teddy boy

Just got in from my ride, surprise surprise, no crud. Thanks Nanuq, I was about to conclude incorrectly that titanium irritated my skin. You can be sure I won't let that happen again.

I aims to please!

I just cleaned it up and got crud out of it similar to what was on my wrist. The watch doesn't even look the same. I realize now that what I thought titanium looked like isn't what it looks like at all. I'm not always the brightest bulb on the tree when it comes to these sorts of things. I'll let you know what happens after I ride today.

Gee, I think you may be on to something. Let's see, I wear it everyday to ride a bicycle, including many summer days in a hot, humid climate. And I never clean it. I guess this is a duh huh. I'll give it a try and report back.

I have a titanium kinetic that I wear when I ride my bicycle. It's a great watch for that, it's light, durable and my sweat doesn't seem to damage the watch or bracelet. The problem I have is that after I ride, there is a black residue on my wrist that looks almost like soot. I would guess that the titanium in the bracelet is reacting with the minerals in my perspiration? Does anyone else have this problem? Is there some way to prevent it? I was just ignoring it, but the last few days I've notice a slight irritation on my skin.

I am an economist and in economics we talk about the tragedy of the commons. A common is something that is collectively owned (i.e. a common property resource). A fishery would be an example of a common. The tragedy is that while collectively fisherman have an incentive to avoid overfishing an area, each individual fisherman has an incentive to catch as many as possible. The point is that individuals pursue their own self interest, the waters get over fished and pretty soon there aren't any fish to be caught. In other words, more than the optimal amount of fishing occurs. It's why everyone is currently out of work in New Foundland. You can think of replica sellers' credibility as a common. Whereas the collective interest is for every seller to generally tell the truth thus leading to increased sales and increased willingness to pay, the individual self interest is to lie anytime you think it will increase the likelihood of making a sale. In other words, the incentive structure for each individual seller results in more than the optimal amount of lies. I'm not suggesting anything about the veracity of any of the sellers listed on this forum, I've never done business with any of them. I'm simply suggesting that each seller makes a decision to tell the truth or lie without regard to the damage that their actions may inflict on the credibility of all rep sellers.

Thanks for the responses. What I took from this is that I'm going to wind my reps by hand as little as possible. Instead I'll shake them while I'm watching tv or a video. (Cheap winders are lousy quality and I'm too cheap to buy a good winder)

I have four reps with 28-36 movments and one with a 28-24. For three of the 28-36 movements, I often feel a slight shutter when hand winding. I have an ingenieur with a 28-24 and hand winding for it is as smooth as silk. It feels like my gens when I hand wind them. I know that the 28-24 is slightly more expensive and considered a slightly better movement. Does that likely explain the difference or is it luck of the draw?

I agree with Ken on this one. You don't ever sell watches because you have too many(there is no such thing as too many watches or too many bicycles). The only reason that it is acceptable to sell a watch is that you see one you absolutely got to have and you don't have any money. In that case, it's permissible to sell off some of your mistakes.

Provided that you're not spending money you don't have, go for it.

For my next rep, I'm considering a Breitling Super Ocean, an Omega Planet Ocean 45mm, or a Roger Dubuis Easy Diver. As you can see, I'm not looking at chronos. The stories about asia 7750s have me gun shy and I'm not willing to go the $$$ for a real Valjoux. I guess to give me good opinions, you need to know my present selection of reps. 2 subs, one classic black, one all gold plated with a blue face (neither is a great rep but neither is awful) white gold day date with rhodium dial, to my untrained eye, this is a better rep, I really like this watch. Pam 029, pretty good watch bought from guy on Ioffer. It probably wouldn't pass muster with the Pam fans on the forum but so few people have seen pams that nobody I encounter would know enough to question it. White dial ingenieur, I didn't know that they were phantoms when I bought it which is good. I probably wouldn't have bought it knowing that it was a phantom but it turns out that I really like this watch a lot. In fact, it's probably become my favorite rep. That's what I have and what I'm considering. Opinions would be welcome.

And you need to work on your manners son.

I have a 28-36 modified Pam 29. I don't know if the stack is correct, because I don't know what the correct stack is for this watch. I can say that everything on mine works great, including (especially) the GMT hand. The whole watch runs 15-20 seconds fast per day, but given my beginnings with vintage gens I'm fine with that kind of accuracy.

Too late to do anything? Somebody is paying more than $4000 for a relatively poor quality rep.

Some of the new Roxex models (e.g. the new GMT II, new daytona) look more like aracde games than high quaility watches. Do they come with intstructions on how to redeem your free game?

Many of the scam sites are now advertising that their watches contain 27 jewel oris movements. Some even say that their watches have a 27 jewel movement produced by eta for Oris. There are little white lies and then there are bold face, too outrageous to be excused, lies. I'd don't like either variety lie, but this clearly goes in the second category.

Well said Pugwash. Not owning up to the watches origins if someone admires it is one thing (although I usually do). Selling someone a watch as authentic when it's not is a big no no.

If you look at the site posted in this link, compare the name to the user name of the poster, you can see that the guy who owns this site posted the link to his site in this thread. Not too cool! It is a rip off!!!!!

The order changes daily, maybe hourly, but as of right now it's in this order. 1. Chopard Gran Turisimo (probably go with the black dial for this one) 2. Breitling Super Ocean definitely with the blue dial. 3. Omega 45 mm planet ocean, ultimate version. As you can see from that list, I haven't mustered the courage for anything chrono yet, particulary given the reports of problems with the Asian 7750.

I have to comment on your being able to take pictures of your watch in a hotel room and put those someplace where anybody in the world with a computer and internet connection could look at it. We take that for granted now and yet even 15 years ago if someone had suggested you'd be doing this we would all have said, naw. Now for the real point of this post. I've had my eye on the gran turisimo for awhile. How do you like the watch?

Thanks to all of you for your replies. You kept me from making a big mistake.

I've noticed that Josh is offering both a 45 mm planet ocean and a Breitling super ocean with eta asian clone movements. If I remember correctly the 45 mm planet ocean which Josh describes as an ultimate version sells for $128, while the super ocean sells for around $158. That would make the planet ocean about $100 less than the "swiss" eta version and the super ocean $150 or so less than the "swiss" eta movment. Does anyone own either of these watches and if so, is the movement the only difference between the one with the cheaper asian movement and the swiss movement watch?

All I can say is that you guys are really good. I can't even see the ms much less be able to tell that they're not aligned.