teddy boy

I bought a black Seamaster Professional at the local AD, it has the "James Bond" bracelet. I also considered a Breitling Superocean with a blue face. First of all, the ADs are definitely responding to competition from the interent. Both watches were offered at prices around 15% below the msrp, placing the Superocean within about $300(after tax) of the best price I saw on the internet. The seamaster professional was actually cheaper than the best price I saw on the internet, but I think the AD incorrectly priced the automatic seamaster at the quartz price and then gave me the standard discount off that price. I don't consider it my responsility to correct their pricing mistakes. The after sales tax price for each watch was $2206 for the super ocean and $1575 for the seamaster. Once you get within a few hundred dollars, I'd prefer buying in person over the internet for all of the usual reasons (i.e. no chance of getting ripped off, support the local retailer, actually get to handle the watch you're going to buy etc). So why did I buy the seamaster? Well, here are the reasons.

1. I liked both watches a lot and had no clear preference for the appearance of one over the other. Given that fact, there was a difference of $632 in price and I had no clear preference , it made sense to go with the cheaper one. Last time I checked, $632 is still $632.

2. The seamaster uses the 2892-A movement as its base platform, the super ocean is built from the 2824. I realize that both companies modify the base movement a great deal, but my impression is that the 2892 is a slightly better movement. Maybe I'm wrong on that point, but I do have that impression.

3. I liked the bracelet better on the seamster. It had a smoother mechanism and higher overall quality feel. The divers extension on the super ocean wasn't crisp and felt rather clunky. Frankly, it was disappointing on a watch of this price. Mind you, it looked great, it just didn't function as well as I would expect on an expensive watch. The bracelet on the seamaster works flawlessly.

Impressions of the watch.

The watch has a great feel. In the store I couldn't sense the differences between the gens and a rep. When I got the watch home and held it next to my reps, there are subtle differences in fit and finish. I'm sure I would have had a similar impression of the super ocean had I bought it instead. However, holding a gen next to a rep (even though the rep is not of the same watch), you can tell just how high the quality of the reps is today. The one area where the reps that I own don't come close, however, is the luminova. The genuine seamaster really lights up. The AR of the gen is also quite a bit better and the feel of the bracelet is better as well.

Some of you have maintained that reps may actually induce people to buy a gen. I think I'm living proof of that fact. I don't think I would have ever purchased a gen if I hadn't become interested in this quality watch through the rep market.

I'm terrible with a camera but my wife has promised to help me photograph the watch. I'll try to get some photos up over the next few days so those of you who own seamaster reps can compare to the gen. Thanks again to this board for the information and to all of you who responded to questions in my posts.

I've posted about them before. I'm convinced that they're legit. Spoken to them on the phone about a gen I was interested in. They had very good ratings on Ebay (check to make sure it's still the case). Keep in mind that many of their prices are based on models with removed serial numbers. You will have to pay an additional $150 - $200 to get the model with serial if it is not already advertised as such.

Watch companies make their authorized dealers sell at certain prices to qualify them as ADs. These guys buy in bulk from ADs without reporting to the manufacturer. The serial is removed when the price is below the threshold. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a gen from them. I'd also pay the extra cash to get a proper serial if resale will ever be an issue for you (clearly, you'll almost always lose money on a watch sale unless it's a Rlx, so the serial thing may make matters worse). My local bricks and mortar AD was able to match their price so I went with them to give them the business.

If I recall, their warranty service is a bit dodgy. Only through them and no others, whether ADs or not. Otherwise the warranty is voided. Great deals on Breits, Omgs, Ors, etc. Let us know what happens...

Thanks to everyone for the respones. I'm at a bit of a conundrum as to what to do. I went to the Omega AD today and tried on the Seamaster 300 and the Planet Ocean. Both were nice watches, the AD had an excellent price on the Seamaster 300. It was $1475, actually less than what the websites are asking. The Planet Ocean is clearly a better looking watch with a better movement, but it's not twice the watch. The conundrum is that neither watch looks appreciably better than my good reps. I have an Ingenieur that is every bit the overall quality of either one of the two Omegas. The real conundrum is that I could purchase reps of all the watches I'm interested in and have almost a cool $1000 left over from what I would spend on the cheapest of the gens I'm considering. I think I'll consider this whole thing awhile before I do anything. I was really surprised by the relative quality of the gens to my best reps. I really expected there to be a big difference. The difference just isn't all that great.

I've been thinking about buying a new gen and I came upon this website that sells what they proport to be gen watches at a big discount. I'm thinking about buying either a Breitling Super Ocean, an Omega Planet Ocean or an Omega Constellation. This site has all of those watches at serious discounts. Any input on which watch to buy would also be welcome.

I've never been able to make a link work so I'll just paste in the site.

http://www.authenticwatches.com/index.html

I would just take one for a couple of reasons. First of all, there is the customs issue. Secondly, there is also the issue of theft. They can't steal what's on your wrist without mugging you, but can easily take something from your cabin. Finally, one really good rep will never be questioned. Several high dollar watches on the other hand are more likely to be viewed as reps. I'd pick one watch that is likely to attract whatever level of attention you're seeking and go with it.

LOL that's pretty good stuff..

But you also make some good points. It's the "Cash McMogulson" effect (I hope some of you have had the chance to read his chronicles.....if not......google them). If its a one night stand with say... a couger... then your gonna want to put on your rolly YM or sub... something that she will recognize and immediately associate positively with (we hope!!).

On the other hand.. if its a nice lady, like say someone your mom set you up with (don't ask) then you might want to go with something a little more restrained like a FA Jones, Porto, etc.

If you don't want to start with a lie, like crystalcranium said, start out with a gen....however, I don't consider wearing a rep a lie. It's just a matter of taste.

I personally, on a first date, would wear this:

I think what you have pictured is a good choice. Why not put that out there right from the beginning. If she goes out with you a second time, she could never complain down the road that you deceived here.

In all seriousness.. I'd go with the Omega Chrono. Not because of the date or anything, but just because its my favorite watch!!

What By-Tor said. If you go for the Super Ocean, which is a fantastic watch - you won't be dissapointed. But, several, me included, have noted that the small screws that hold the links on arrived loose when we recieved the watch. No problem as long as you know this and do something about it immediately. You can get a small screw drivers set from Radio Shack for a few bucks if you don't already have one.

After you resize the bracelet for your wrist, remember this is a bracelet so do not make this too tight and it is best to do this in the evening when your wrist is larger, carefully remove each screw, apply Loc-Tite to the screws (the kind that allows for removal if needed in the future), and reinstall screwing each back tightly. The Loc-Tite will dry and the screws will then not accidentally loosen while you wear the watch.

Make sure you clear your desk to do this and I always put a plain piece of white paper under the watch and bracelet (I fold a 1/2 inch lip around the edge of the paper to raise the edges to prevent the screws from accidentally rolling away. Along with tiny screw drivers, you will need tweezers to pick up and place the screws into place.

Hope all this helps.

Usil

It helps tremendously, thank you very much. I'll be ordering the watch over the next few weeks and I'll report back on how it goes. I would promise to take pictures, but so far my photographic ability has been poor. In most of my pictures you can tell that it's a watch, but you can discern much more than that.

Thanks again.

Any small watchsmith (non AD) should be able to resize the Breitling bracelet in 15 minutes or less, and I can't imagine they would charge more than $10.

No big worry.

Cheers,

M

I do have a watchmaker who works on both my reps and gens. I didn't think about him, thanks for the suggestion. I know now what my next rep is going to be.

This is why I'm grateful for this forum.

Oh, Yeah. I forgot about the little jewlers hammer I had to use too on one of them.

Usil

Thank you for the responses. I'm not sure where it leaves me, however. It's unlikely that I would find a non-AD jewelry store that could do this. I know that I can't do it myself. If you question whether I'm under estimating my ability, I recently posted on the general discussion that I thought my titanium bracelet was irrating my skin. It turned out that it was just dirty. Technical things have never been my long suit.

Thanks again for all the thoughtful replies.

I read By-Tor's excellent comparision of the Breitling Super Ocean and the Omega Planet Ocean. Interestingly, these are the two watches I'm considering for my next purchase. I had pretty well decided I would go with the blue Super Ocean and have even looked a the blue dial gen to see if I'd like the look of the rep on my wrist.

When I read By-Tor's review, he indicated that the bracelet was hard to adjust. My question is the following. Is this difficulty serious enough that it would present a problem having a jewelry store adjust the band? I would obviously need to choose a non-AD jewelry store to do the adjusting so they would have no prior experience with Breitlings. There are plenty of jewelry stores around where I live that provide this service for a small fee. Should a reasonably competent jewelry store be able to adjust this band?

This is an important consideration because there is no way I can do this for myself.

This is my choice...

I have the day date version of that watch in white gold. It does make a very nice dress watch.

i have never seen pics of it showing reflects like other breitling blue dials. maybe its because of th AR maybe its because its not a reflective blue. thanks for your help

I happened to look at this very watch tonight at the local AD. It is a very impressive watch. In store light, the color of the dial seemed to change a little as you changed the angle at which you held it. I'm not sure if that is the information that you were seeking.

As an aside, I asked what movement and the salesperson (who knew nothing about watches) got the Breitling catalog. The super ocean has a Breitling caliber 17 which is an eta 2824 with nicer finishing. The better spec'd reps have eta 2824 movements so it would seem that this rep is really close to the gen.

Here is a link to info on the gen

http://www.time2watch.net/supero.htm

I've got some 47mm pams,

some 44mm pams,

and some 45mm pams

and an omega railmaster xxl,

with some rolexes (both rep and gen)

but nowadays, at least for week. the bigger is better motto is getting uncool, I want a regular size (36-39mm) watch with white or cream dial, with a leather strap...

nothing complicated but should go perfect with a business suit.... (even only hour/minute functions are enough...)

I'm thinking on regular omega railmaster, but that's with black dial...

let me describe the watch I'm looking for: the minute repeater IWC for ~$100 on many dealers... I want a watch like it but with a better movement and better case...

what are your suggestions mates?

It doesn't get much dressier than a patek phillippe, a calastrave perhaps? Or how about a cartier tank? Thinking of 39 mm as a regular size watch shows your age, at least your watch collecting age.

To address the boldened question, I guess it really depends on how knowledgeable the sales person is that you speak to. An experienced watchsmith thought my Submariner was genuine until he opened the case, so yes, there are definitely reps available that will pass scrutiny, depending on who is looking at it. The thing is though, what's the point. Rhetorically speaking, is it so important to have a watch which is 100% accurate to a gen, and if so, why? The only reason I can think of, is to try and pass it off as gen. 'Flaws' and variation are what make reps fun. (as well as being a better value for money buy than a gen brand watch)

The question is interesting to me at several levels, but partially because it tells us something about the manufacturing cost of the gens. If you can make a rep that is indistinguishable and sell it for a couple of hundred bucks then the manufacturing cost can't be that much higher for the gen. I realize that the movements are better in the gens (even when they use the same movment, it's usually finished a lot nicer) ,the gens have true sapphire glass where the reps probably don't usually and the gens use higher quality ss. But those things can't possibly add up to thousands of dollars in manufacturing costs. That's my interest in asking the question. You see, I'm an economist and these channel distribution questions interest me.

It also interests me in terms of how perfect the buyers want the rep to be. My sense since coming to this forum is that the most knowledgeable buyers like a lower priced item with imperfections so they have something to mod. It seems that part of the interest for the most hard core is taking a good rep and making it nearly perfect with one's own skill and ingeneuity.

I've worn both my Submariner and my Daytona into Omega AD, and put them on the counter while trying on the Omegas, but the staff hardly gave them a glance, and were more interested in talking to me. I have worn my black Planet Ocean into an Omega AD while enquiring about the price of the PO rubber strap (to compare to ofrei's price) This is the same AD I've worn my Submariner into, and again, the staff were more interested in talking to me than checking out my watch (I had a shopping bag in that hand) I'd certainly never wear a rep into it's own AD and leave it on the counter for possible questioning, in that instance, (say I asked to see a display model) then I'd just slip the rep in my pocket while they were getting the watch rather than putting it on the counter. I did that while wearing my project watch, when I asked to see a 2254.50 and the Casino Royale Planet Ocean. There was absolutely no way I'd let the staff get more than a passing glance at that watch I really don't get the mentality of wearing a rep into that brand's AD and flashing it under the staff's nose. I mean seriously, what's the point? So you 'pull it off' and it isn't called out as a rep, big whoop... Chances are the staff have simply been instructed never to call out a rep of a potential customer, so it's not like they really believed it... And if you do try and pass it off and get called out, then that's one place you're never going to want to show your face again... Being upfront about it being a rep, still not the best idea, but fair enough, but attempting subterfuge, just pointless and juvenile.

As I said when I posed the question, I wasn't asking because I want to do it or think it's a good idea. What I am curious to know is whether the general opinion is that there are reps that have gotten that good. A better way to frame my question would be, is there a rep out there that is so good that the only way to know for sure is by opening the case? The scam artists claim that's true of their rolexes, but we all know that's not the case. As I stated intitially, all you would have to do with the rolex is shake and wind the movement. It sounds as though as good as reps have become, there is nothing that would pass really close scrutiny from a knowledgeable person.

If it's not real, we need to find who is sourcing the reps because I want to get one. And I'm not even in the market for anything rolex.

Wore mine in one time and was looking at the real things under a case and the sales rep noticed it and gave me a compliment. No need to hand it over for inspection.

I wasn't really suggesting that you'd hand it over, but would you get nervous if while trying on a gen if the sales person picked up your rep?

I was wondering if there is a rep out there that is so good that you're willing to wear it into an AD? Good enough to let them handle it? Obviously no rolex would fill the bill because a good shake would reveal the truth. I ask the question not wanting to do this, but just wondering if any reps have gotten this good.

The link below is to a collectors website for Panerai. Sorry if this has already been posted here. In any event, they have lots of pictures, information on model numbers, some price lists and so forth. It's not well organized but there is a lot of information in there if you're willing to look.

http://www.paneristi.com/

Geezze!!! Economic theory...what a classy place. I'm feeling a little lightweight intellectually here. Anyone want to talk carbapenemase mediated resistance in K. pneumoneae????? Didn't think so

LOL, whatever field that comes from, you have better big words than we do.

The switch away from ETA movements is due to people stockpiling them for ETA's planned departure from the parts market. It's a genuine shortage created by a fear of shortage.

I hadn't heard about the potential shortage. The switch away from genuine eta movements is the only piece of evidence that I've seen suggesting a potential decline in quality. And now you've given an alternative explanation for that. My limited knowledge suggests that everything else points to an increase in the quality of reps. The question then becomes, with adverse selection why is this happening? This forum and the others like it are the only forces in the market that I can see driving sellers toward increasing their quality. Those of you who are more knowledgeable may be able to identify other factors.

Unfortunately, the reaction of many was "Hey, I'm just damn happy to be here and I'll tolerate some shenanagans as long as I can keep my access." I think the next watershed event is a general disappearance of good replicas for afordable prices.

Crystal, it's interesting that you bring that point up because there is certainly rationale for predicting that rep quality would decline over time. This idea is routed in the concept of adverse selection, an idea developed by two economists several decades ago. They took the market for used cars as an example. For simplicity, they assumed that there were only two kinds of cars, good cars and lemons. Intitially there were equal numbers of each. Because buyers lacked information and couldn't perfectly judge whether a car was good or a lemon, the buyer was willing to pay a price that was the average value of good cars and lemons. This caused some of the sellers of good used cars to withhold their cars from the market, tilting the mix more toward lemons which caused the price to fall even more. This, in turn, caused more sellers of good cars to withhold their cars and so on. Eventually, there were only lemons in the market. The concept of adverse selection has been used to explain behavior in many different markets, notably insurance. Health insurers, for example, set a premium that reflects the average health of insured. Some healthy people tend to opt out choosing to self insure so now there are more sick people relative to healthy. This causes insurance premiums to rise, causing more heatlhy to opt out and so on. This explains why individual health insurance premiums are so high in the U.S. To a certain degree, insurers have to assume that if you buy individual health insurance, you must really need it.

If we apply this to the rep market and assume that there are good reps and bad reps, buyers are willing to pay based upon some sort of weighted average quality. That average price is too low to keep attracting sellers of high quality reps causing the mix to change more toward low quality. That causes the price to fall, causing average quality to fall again. The price that buyers are willing to pay declines, driving more sellers of high quality reps from the market and so on. Adverse selection would predict that we end up with a market comprised only of "low quality" reps. While I'm not sufficiently familiar with the workings of the rep market to say for sure that this is happening, the apparent replacement of genuine eta movements with asian copies would appear to be consistent with this trend.

Thank you for indulging the economist with his arcane theories.

Hate to disagree Teddy,.. the price between cheap Chinese

movements being sold as Eta, is as bad as any off site dealer's

three card monte scam...

Thievery is thievery and makes it all the worse when done to a group that

has been supporting them, from day one,..and gave them their base to spring

into the big time..

Richard, I wasn't really trying to condone the practice as much as understand why we seem to accept it. I think the "more honest by comparison" point may be a partial explanation, although I'm sure there are other explanations as well.

This info is easily findable in my many, many posts on the subject. Still, if you're having difficulty trawling through them, TTK, Narikaa, Precious Time and Silix are the dealers I've done repeat business with, if that tells you anything. I've had good dealings with others, like Sash and River, but I try to deal with EU-based dealers these days. I've had bad dealings with other dealers, and that too is freely available information available via the search feature.

Check out the "My Collection" link below for my purchasing history.

Thanks, I trolled all of the dealer ratings forums looking for a posting by you before I asked, but didn't see any postings from you. Too much time has probably elapsed for your posts to be on the first page of these forums.

I had been leaning toward Silix for my next purchase for a variety of reasons. It's good to get confirmation that I'm not making a stupid choice. Thanks again.

I only buy from dealers I know will sell me what they tell me they will sell me. This means that the dealer is up front and honest with me and I know that I will get what I am paying for.

One dealer on this very board stated that he would not offer services because he knows that the people that he'd get to do the servicing would short-change him and there would be no way of checking up. He's being honest and up front.

Pugwash, would it be inappropriate for me to ask who you deal with? If I'm committing some terrible faux pas by asking, I apologize. I have a regular dealer and think he's always done right by me. However, I've learned some things about him since I've found this forum that make me a little uneasy. The reason that I ask is that I'm going to be in the market for a rep very very soon.

Unfortunately, the reaction of many was "Hey, I'm just damn happy to be here and I'll tolerate some shenanagans as long as I can keep my access." I think the next watershed event is a general disappearance of good replicas for afordable prices.

When I first started thinking in terms of the tragedy of the commons, I believed that the scam sellers hurt the more legitimate rep dealers. Now I'm not so sure. All of us have seen the websites for the scam sellers and the outrageous claims that they make (i.e. 27 jewel eta movement, reps so perfect that even the most schooled rolex jeweler can hardly tell the difference without opening the case and so forth). Many of us started looking at reps on those sites and either bought or came close to buying an $800-$1000 mistake. After being exposed to those shenigans, the "little white lies" told by the dealers who advertise here seem very tame by comparison. The level of the lies told by "our" sellers, especially after accounting for the price difference relative to the scam sellers, seems to make us feel pretty good about the whole thing. I was a political science minor in college and we used to joke about the politician standard, that is, a person was honest or dishonest relative to the average of all politicians. Have we adopted the "rep standard"? The responses to the person's question about paying for servicing when buying a rep would suggest that we have. Nobody expressed confidence that you actually get the servicing, but all of us have a seller or sellers that we buy from. In other words, I didn't see anyone step up and say "I trust so and so to make sure that the servicing is completed". Nevertheless, we do all have a seller we buy from.

There is one more element here; the fact that all of us have displayed a certain willingness to accept risk by buying a product that is illegal to sell. Given that fact, maybe at times we're just grateful to get anything at all after we've paid our hard earned money.