omni

You'd be surprised how many scientists I've met who believe in God. Having grown up in a family of scientists, I believe in God. It took some maturing through my hippie youth but I finally came around and found I wasn't alone; nor the peace it brought. Overcoming the tendency of literary vs. allegoric interpretations had a lot to do with it.

HOROLOGIO at the Venetian sent me a customer card. They are holding up to a 50% sale on selected models during March only. You may miss the sale but you should check them out anyway as they have great discounts.

When I received mine my jeweler had to drop the movement out to reattach the second hand at 9 subdial. Here is a description: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=175061 I wasn't paying that much attention to him when he removed the stem so can't help you there.

Okay, I was asked by Corgi in PM to pipe in here. A little history lesson to give you some insight. Before WW1 pocket watches were the norm. Then they found during battle that pulling out a pocketwatch in the trenches wasn't too easy so they started straping them to their wrists and ankles. This led to the immediate popularity of wrist watches. Thereafter, the first thing they did was start attaching wire lugs for the straps onto the pocket watch cases (the forerunner of the true wrist watch). If corgi said his grandfather bought this around 1920 then it would fit into the timeline. If you didn't notice, a modern recasing would have modern lugs with removable pins, anything before 1950 had wire or solid lugs pins. You Pannie nuts are familar with the classic Panerai. You have to have special leather/bendable metal tang straps or sew them on for these antiques. You see on corgi's watch it has solid lugs to fit a strap on, keeping in tune with the times. I suggest to corgi that for a big $9.95 fee, maybe up to $30 for a more extensive appraisal, he gets http://whatsitworthtoyou.com to do an appraisal of the watch. They have several good expert clock & watch appraisers on board who will give you an acceptable appraisal from photos and description for insurance purposes. It ain't much to pay if your watch or clock is worth thousands. Combing through Antiquorium inventory sometimes can give you clues but you're better off getting an appraisal from an expert. The movement appears authentic, so does the case. Regards.

Rob: What is your opinion on the hairspring regulator of crystalcranium's movement picture above, stud or non-removable attachment??? I'd like to know since its not clear to me from the picture, although the ETA stamp is clearly there.

At the "tittie bar"? I thought that wasn't a magnet but the sucking sound of golddiggers. Oh, well, what's a rep. millionaire to do wearing his rep. rollie, do unto others as they do unto you, fake it.

As the lead singer in a mid-'60s garage band, I've spent many a fine hour passed out overnight on the floor of the some of the finest frat houses throughout the Northern California University system, to name a few; Berkeley, Stanford, Davis, etc. I have a B.A. Biology, so I became a traveling musician.

I'm probably lucky in this dept. Very satisfied with the movement, extremely accurate, rotor smooth and quiet (an improvement), setting date extremely smooth (a first), chrono "on" pusher is only now starting to get sticky after playing with it probably too much.

Very interesting study about when purchasing which part of the brain has activity, however, it doesn't take into account the utter lack of logic when it comes to specifics, like purchasing watches. Then no part of the brain is used it seems.

The last thing you want to do to a trusted dealer in these rep. forums is a "paypal dispute". That is ultimately the last resort. You cannot screw up more than do that to the dealers here. Try patience and resolve first which is the hardest thing to do. You do a paypal dispute, you see the results, you shut off pretty much your ability to purchase from trusted dealers in the forums as no other dealer in here would let you order from them, plus everyone else cannot use paypal. Give the dealer a chance to make it right in front of all the buyers here, if he doesn't or isn't capable, then he will no longer be selling to the forum members and a paypal dispute is warranted. Why don't some dealers accept paypal which is a big hassle for the buyers here, because impatience jumped the gun. Its a natural reaction since before coming to the forum everyone had to deal with scam rep. watch sites. By the way, the QC on these BB seem to be 50% for the pre-order buyers, including myself. Its unfortunate but we pay for paving the way for the rest of the followers. QC probably will get tighter.

Happy Birthday old friend.

I only have one comment on this, if you're too young to have seen the movie or remember the scene, too bad: Jane Fonda as Dree the prostitute in "Klute".

I"m sure it would look just fine on a 6 1/2" wrist @mikellem. As with the IWC ports & jones, although big, they are flat so it doesn't feel or look as big on your wrist as a tall case. Also, Clive's excellent choice of the PVD version, the massive look melts away into the all black darkness, the SS would just appear bigger in my opinion and call attention to how much bigger on your wrist. Again, wear it well Clive and congrats.

You mean the rep. they only make with rubber, right? You can get the gen. with a stainless steel bracelet with rubber inserts.

If this was posted before, sorry. For those receiving the new crop of Hublot BB reps. here is the link to download the catalog to learn more about the facsimile you are wearing and pics for comparison although the special models such as the RG F1 Istanbul aren't included. Enjoy. http://www.hublotforum.com/Catalogue06.pdf

I'd send it back, way too many mistakes, it sounds like that was rushed out the door with no dealer inspection, not acceptable.

Great story, thanks for bringing to my attention Ryyannon, and Happy New Year.

Its obvious people have their favorite dealers so have some cheese with the whine. My proof of the pudding was in the nature of the posts. I never read any helpful posts regarding the BB from Andrew or Josh, only an offensive/defensive turf war and sour grapes. All I got from them was inference on how gullible us buyers were and all the things we didn't know, it was kinda insulting. Nothing from them constructive to made me feel good about the discussion on the watch, no positive feedback, no participation except know-it-all statements. Its obvious they will be the main sellers of this watch first out until Paul gets ahold of it, not Angus. So sit back and wait, the accolades will come their way as they deliver the BB to their customers with glowing watch reviews and then they can take all the glory, deserved or not. Who knows, maybe Angus is a great marketeer of hype in how he presented it to us, who cares, it was fun and constructive.

Obviously No, I've got mine, and there are no "bad finishes" on this watch. Loose hand the result of a rough transit delivery, not the watch quality. Loose screws are the result of sloppy assemblers, can happen in $100 watches. I agree with what Wan said above.

tvt: I'm surprised, you of all people, having visited Guangzhou, would know first-hand because of the "millions & millions" of watches manufactured out of that City, there is not going to be the kind of QC you'd expect from a genuine watch, swiss or seiko. These I'm sure are not assembled in extremely clean lab rooms with technicians taking the time or care to assemble and to test every part as it is assembled. I know it kills you about the pricing, but, these are reps., plain and simple, you shouldn't expect the same as you get with a gen., even a timex. I've agreed with you on that on more than one occasion regarding "fakes." If a premium is paid its not because you are going to receive a better quality watch than the lesser priced watch, it means you are going to receive the best replication at that particular time in space. Opinions abound about what you should expect for the price, but really, individual expectations vary from person to person. Quite frankly, I think the way Angus packaged it for mailing was probably the main reason it arrived sans the second hand. It was just taped in bubble wrap in a flat EMS mailing envelope. Most of mine usually have come in a cardboard box.

From vric's outstanding video (man that's a nice camera, good job!) you will notice that the top skeletal plate is really just a big second hand rotating every 60 seconds. The balance wheel, armature and pallet heads underneath are stationary in this fake tourbillon. In a true tourbillon the balance wheel, armature and pallet heads would be rotating every 60 seconds to supposedly offset the effects of gravity which causes the balance wheel to oscillate irregularly. This really only applies to pocket watches that were worn in one position on the body, so moving a tourbillon to the wrist really is only there for adding a complication and really serves no purposes other than that. To have the heart of the watch rotate is indeed a very complicated, difficult and delicate bit of engineering, thus the high prices. Chinese now have it out for $1000 - $1,500 in a pretty fugly looking movement. Carousel tourbillons are different and cheaper, at around $600 - $800 USD but some argue it was not designed like the original Breguet, so therefore it shouldn't qualify or be called one, its been a long running debate for WIS since they first appeared. Now that was more than you really wanted to know I'm sure.

Second hand at 9 subdial was completely off and floating in the case. Angus asked if I could get it fixed here instead of sending it back, but Angus did offer to send me another watch. My jeweler is also a client of mine so he does most of my fixes for free if they are not too involved. I took him all the blowup pictures & diagrams posted here on a couple of threads and we determined removing the back instead of the front was proper. Its an easy fix but not if you don't have a deft touch. He had to pinch the hand since it was definitely too loose fitting on the post, which made it harder to set back on but my jeweler had no problem.

Its not completely flush, I'd say about 0.1mm above, definitely not 0.5mm. I'm only pointing these things out for the accuracy buffs, I'm only into this for the design tryout so flaws don't bother me. My thoughts this morning, its very elegant looking for a sports watch because of the glistening refractive shine of the arabic & hour markers, extremely eyecatching, it will get noticed, blingy but very subtle. I've decided to scrap the idea of putting a carbon fiber strap on this, the rubber strap looks great.

I figured this thread would be an easy place to put a review of the TT watch I received today from Angus, since there are umpteen pictures of the gen. and rep. already posted here to compare. And adding more pics seems redundant at this moment. Plus all the possible flaws we could find from the pics have been corrected and have been discussed ad naseum. Caution to all who receive the watch, tighten the screws before wearing because a lot of them are loose. My jeweler discovered this when he took it apart to reset the second hand which had fallen off during shipment. To tighten the twin slotted screws he took a jewel screwdriver and split the driver head with a dremel until it fit the screws. Removing the movement means removing the back bezel (5 screws), then case back (4 screws) and then two holding screws & flanges. To all those that are worrying about the appearance accuracy of this rep. movement to a gen., don't bother, the movement's fit and finish are not up to par of a genuine, my jeweler even commented that it wasn't a greatly finished made movement and compared to swiss it was cheap to the naked eye. But you can see that the plates and gears don't quite match up to the gen. anyway so what does it matter. Even if the rotor and plate ever do get engraved instead of painted it won't make much difference, you couldn't fool any AD or jeweler with this exposed movement as soon as you turned the watch over. But this is the quietest turning rotor on a rep. I've ever experienced, its very silent. The crono hands all set very precisely back to 12, no offset anywhere. Setting the date also was the smoothest turning I've tried, its as if someone oiled this movement before it arrived, but that is highly doubtful. Crown and pushers are very smooth. The fit and finish are excellent, the watch case, dial, lugs, clasp are superb. The date wheel is the right depth although not the correct weight font, too thin compared to the gen. Only one glaring flaw for the front I can pick out now that I have it in my hands, the crystal is not raised as high off the bezel as the gens., its damn near flush. And we have had many pictures of the gen posted in this Thread to compare it with. I though I had read that this was going to be fixed but apparently it was not for this run, maybe later runs they will correct. The back bezel is not engraved as deep as the gen but that doesn't matter much, 1) because its the wrong engraving for this TT F1 Istanbul, 2) because of the movement appearance the watch back will always be inaccurate, so its really not a pity afterall @RiverwindMDS. Also no back case lug engravings appear either. All in all, it is an extremely handsome design profile side & front, my wife likes it better than the (gasp) Pannies. Initial reaction is I'm wild about this very innovative design. Would I buy a gen, jury's still out on that one.

I think this rep. manufacturer will see the sense in making many different models from this project and the price will drop significantly. At timezone the BB watch has been described as the "Mr. Potato Head" watch since so many case parts can be changed to put out different models. The rep. manufacturer has put a lot of effort into getting this casing just right so now he can put out other models like the genuine makers without having to retool, makes sense, plus any minor flaws will get corrected. Us first acquirers pay the $$ penalty and accuracy penalty.