omni

I don't know, if sport watches are the only kind of watch you wear then yes, a certain size in conjunction with your wrist size is probably what one will feel comfortable with. Looking at some of the wrist shots in the forum I'd agree that some watches are way too big for the small wrists they're on, flopping loosely makes them look worse. I have different watches for different occasions, with a 7.5 inch wrist, the smallest I can go is 38mm in a couple of dress watches. But all of my sports type watches (diver, panny, lunar) are at the comfortable end for me at 48mm with the Glycine Airman 7 topping out at 53mm (and it feels balanced as it is clean in design and the height is small compared to a thick clunky graham). Interesting though I have no 42mm but have a 42mm field watch chrono on order as I though the "field watch design" would look "too big" at 48mm. Personal tastes.

I found a few more modern examples on a french site. xxx.planetemontres.com/ Go to the automatiques / Novy Swiss button, then pick ETA 2826, Valjoux 7750 and 7751, you'll see several examples & models of Boillat Les Bois.

Okay slay, sorry for the misunderstanding. I had my jeweler/watchsmith put new hands on the my skeleton Asian carousel tourbi couple of years ago, he said that you couldn't just switch the winding stem to the opposite side, it would be the same as disassembling a right hand drive car engineered for just that purpose and trying to reassemble a left hand drive car out of it. Some of the parts just aren't going to be easily retrofitted backwards.

Well, bless my soul! That's the first indication that someone maybe was able to do it. Have never seen an asian one offered with the tourbillon escapement at 12. Are you sure that they didn't use a picture of a real one to represent the rep?

Can't be done because the ST80 movement has been manufactured as a mirror image of the original, meaning everything is oriental backwards. I explained in a post here. If anyone is interested in the history of the chinese tourbillon movements here is the wiki.

I agree with some point phoband brought up. The article is from a person that is 100% spot-on-target with the majority of replica buyers but has never known how good the copies can be (Obviously never visited a rep. forum!). A Gen. vs. Fake analogy article written to justify what? Lets just keep that ignorance that way so it doesn't ruin the hobby. The article is pure snobbery at its finest as there is a connoisseur world hidden below the vast majority of fake watch buyers. I feel the hardcore in the rep. forums (Not the one-or-two-shot-fly-by-nighters, but the actual collectors) are a select group that appreciate watches but have their own personal reasons to purchase and delve into replicas. These are the guys with the rep. collections, hobby geeks that mod away or build their own to no end, not your "normal" purchaser who is "Hey look at my sub, its just like the guys next to me with the real ones so I can now impress the peers & chics with flash! - Wannabees in a hive.) I don't collect reps. anymore, into gens., but some of the finest horologically knowledgeable people I've met, physically & virtually, I've found in these forums. The hardcore reppers have this knowledge out of enthusiasm and necessity and far out-surpass the knowledge of the genuine owners (except the genuine owners forum members - "somewhat I say" as a lot of genuine forum owners know nothing of other watches other than their favorite brand and some, not most, don't delve into the movement knowledge.) The "high-end" replica watches we are experiencing now is really ruining the hobby for a lot of enthusiasts as the pricing becomes on par with genuines, so a lot of replica collectors are just going "why bother" anymore after seeing all they are spending, or paring down to just a few. Now I'm seeing a tiered replica purchaser hierarchy of haves and have nots of who wants to stay in and who wants out of the game with varying degrees of justification. The hobby it seems is now forming its own social strata, for good or for worse. It'll all wash out in the end through market forces. You'll probably see the same thing happen with genuine collectors in the "new economy". China is coming up in the world, they will be making better counterfeits of every item thinkable since they also produce the genuines for the same maker, and flood the market, exclusivity will suffer in the long run. Why buy an exclusive item if it can be easily copied and hard to tell apart? That's something the article writer can't even fathom as he thinks all fakes are easily spotted. Its all in the mind of the consumer anyway, real or fake, the intrinsic value is with the consumer for whatever reason, not what the pundit tells you. Sheeple are always fleeced one way or another.

Conflicting information, but BestSwiss doesn't even register on webtraffic counts which means the reason for James (Au Mei) of Bestswiss posting this same post on several rep. forums, although it seems RWG is the only one that he/she reasonably had an actual discussion thread (as nicely allowed for what its worth) before banning, was because their web traffic is virtually non-existent compared to Joshua, Andrew, Angus and the rest of the dealers on the rep. forums. An attempt to cash in on the rep. forum internet traffic, go figure. It seems the rep. comsumer is getting smarter over the years. Of course in the un-modded RWG1 his thread still continues with ever increasing BS. http://www.aboutus.org/BestSwiss.com AND Whois Record Domain Services Provided By: , http://www.zentek-international.com/ - Offshore Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Colocation Registrant: Au Mei Lower Ngau Tau Kok Est Ngau Tau kok Hong Kong, HK - HK Registrar: DOTSTER Domain Name: BESTSWISS.COM Created on: 15-SEP-04 Expires on: 15-SEP-12 Last Updated on: 24-JUL-08 Administrative, Technical Contact: Mei, Au Lower Ngau Tau Kok Est Ngau Tau kok Hong Kong, HK - HK 27595813 Domain servers in listed order: NS1.BESTSWISS.COM NS2.BESTSWISS.COM

It remains to be seen if it is the same Thor (Chris). It is obviously the same Fakemaster who is a posting member here.

So today I was over perusing the looney bin ramblings over at RWG1 and read that Thor had started his own rep. forum recently in the last few days. Interesting, hadn't seem him around for almost a year on either RWG. [Edit] - Now confirmed it is not RWG member Thor who has put up the new rep. forum.

The "Top 3 ladies reps" thread got me to mention it to my wife. Now we all have probably bought reps "for" our better halves, usually the ones we are already with, fiance, GF, spouses, but then there are those that are still single out there. Just thought I'd pass this pretty funny comment from my wife regarding the statement I mentioned to her that pops up all the time "Why aren't there more women in the rep. forums?" and also popped up in the thread I just mentioned. [Edited] She chided: "Probably because single women only want to hang around the guys with the real watches rather than the fake ones!" .............ooooh Ouch!

I don't know if this has any relevance in this particular thread but the discussion did pop up in that Skyland price war thread linked in here. How much do the rep. forums influence Joshua and Andrew's business, 1%, 5%, 50%, 80%??? Don't put too much exact faith in Trafficestimate.com or Alexa.com in completely counting all the web traffic since they will usually only count about half of what Google Analytics will count, but using Trafficestimate.com as a guide since Joshua and Andrew's websites don't register in the top 100,000 websites requirement of Alexa or Google Analytics, you can draw your own conclusions. Joshua's site gets 72,000 visitors a month. Andrew's site gets 58,000 visitors a month. Repgeek and RWG are even with 107,000 visitors each a month. RWI gets 62,000 a month. Supposedly a lesser dealer Angus' site gets 60,000 visitors a month. As stated before, if you google their websites, they don't come up right away and probably would seem most of their business traffic comes from the rep forums.

But TJ, I've seen before when this Cartel conspiracy theory surfaced a while ago, not too many people wanted to dissent in case they couldn't get their watches, things are a changing as this discussion has more dissenters than a year ago. Just the discussion, being allowed to continue is a good thing, as the administration says "its not all black & white" and not a cut and dry issue. I don't agree with RobbieG that this will not have any impact, maybe not now but it will. If Wan King and Chu Sum Fatt are not concerned with the discussion, they should be. Your frustration is that "majority rules" much like I get frustrated in the political voting process here; well in the end, bad reviews, bad service, bad business practices, bans on other forums may have the forum(s) seeing it your way. For now, its go with the flow of the group consensus.

JUST A SIMPLE HISTORY LESSON: A few oldtimers that have been in this for a long time will remember that the biggest volume dealer at one time was the discount seller Paul aka Womart. Early big volume drop shipper that a lot of people swore by and came to defend earnestly as they do Josh/Andrew today. It was the first "trusted" volume dealer within the rep. forums as he had a real working website while most of the other trusted dealers at that time communicated through PM ordering through the forums. I hear echoes of the past that could be a parrot speaking, pro defending "great customer service" & con complaining "overpricing" "incorrect" watches from the descriptions. This will sort itself out and all the threads and energy that are expended on the subject will have no immediate effect but it does effect eventually. Paul conducted his/her business from stellar to crappy when Paul got too complacent, arrogant and comfortable in the top dog status, customer service got sketchy and so did the watches which soon didn't deserve the prices. Guess what, other dealers came in to happily replace, such as guys like Josh & Andrew with a different better mousetrap for getting the clients. Word of mouth and here they are, the darlings of the rep. forum(s). Guess what, the same thing will happen as the fallout will filter down and some other dealer will come to replace them and come out on top as the Jandrew thinks they have it made at the moment, same as Paul did. The public consumer is so fickle, loyalty is non-existent. What will happen is even though a dealer is banned on one forum, there are currently enough forums to support them on another. But, in the end, it does hurt their bottom line as enough bad press, like politics, can effect the popularity because it always seems to snowball up then down for the bigger volume dealers (not the small ones). Personally, never ordered from Joshua, seems to have great press. Andrew is another matter, the very first few watches he offered on RWG I caught him in a lie "that he had seen the genuine in an AD and the rep he was selling was correct." This was right out of the gate lying from the guy so I never ever wanted to deal with him and never did.

Please read the footer at the bottom of this parallel replica watch site and you will see the connection. Same duplicate website, only difference is it says replica watches and now the prices match. This "chinese outfit" appears to be a replica watch seller, that should tell a replica is what you will get. [Edit] So dug a little further into each of these site's html coding, definitely the same website designer as they use the same linking. Found a dozen references to "Replica Watches" in the html coding of this supposed "genuine" watchesshopping site. Both registered IPs from the same registrar originating in CN(CHINA) but replica site IP is Shanghai Netpig Computer & Network Co. Ltd and genuine site IP is Hangzhou Silk Road Information Technologies Co. Ltd.. Most damning evidence is watchomega.net is interconnected to replicawatches.net which had an IP address also from Hangzhou Silk Road and was 202.75.221.35 (it has now been moved to a domain name seller) and watchesshopping.net is 202.75.221.35, the same IP address. Absolutely you will get what you pay for, a replica at replica prices, if its too good to be true...................it is.

TJ: I can only give you my personal experience, Although I'm not a doctor; my physician father was a medical internist; I was a pre-med student and I've stayed in a Holiday Inn. I'm 61 and have had no arthritic joint problems but did suffer a couple of lateral herniated discs last year (from a bad habit of lifting a lot of heavy objects all my life without using support - you know furniture, women, cases of liquor). I've been at 20+ years of constant running and weight training since I cleaned up my act. When age progressed to where I started to feel my knee joint 8 years ago I started on a regimen of condroiton/glucosamine complex which seemed to relieve the tight painful feelings. X-rays of my knees last year shows that I don't have the cartilage or tendons of a 20 year old, but I still have good knee cartilage and no knee problems so I'm still running. Now this could be all in my head as the condroiton/glucosamine may just be having a placebo effect on me but I do my research. If you want to take something to maybe alleviate your condition, you might try that. Make sure you don't miss the Bottom Line in This Article on the supplements. Good Luck and welcome to my world of impending geezerhood.

Okay Carlsbadrolex, great gesture, I pledge $500 to your $500, your done. Regards, Omni

No regrets either, good term "learning money" as the "should'a-could'a-would'a" hindsight is useless here. Its a learning experience, what the lesson is can be regret in some cases. Richard Tracy, you just have to admit to yourself that you and some other collectors are just impulse shopaholics. We are all different and we all disagree for a reason that only makes sense to oneself. Personally, I've learned so well on years of reps. that the quality-accuracy-anal mindset that filtered into my brain finally resulted in giving up rep. collecting as a hobby, the ol' double-edged sword thingie. Even as exciting as the more expensive super-reps are (and I do get tempted as got the HBB rep. last year), my own logic is they are never a gen., the rep. will never be perfect and the new price point is getting on par with lower-tier genuines. I'm very grateful for the horological knowledge gained by rep. collecting, but the knowledge/appreciation made me move on. There will always be a rep. purchase in my future since evolving from this habit doesn't preclude a cheap way of trying a particular brand/model, but collecting them is over. If I had the patience & inclination like Ubi and some others to build my own genuines, then yes, I'd probably still be in the hobby.

Then, MG, it sounds like your only possible cheap solution for your project to achieve the "sweep seconds" is what you mentioned earlier, using a "tuning fork" quartz movement, if you can make it fit. But don't think you can source one for (50 - 100 USD), well at least not an ETA from Ofrei. Taking an ebay search has a few old '70s Accutron watches for sale and saw a working recently serviced one for $75.

"google" for a number of free .gif editors, they are real easy to use. Then just assemble the pictures in the editor you want. Sometimes it helps if you have Photoshop to tweak the image.

Yet unlike the beauty of the mechanical Spring Drive, the tuning fork movements require a battery. And the Spring Drive, although mechanical, does not "tick".

Normal for gen service for me is 2 to 3 months. Panerai out now for 2 months, $500 service charge.

Still on my list of wants too Gran, but Patek Calendario my ultimate. Cheers, Omni

Very nice pocketwatch to wristwatch conversion. Looks very sweet and unique Richard, congrats!

I think in relation to Lanikai's original starter post in this thread, this article that appeared today is telling for us here on these tiny dots in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. High inflation and high housing & living costs has taken a toll on Honolulu, Oahu where the island showed a decrease in population from last year. Sign of the times.