archibald

I hate items w/ user ratings like that-two people give 5 stars and two give 1--which could mean 2 people who work for the company who makes or sells it, v. two people who work for a different company that sells something similar; two people who know what they're doing and two who don't (but which is which?); or 4 idiots who know notheing either way. But for 60 bucks, wtf...that's what a high end set of screwdrivers costs at some websites...

Pugwash's pic might work--I erased the "cartier" from the pic and sent it to an artist who's been working with me on another project along w/ a pic of the gen dial. I asked him to see if he could turn P.'s pic into an .ai file of the genuine, minus the fonts. No word from him yet. He works for a print shop, so there's no way he'll be able to do the "cartier" for us, but at least he'll be able to tell us whether the numerals in Pugwash's file can be manipulated to match the OEM. BTW, If he can do so, it will cost $68, which I will gladly pay as long as someone else agrees to work on the "C-a-r-t-i-e-r" font.

I did. And

Actually, I'd think: Christ, here comes another guy with a fake WSOP bracelet. C'mon and sit over here, buddy--I guarantee they make reps of them, because every fifth Biloxi Mississippi used to have one.

LOL! I didn't even read the 1st post, went straight to the "post reply" and I missed hypothetical totalitarian futures and GLBT porn. BTW, politics are generally, and probably should be, a no-no in GD, which is a good thing...otherwise we have to hear the wit and wisdom of the 30% of America who don't wish they went to vote for Kerry. Ooooops!! See what you made me do!

Straight Out of the Box: PAM 036 18k Muller Casablanca Omega Seamaster w/ correctly-psoitioned He valve case Muller 2892 Conquistador The latest version of the PAM 048/049 W/ lots of mods: The most accurate rep I've ever owned was the Muller decorated 2892 conquistador w/ OEM dial, crown, and strap, the back from the aisan auto version (better engraving), platinum plated rotor, and relumed hands $780 worth of rep and parts I got sick of and sold for $500, never to find the back and an OEM crown again. There are a bunch of watches that can be brought to near perfection, since money + money = nothing is impossible, but my all time favs: kruzer00's PAM063 w/ relume, cyclops, crown, guard and soon to be date wheel. My oldest son's 007 w/ OEM dial, crown, insert, and hands The older MBW LV's w/ OEM crowns + the full mods package. I can't remember who (thomasng?) posted pics of the new VC overseas case w/ the previous version's dial.

Just as a practical note: I used to run a (political) website where people could donate either as a recurring charge or a discounted one time charge. Obviously, w/ the recurring you have members who stop using bandwidth but forget to cancel their memberships, but every month when I ran the numbers, I usually found that lost revenues and fees from attempted withdrawls from unfunded, expired or cancelled cards made the recurring charge revenue not much more, on balance, than the discounted "one time" revenue, which more people chose anyway. As surprising as it is that self interest doesn't kick in (donate the equivalent of $5 bucks a month to keep alive a site that saves you 10 times that every time you buy a watch), self interest doesn't kick in: people will generally choose to get something free even at the risk that getting it free might mean it comes to an end compltely. My .02 is that we'd loose very few contributing members and dealers with a mandatory membership fee--most serious collectors and dealers would gladly pay for the piece of mind that RWG will be around for a long time. If we loose a bunch of "who has the best..." and out posters, so much the better.

I have an OEM guard on my 051, and I have had many gen PAMs on my wrist. On A-F series PAMS, aside front he fit and finish differences you'd expect to be able to see during a close inspection, the only easy "tell" is the much more aggressive brushing on OEM levers. My review: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showto...d,oem,and,guard Any Panerai owner can immediately spot the differences between H series rep and gen guards, though, and I wish the rep makers would just bite the buller and redesign the guards on the H series reps instead of just brushing the old versions.

LOL! In other words, you can't supply the the movement (which you sell undecorated for $15 less than eddie). How about those hands...you can get us better ones for the Muller, right? No? Didn't think so. Tourby baby, I'm dying to do business with some guy who makes posts dissing other dealers' products, especially products he can't get and who's prices he couldn't beat even if he could get them...and who doesn't follow forum rules listing prices on his own offers. BTW..you didn't edit the price out of your 18k case offer and then come over to talk [censored] in this thread because that empty generic case of yours costs more than eddie's entire watch, w/ an ETA movement and croc strap, did you?

When that one comes out, I'm in...

Who wears their reps "as is?" If you're waiting for a near-perfect rep out oif the box, you've got a loooong wait ahead you. Almost everybody just factors in a decent strap into the price of a rep, and the majority of serious collectors assume they'll have to do some mods as well. A case brush is a piece of cake compared to what people regularly do to their pams just to get them close, so the navitimer is one of the easiest reps to bring up to par--$60 for a brush job, $100 for a decent strap, and I'd probably throw in an OEM dial while I was at it., but that's not a must IMO.

Where'd you guys eat? I wish they'd rep L'Aperge over here like they do all the good french places in Tokyo.

So you'll sell me a 2892-A2 decorated exactly like the one in the muller for $180? Just say the word and I'll paypal for 2 immediately. What's the lag time? Also, can you source the hands identical to the muller casablanca hands you were complaining about, in high quality blued steel? If so, I'll take 10 sets. What? Can't do either? Seems to me that eddie's ability to offer actual goods instead of just talking out of his ass might be worth $165, don't you think? BTW, there's no price listed in your solid 18k case offer....can you tell us in this thread how much those 55g cases cost?

LOL! That'd be hilarious. But I think the bezel has markings so rep or real, it's probably a GMT.

There's got to be something closer than that...

Hmm.....two watches went out to LA!

I don't think they put much tought into--they proably sell plenty of reps to the 98% of rep buyers who don't care abot subdials--so they're putting 7750's in reps of watches that don't use 7750 variants, putting the venus 175 in reps of watches that do use the 7750, etc. I oubt they'll ever rep an ell-primero with all the 7750's laying around...so I doubt we'll ever see an accurate el primero daytona, speedmast, PO chrono etc...

Do you guys only follow basketball during big tournaments, or do you just not get any NBA games on TV? NBA basketball is practically a different sport from International basketball and requires individual players to have a completely different set of skills and teams to play a completely different strategy. Look, as a greek-american I'm proud of the greek team, but statements like "the US has lost its dominance in basketball" are just flat out dumb--one game played by good-but-not-the-best American players who don't even play together on a regular basis, playing by rules most of them have never played by in their lives isn't exactly a bellweather of who's dominant. A better test is this: the euro players that come over don't exactly have a stellar record--most of them are solid if not remarkable players and given the money NBA teams offer, we can assume these guys are the best europe has to offer. If the europeans ever decide to put to gether a dream team, come over to play a decent NBA team with NBA rules-I'll gladly take bets on the outcome. After all, if the USA has lost it's dominance, that should be easy, right?

He contacted me on Monday to tell me about a delay on one of the LV's I ordered and then answered an email rom me yesterday to confirm that the other one had shipped.

Excellent and thorough review as usual, Rob! I'm curious about one thing: When you say there is aproblem version and a non-problem version, does this mean they're slapping the deocrated bridges and swans necks on genuine ETA movements and on some sort of Chinese copy or that both of the versions are copies and one is just better consructed? If some are ETA and some are copies, that's a pretty disturbing development--probably not even our dealers would be able to guarantee which one is used in the watch that gets shipped. If both versions are copies, at least we can hope that the "bad" ones represent an early attempt that has been replaced by a new, better generation represented by the "good" example. Either way, I wish they would at least decorae the damn bridges accurately...

--The first thing you have to do is keep your expectations reasonable--the flaws you describe are minor for a watch that costs 1/20 the price of an original. Plus, reps are improving dramatically--A year ago we would have killed for the lest accurate LV Jos sells today. --Also keep in mind that even if your rep is only decent, 99.99% of the people you meet will think your watch is real--provided people believe you would plauably own a gen. If not, the flaws are irrelevent. I used to own a decent rep of a 48k VC chrono until I realized that even if it were a gen people who know me would assume it was a rep--I couldn't (and wouldn;t if I could) shell out 48k for a watch. --If you really expect to have an outstanding rep you have to expect to spend the time and money on mods (or, if you have ubi's skill, actually build yourself a frankenwatch). I can count the high end reps that can't be made better with mods on one hand. --the best advice I ever got as a new guy was pretty simple: "Dude, relax...it's only a watch."

650 pounds is about right for the base version (1249 USD, incl. EMS) w/ the 2824. Rose gold is +$135 and the custom decorated 2892's are +$315.

LOL! You're making me worried so I just ordered a set of blued steel hands ($5.50 for the hour/min hands, $4.00 for the second hand) but I honestly cannot tell the difference except that the hands on my watch are slightly darker.

I wonder how many watches use that DD big date module--dubey and Schadelberand does, I know--but if you called around to dealers of those watches, maybe they can source the date module separately. If they can finding a low priced movement should be bo problem.

Id usability comes first, do you absolutely need a daytona? There are dozens of chronograph reps that will give you the reliability of the swiss 7750 or Venus 175 Copy without sacrificing accuracy. People suffer through the crappy movements on their daytonas because all of the watches powered by reliable movements can be spotted as fakes in 1/2 of a second. Pardner, I've been there...you fall in love w/ a gen and you absolutely need the rep, so you sacrifice reliability and accuracy. And then someone says..."nice fake" or the movement stops working after 3 days. Do yourself a favor, buy a navitimer or PAM 196 and start saving up for an el-primero based frankentona...you'll be a lot happier in the long run.