archibald

To my eye, David's guards are not quite there yet--but much closer than the ones the makers are putting on the H series reps. If Davidsen will sell the guards, the cheapest way to do this would be to buy Jos's rep and then slap a davidsen guard and new plap crown on it then send it to The Zigmeister for a relume, pin fix, and paint removal. Won't fool a single paneristi because of the caseback error and the "A''s but it's close enough.

@ finepics: Will this company do PVD gold or platinum?

Hands down, the closest rep out of the box is the 2892 FM conquistador--the only "flaws" are the nearly dead on crown, and the slightly rough engraving on the back. Even the movement inside is almost exact.

I was telling my wife about the SA piece I referred to earlier and she said, "See you shouldn't care about watches so much. They just keep track of something that doesn't exist." I said, "Nice try, Baby, but that made me love watches even more. How wonderfully, typically human is it that people make and wear amazingly complex an beautiful machines to keep track of an illusion, a phantom artifact of some mutation of a monkey's genes. Anyway, the next time it's 2:30 and I'm still out drunk, just remember I may be drunk and out but it ain't 2:30." BTW, SA had a picture of an atomic watch movement built at MIT that is accurate to 1/1,000,000 of a second per century or something like that, and would easily fit in the smallest ladies watch.

Absolutely...not to mention the impossibility of getting parts. But this must be wighed against the addiction which if I saw, say, an accurate Muller Long island tourbillon would be screaming, "Must have this. Now." At 2k I'd probably say nope. But at just under a grand there's no way I could resist. What I like about the new tourbillon is that it's apparently a center tourbillon which is far more common in high end gens than the flying tourbillon (a gear that runs along the inner edge of the cage) that we've seen in a few reps.

There's an interesting special edition of scientific american out that is all about time--pretty cool stuff. According to the SA writer, nobody knows what the hell time is, or even if it exists apart from our consciousnesses. Speaking of measuring time, NASA has built a clock so accurate that it can't be set--no other timepiece on earth is accurate enough to use to set it!

That's a far cry from the ebay watch--the ebay watch may be a normal escapement disquised as a tourbillon (which is what I think) but doesn't look anything like the exposed-escapement "tourbillons" in reps like the ones you posted. But Lollipo's certainly prove there is a central tourbillon being manufactured in chine, and that's pretty exciting. If those prices come down to the level of the flying tourbillon (5-6 franklins) it opens up a whole new world to rep makers--imagine all the gorgeous "tourbillon reps you passed on because the tourbillon was phony?

http://cgi.ebay.com/BrandyCurtis-SS-REAL-C...bayphotohosting This would be cool in more than a few reps, if it's for real. And if it works....

700 bucks per troy oz--only telve of those to the pound, not 16, and the watches are only 75% gold. So if the muller case and back weigh, say, 80 grams (and that's a lot for a 40mm watch) it has about $1400 worth of gold in it. The markups are arbitrary for other reasons as well. Check this out: the SS king cinquistador chrono is 4 grand or so more than the "regular" conquistador chrono even though the smaller one is powered by an FP 1185 which is worth several times what the 7750 inside the King is worth. Muller is charging King Conquistador buyers 4 grand for, what, an oz of extra stainless? BTW, in response to my thread begging for a Casablanca chrono rep, someone in the know pm'd me saying an asia 7750 King Conquistador chrono is in the works...so nobody go out and buy a gen, hear?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wrist-Watch-Repeater-M...1QQcmdZViewItem

Another day-date chronocrap? For $349? Karayzeee....

I'm surprised that nobody has posted anything on the PAM 119 and 120 from Jos and/or the rose gold 231 or swiss 212 from EL. I'll start-- 212 The new movement on EL's 212 looks great, but I see no other differences from previous versions--hour markers still too long, engraving on guard too big, etc. 231 Awsome fit and finish, Rose gold color looks a little coppery for a PAM 120/119 My heart skipped when I saw Jos's post about his 120--I've been hankering for a blue dial PAM for ages, and both the missus and I love the 40mm autos. The good: The date mag and font look good and the price is unbelievable. Brushed finish as it should have. The bad: mineral glass; black date wheel on the rep is a matching blue color on the gen; "main" dial should have subtle vertical lines and the subdial should have a circular pattern (this could be the lighting in Jos's pics), the hands look slightly long to me (could also be the pics). Anybody buy any of these yet?

After having my last two asia 7750 movements serviced--showng the watchsmith The Zigmeister's post on what the exact problem is (that's the key) and having them work perfectly for many months--i've rethought the value of the ETA 7750. That being said, if eddie's new version has other improvements, $650 is not bad at all for a swiss chrono combined with the piece of mind of buying a watch from eddie.

Exactly my thoughts, Watcher71. Just a clear gut feeling. Doesn't the name Vince Barone, sound like a name you would come up with if you said, "Uh...I think I'll use an Italian-American name this time"?

I'm embarrassed to say my wife buys most of my clothes, but one of my business partners swears by ebay for high end suits--brioni, zegna, etc. I suppose it's a lot like buing watches and reps--first choose your dealer then your...er...suit.

I've never seen why people get so obsessed w/ skull and bones...i mean, do you care what fraternity your co-workers joined? And how selective can Skull and bones really be if the let both Poppy and Dumbya in?

Marking up gold 600% is one of the most aggregious tricks of genuine makers--especially considering that making a gold watch costs less in labor and technology than makng one in SS, according to Chronos Magazine.

Can anyone spot any improvements on EL's newesr version aside from the decorated 7750? I couldn't but then again I'm no expert on the 212...

But the OEM has an undecorated 2892, a CNC'd SS case, a hand-enameled dial and a nice strap! Then again, so did my modded rep which cost me about $600....oops.

C'mon ken....looks like he already got his answer and if not I'm sure sssurfer will help...or tell him to use the search button if his question was "who has the best daytona"

Now that I've found a reliable source for custom hands, I'm going to move forward with my muller chrono project. A while ago, I bought a complete 2894 for the project, but since I have two OEM dials, I'd like to make another watch to sell to (partially) fund the one I'll keep. Thanks to a great tip from kruzer00, I found an ebay store selling a Dubois Dépraz chrono module--just the module, no movement--for a decent price. Can anyone tell me if it would be worth a try to put it on one of the asian 2892 copies? That would save, like, 300 bucks over a complete 2894-2. If too much can go wrong w/ trying to slap it on the asian copy, I assume it would be a no brainer for a watchsmith to put it on a gen 2892? Or should I just save myself some headaches, suck it up, and buy another complete movement?

It drives me nuts--here's how it works: European winemakers (it seems primarily in italy and spain. The French are too damn stubborn fortunately) see all this money being made in california on wines that are extremely cleanly made, soft ("Fruit driven" they would say) and therefore not offensive to anyone. So they send their kids to the University of California at Davis to learn how to make these wines, then they replace great-granpa's [censored] with high tech gadgets. They call the results "New World" style wines and import them to the US. Because these people are not idiots, they have come up with a way to make even more money: They set the best grapes aside to make the wines' they've always made, just in smaller quantites--and much higher prices. They make a killing selling the "New World" stuff at american supermarkets, but they also know people who actually like wine will pay top-dollar for the "old fashioned" stuff. The wine guys I know are constantly bitching about this: they see their job as providing guests with a wide range of wines to perfectly match whatever is coming out of the kitchen--the differences in wines by origin is, 'natch, the most reliable way to do this. When those differences narrow and wine tends to taste more similar, customers start noticing and go for the cheapest bottles. And why shouldn't they? The stuff they buy at the Pick N' Save all tastes about the same. And who's going to pay $250 in a restaurant for the good stuff, which cost 75 bucks five years ago? I don't mean to say this is a crisis--there are still more unique and interesting and beautiful wines than anyone can drink in a lifetime--but it does suck to open a bottle of a wine you've come to love for the taste of the dirt and water where it was grown and the signature of the guy who makes it only to find it now tastes like a lot like a Robert Mondavi Merlot from a good year.

That price is actually pretty good compared to the quotes I got on sapphire lenses from US companies. I think I know what company Johnathan and Mark are using (the outsourcing bit gave it away) and they seemed up and up to me when I was working on the sapphire cyclops project. He may be able to get a price that's 10% lower, but I doubt it since that company outsources it's projects to China keeping prices low, but in any case the lead time won't change.

Great Post...very helpful. Looks like jimmy guards, and maybe cases, are a must for pre-H projects. I agree about the dials, too: If you're going to just make an aftermarket dial, why bother to put the intentionally flawed printing on it? You're already violating all kinds of laws with the word PANERAI, so you might as well just do the printing right so you can sell as many pieces as possible in a short time...

Incredible work! The bottom line: Do the crown guards, pick up an OEM bezel, pearl, crown and maybe a top quality aftermarket bracelet and you're good to go.