of the time, and then get ripped off."

About 30 of us from 4 generations cram into somone's house where we rehash arguments from 1975 and complain about percieved slights from 1957. Then we argue about politics until someone calls someone else either a fascist or communist, as the case may be, and then we eat. Isn't that what everyone does?