archibald

Even the WM has instant-tell-for-a-collector flaws--non-oem-quality brushing,DW font and window position. IMO, as long as people believe you would wear a gen PP and as long as you stay out of the AD, you can buy any of the three with no worries.

Would gen dial fix the problem...did they line up the slide rule printin as per a gen? If so, it might be worth the long hours and high expense to look for a gen dial.

You're welcome....It would be great to know what bits you used, what you used as a visual guide when you were working, and how you did the final polishing steps. Thanks in advance for the info.... They look absolutely great!

Angus, that TT is sweet! I'm in...

As it happens, I tried on the Chopard less than three hours ago--I haven't seen the rep, but I'd bet that the rep won't make anyone's top ten list. The gen's fit and finish, especially on the dial, is gorgeous, far beyond even the best reps...in fact the whole ldesign of the watch, which is pretty unremarkable depends on it. Also, it has a huge mag--probably well over 2X--a unique strap they'll never get to look 1:1, and uses the valgranges movement--the bridges nd rotor look different from the 7750.

Panerailord, can you answer the question we've all been wondering about? Are you 16 years old, or are you just the most self-absorbed person on eatch, or both?

In 1994, Dad gave me his '86 TT Datejust when I finished grad school. I'm not a huge fan of the way DJ's look, but it's means more to me than all of the rest, and it's always the watch I wear for very special occasions.

Only a small minority of people really care enough about which creation/afterlife myth another person believes to be offended by a fish, but that minority is usually aggressive and loud (and by the way, are most often people who believe a different creation/afterlife myth, not atheists), so I can understand a forum admin avoiding conflict by barring all forms of religious expression. I may be wrong, but I doubt Jesus cares whether or not you have a fish in your avatar on some message board as much as he cares about the fervency of your belief of John 3:16, so maybe doing a catch-and-release of the avatar isn't such a big deal?

Yup, one of the few watches I "need" is a gray dial sport watch and the Yachtmaster doesn't do it for me. And as long as we're all demanding our own personal reps, I demand the only other breitling I like, in Swiss w/ high quality red gold plating, por favor.

Hands down, the biggest downer, especially if you're a muller fan. Ofrei sells gorgeous blued hands for as little as 8 bucks a set (but none accurate for Mullers), which means the chinese could produce them in large runs for a penny a piece. Nothing in repdom as bad as having a Muller that some Chinese repmaker went through the cost and hassle to make 99.9% perfect except for the hands, which he slathered with blue finger paint to save a dime. As always...the mind of the repmaker is mysterious and sometimes amazing dopey.

I already am..the world champion vintage PAM! It's interesting that Panerai heavily mods the Angelus movement for the modern 8-days--changing the winding gears and probably replaint the non-"angelus-engraved" bridge plates. I like the look of the original better... On edit: in fact--you can see the rep-style bridge overlay plates clearly in the pics below....

The gen of a muller franken I'm working on uses a purpleish color on both the inside and out.

So far, I've never been ripped off. Sure, I've had all of the usuals...the asia-movement-advertised-as-swiss, the-no-watch-no-refund, and the oh-[censored]-this-watch-is-obviously-another-customer's-return, but the situations have always been made right (immediately in the case of Jos and Eddie) or eventually in the case of a couple of other dealers.

Having owned nearly every non-sub Panerai rep, I'd say that since the recent fast and furious run of PAM production began, "objective" accuracy has increased but quality has decreased dramitcally. In fact, even though the crowns are thicker, the dials are better lumed, and the crown guards are a little more accurate, I think the watches generally look much less convincing on the wrist because the fit and finish has gone down hill, the cases seem cheaper, and the workmanship has declined. The flaws on the older versions can be modded away--the parts and finish problems on many of the newer ones are there to stay, so no more PAMs for me until the "put the quality back in."

chieftang, did you discuss other color(s) w/ the MIL spec guy?

Have we firmly extablished that all of our usual suspect watches--PAMs, PO's, Brietlings, etc-- have some sort of AR coat on the topside of the crystals?

I think The Zigmeister about covers it, although I'm comfortable changing dials and I don't have a rate-testing machine. I do it the low tech way--Any watch unlucky enough to have me work on it goes on a winder and if it's still running accurately after a few days, I assume it has survived the trauma I inflicted on it with my tools. But seriously dude, if this is the only dial you ever plan on replacing send it off or take it to a local smith. If not, go buy some tools. At a very minimum--the tools The Zigmeister listed are needed. I bought the TZ kit plus a coupe of other goodies and it will probably last a lifetime for the things I will ever attempt myself.

Couple of days ago I was looking for a present for the old man, who has a Cosby-like sweater fixation and I ran accross a couple of nice ones on bluefly.com. Wasn't sure if those were the ones I was going to buy so I left them in my cart. This morning I logged on to buy them and noticed a big ol' Banner accross their home page..."All Sweaters an Additional 20% Off." Cool, thought I. Imagine my surprise when I went to check out and both sweaters had Sunday's price crossed out and a higher "sale" prices below! Customer service says, "uh...yeah that happens sometimes. Sorry. But that's the price." Check out the screen cap of my cart below...

My guess is that Rolex knows about this and doesn't give a [censored]. Only us Ubergeeks even noticed and Rolex got a close up product placement in a blockbuster movie without having to pay a dime or even provide a watch. They'd never admit they knew, though, since not aggressively asserting your trademark with an infringement that visible is not sound legal strategy. Slay, you're making a moral argument not a legal one. I doubt it has been decided in any court whether or not using a prop rep is illegal, etc. It's not illegal to own a rep, and certainly nobody was selling one in the film, so the question is whether or not it is illegal to film one. Even the likely argument that Miramax was using a fake rolex for commercial purpoes is shaky--they could have used a Timex and it wouldn't have changed a thing commercially.

Wanna hear something funny? About 5 minutes into my initial explanation of what we wanted I realized that he had no clue what a mechanical watch's datewheel looked like. His idea of a watch was flashing LED numbers separated by a colon. I had to send him pics. That's one of the problems with these projects that anyone attemping one should keep in mind. The guys who do the work for us are experts at what they do, but don't know diddly about watches. We know a good bit about watches but we have a 50-50 chance of telling a CO2 Laser engraver from a Thermal Dye Sublimation Printer. 75% of the battle is arriving at a language to communicate clearly. To this day, one of the shops refers to the DW's as "dials" and so do I so I know we're always talking about the same thing.

I believe the date is recessed on all Asia 7750's. But man, that is a sweet watch. Mont Blanc makes a nice dress watch, too. The gen is plated...

I'm w/ Admin...GP and their sister brand DJR put high list prices on their watches and distribute them to their retailers cheap enough for them to sell regularly @ 50-60% of MSRP. The winner got a good deal on a nice watch, but nowhere near the deal of the Century. Didn't someone here recently get an 44mm automatic anthricite-dial PAM on a bracelet for $3000? That's a deal.

Within hours? There were two within three days of eachother. The first sold in about 15 minutes. I PMed the seller of the second one three minutes and 14 seconds after he posted the offer only to be told I was beated by about 20 seconds! There were two (and probably more)versions of the 036: the perfect crown version and the better-but-not-as-good-as-the-other-version version. The crown on the perfect version is dead on 1:1--measured against gen more than once on the old board. Same bevel, same teeth, same thickness.

We all buy reps to decieve others, or else we'd go down to the timex store and pay $30 to try out watches---Timex makes copies of nearly every watch made, from Rolex to FM to Brietling to Roger Dubuis. All of them are close enough to see whether you like the style on your wrist. That way you'll only be out $30 when you decide you don't like it. C'mon....unless anyone wears a little sticky note on their reps that says, "THIS IS FAKE" they're decieving everyone who thinks it's real and doesn't ask about it...

Yeah Saabin is definitely here in the US...I thought you were talking about this guy, who lives in Sweden I think...used to post pics every so ofeten on the old board... http://groups.msn.com/Bjornstoolwatchsite/shoebox.msnw