TeeJay

Welcome to the party

Whatever you say, brother So you have an issue with people wearing replicas too? So you don't wear replicas anymore? Rep factories might well have stolen the designs, I don't deny that, but, they still had to come up with the tooling processes to recreate those parts from scratch, and again, their prices are not extortionate. Rolex has no prestige as a company any more, and it has no prestige in its production processes, which are largely automated. Don't tell me that you really believe that each watch is hand crafted from begining to end... And yet Rolex keep releasing new variants on that design and charging more money for them. As before, that is greed on Rolex's part, and something I am not willing to enable or support. £2000 + for an automatic SS watch is not justified at all. If Alpha watch can release a cloned version at the selling point they do, so could Rolex. As before, if they were to be honest and release a China Made line at a reasonable price, I doubt they would lose overall revinue at all as they would see an increase in sales from buyers who would historically have brought reps instead of saving for the gens. Did you read a thread a few weeks back where a member re-posted a comment from where a guy was pretty much interrogated by his crew as to how much his watchhad cost and where he'd bought it? If I was to buy a gen, I know that people would think I was a fool for spending so much money on a watch... Cheating who? A greedy corporation who outsourced labour so as to increase their profit margin, and who continually re-release a +50 year old classic... They created the demand, they cannot complain that someone else is undercutting them on supply It's not a generalisation, it is an observation from my experiences of Audi drivers in the UK. I do a fair bit of travelling with my father in law, and the worst drivers on the roads, the assholes who think they can just drive how they like with no regard to other drivers, the rules of the road or even basic safety, are always Audi drivers... Dave brought the Fiero into the discussion, not me... Personally, I don't care what someone drives. If it gets them from a to b, then good for them. As I said before, car customization is a hobby with a massive following, so if someone wants to do a car conversion as a project, good for them It doesn't matter if someone could buy an Audi for the same price as the Fiero project, as if they want to be driving a Ferrari (or Ferrari-based project) they wouldn't want to be driving an Audi anyway... To touch back on the art analogy, do you think that someone with a print of the Mona Lisa on their wall is a loser and lying to themselves, and that they should hire some cat burglar to steal the original from the Louvre? (The irony being that even if someone was to hire someone to break in and steal it, everyone knows that only reproductions are displayed to the public there anyway ) Same question to you as I posed to Dave: If you feel that reps are for losers, why are you still here?

And what 'truth' would that be? Was my above answer not clear enough? What part of what I said about product appearance but refusal to pay the price tag didn't you understand? If I wanted to be wearing a Casio, I would be wearing a Casio. At the moment, I happen to want to wear a Rolex, but am not prepared to pay their inflated price tags, hence why I buy replicas. I don't try to pass them off as gen, so who am I lying to? I know they're replicas, I bought the things, so I can hardly be lying to myself... Can you buy a Ferrari for the same price? Saving money/frugality/cheapness/whatever you want to call it, it's all the same thing... Besides, only cunts drive Audis... The Submariner was released in 1954. In the time since, other than tweaking the design, Rolex has continued to make the same watch, I think it's safe to say that they've long recouped any design costs long ago... As pointed out in American Gangster, "anything else is just greed..." Reps are built from scratch, yet their prices aren't ludicrous... If they were all built from 1:1 original plans, then there wouldn't be all these different versions of the same watch released.

Not the phrase I would have used

Another option I took, was to buy a plastic Submariner clone (Softech) and then swapped the dial for a no-date Submariner dial (which I had previously experimented on with in and varnish) and the result is actually the favorite piece in my collection I don't wear it often, mostly only if I'm tattooing, or if I really want to 'dress down', but it always makes me smile, as it reminds me not to take life to seriously

I think a few years ago, They changed the rules to increase the 'percentage of assembly in Switzerland' required, compared to the previous rate which I believe was 50%, but all the time the parts are being produced in China to cut costs, it wouldn't matter if 100% Swiss assembly was required, in my mind, it would still be a ripoff due to the origin of the parts. At least reps are 'from the source' I was watching American Gangster the other day, and the Blue Magic, and the "Twice as good but half the price" kind of rung true to reps, but of course, they can't truly be considered 'twice as good', but it got me to thinking, if Rolex were to release a China Made line in addition to or even instead of their Swiss Made schtick, I bet they would get so many additional sales (from cheapskates/poor bastards like me) that they would probably not lose much, if any of their precious profits from their over-inflated bling range

Why not dress it up as a Ferrari? Car modification is quite a popular hobby. They even have shows on TV about it You haven't explained to me why the guy in a Fiero dressed up as a Ferrari is an idiot... Why wear a diamond-encrusted monstrosity of a watch? It's the exact same point: Different strokes for different folks, and personal freedom of expression... I thought I'd answered that one pretty clearly above, but to clarify, I like how the product(s) looks, I don't like the overly inflated price tag. I refused to pay it when I could have afforded to and would refuse to pay it if I could afford to again on principle. As mentioned above (and many times over the years) I buy many generic things, from food to clothing rather than paying 'brand prices'. Nothing more than a frugal attitude. If I can buy a near copy of a $5000 watch for less than $50, why would I want to spend the extra $4950? Just so I can say "It's real..." if someone asks? I'd rather someone know I buy fake goods, than know I waste money on genuine ripoffs. As I pointed out above, people the world over collect and display reproductions/prints/screen savers of famous paintings, yet no one thinks that they are losers or lying to themselves I think the real question, given how you clearly think fake anything is for losers, is why are you still here? You claim that people who 'go gen' soon disappear. Why haven't you done the same?

Excellent tips indeed

I would if I could, but no cash for train fairs at the moment

You're the one who brought cars into this equasion for comparitive purposes... To stick to cars for a second, I would rather own a kit-built version of the Infernus from Grand Theft Auto IV than the equivelent Lamborghini. Why? For no other reason than it appeals to me more...

Won't ever happen, my friend. Even if I was to win the lotto, I wouldn't buy the gens on principle. Main principle being that they wouldn't be my watches, they would literally be copies/substitutes for my watches. Like when I sold my rep SeaMasters to help pay for my wedding... They were bought with inheritance money which can't be replaced. If I was to buy another SMP or PO (even as gens) they would still just be replacements for those 'inheritance watches'. I buy generic supermarket cola and bread rather than branded equivalents, because it's financially the better option, and at the end of the day, the bread's still bread, the cola is still cola... The fiero is still a car, and a rep is still a watch... I can't see that outlook towards the products and companies changing simply because I become able to afford the price of admission.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I wouldn't want the gen of any of the reps I own. Even if I could afford them (which at the moment I can't) I simply couldn't justify spending that kind of money on such an over-inflated product. As I've said before, several years ago I did have the cash to buy a gen Sub, so I went to the AD, tried it on, and was so underwhelmed, I walked out and immediately started researching fake Rolexes for a more reasonable option. In my opinion, and I admit that this is my opinion only, as nice as the Sub was, I did not think it was worth the £2000 price tag. Rep prices, on the other hand, are reasonable for the product, so that allows me to have the watches I like at a price point I am comfortable with, both financially and emotionally. As has been pointed out several times over the years, wealthy people (and by that I mean Old Money, not nouveau riche football yobs or rockstars) are frugal and do not spend their cash pointlessly. They get value for money and bang for the buck. So why is a person of lesser wealth who uses the same shopping principle considered an idiot and a wannabe? Sure, if a guy goes flashing his fake watch around and telling people it's the real thing, or tries to sell it on eBay as the real thing, then yes, that guy is an asshole and deserves to be treated as such, but that doesn't mean that all rep owners are that guy, just as not all gen owners are elitist snobs who only worship brandnames and prestige, while having the emotional content of an open sewer...

No, that is BS, what I pointed out is basic psychology... I'm not saying that all gen owners are snobby elitist assholes, what I'm pointing out, is that those who have such a hatred for reps, are doing so because they feel threatened by it and the threat it represents to the value which they attribute to something. You say the guy driving the fiero is an idiot. Explain to me why he is an idiot. Does the fiero not get him from a to b? Is it not a valid form of transportation? To suggest that only genuine goods are acceptable, and that people who seek replica goods are idiots and losers, is the same as saying that the only way of appreciating art is to own the original painting, and that anything else, screen savers, posters, prints etc, are for losers. Or are they okay because they're licenced reproductions? I doubt daVinci gave anyone permission to re-print the Vetruvian Man or the Mona Lisa, but hey, plenty of people have copies of them world wide. But I guess they're just idiots too...

I quite agree, no one needs a Rolex (or anything else for that matter) to gain self worth, but the elitist snobs on gen forums, clearly do take their self worth from their ownership of them. I haven't overcomplicated anything, just stated some simple psychology As before, the only people who dislike replica anything so passionately, are those who are threatened by said item because they believe it reduces their own acquisition. The only reason for them to feel threatened by said reduction, is because they take their esteem from it and define themselves by the character which [they think] it gives them...

Party bitches? I bet these bitches know how to party Dibs on the brunette PS These are 'replica' Tron girls, but I bet no one would complain that they're not Olivia Wilde or Beau Garrett

Yup...

Totally disagree... Taking self-worth from something (as you say, could be clothes, car, watch, anything, be it replica or genuine) that is a sign of insecurity, IMHO, as it is coming from an external, rather than internal source. I think the shallow elitism of gen wearers comes to the front so clearly on some forums and discussions, that it is clear that they base their entire image and self-worth on their ownership of an item, and people wearing reps, shows that pretty much anyone can 'get the look' without having to spend X amount of Dollars, and that totally undermines the entire basis for their perceptions of theselves. It is, in their eyes, an attack on their very identity as it holds up the mirror to them and they see their own vanity and false-worth. Of course, the same could be said for a rep owner who was to base their own self-worth on a fake watch, as that would show someone building a sky scraper on quicksand foundations. Equally, someone could take a measure of pride in wearing a rep and considering it a sign of a financially realistic attitude and lifestyle Those who wear the 'No Rolex No Sex' shirts, I bet they can't tell the difference between a rep and the gen Banging this one would probably lead to jail time

Nice :tu:

TGIF!!! :tu: No change here, but my eye has adapted to the matte varnish to not view it as a modified feature, but simply 'how the watch is'. My goal was to replicate a 16800-esque 'varnish breakdown', which I think I have been successful in achieving (although the camera doesn't pic it up in the same way as the naked eye ) The lighting of the pic doesn't help, but the contrast between the matte dail and gloss bezel insert works really nicely, IMHO

Damn, that's a fine collection

This one's going nowhere, brother, crazy as it might sound, it has too much sentintal value For the cost of parts, I'll happily put another together for you It's just a plastic Submariner clone, with the dial from a rep Sub transplanted in... Here it is: There's no magic, just a personal joke against taking things too seriously and getting too caught up in the really anal details

Bang on then I have no issue with quartz, my favorite watch in my collection, my plastic Submariner, has a quartz movement, as does my Tudor Heritage Chrono. If I ever pick up a Paul Newman Daytona (which I hope to) it will also be a quartz version, as not only is it cheaper, but I know I'll never have to worry about the accuracy, or the movement blowing up like a modified 7750 can

I might have to consider one of those

For me, it's the exterior aesthetic of the watches, not the minutiae of the movement which makes the watch work. I can appreciate the Pan-Am/Rolex collaboration just as easily with an Asian GMT movement as I can with a Swiss GMT movement I still respect the company's contributions to the field of horology. For example, someone buying a poster of the Mona Lisa isn't going to refer to it as 'strangely smiling woman' just because it wasn't handpainted by Maestro Leonardo [Edit to add] What I'm trying to say, is that the 'attraction of a brand', is not necessarily contemporary status or price point

I have to admit, I do like how that looks on your GMTIIc How is it in terms of drainage/drying? That's always been my least favorite aspect of NATO straps, compared to the rubber Tropic-style straps