austin870

Unfortunately it is selling very well. I would doubt we would see any significant factory mods for at least 6 months. If it were priced quite a bit higher like the Breitling Steelfish etc I would agree we should expect more. At its current price, this is going to be a great buy for all those who don't want to mess around with the poor quality subs in that price range. If they do improve it you will pay more too. You know how these guys take us deep when they really hit a Rolex big.

I would find it hard to believe the parts are any different than the other colors. That would mean a whole different factory run of parts just for this watch. That is very expensive for a moderately popular watch at best. They pretty much just color them different. I would bet it is the camera angle. These guys are getting better at taking camera shots not flattering the challenges anymore.

Black is a good color for a sport watch. It really shines and looks great during the day. The dial is easily read. If you wear it with short sleeves during the day I like the contrast of the black dial. With a dress watch it is just the opposite. I go white all the way. You will be indoors most, if not all the time. There will be low light rooms for dinners etc, hotels etc. You will also be wearing it a lot at night. The black just disappears in these situations. It would be just another unnoticeable black watch. I do believe the white looks more formal.

I agree they all have their own dynamic and RWG is a great forum. I do believe you can be very deeply involved in a site for information exchange and not be emotionally involved. It is the people who cannot make that distinction that cause most of the challenges. I also think a call to donate is only a request for assistance. It is voluntary and no site access was held from anyone who did not contribute. What I was saying is RWG is by far the most expensive rep site and the only one that charges ongoing "dues" for full site access, which is quite different. This is all fine and nothing is perfect. Change with sites is necessary and it keeps senior participants/mods or dealers from getting too dug in and dominating. On the other hand we need all them, as they are the foundation of information and the products we all seek.

Gold "plated" watches are not too bad but the bracelets are usually a very bad investment. It is not that some do not hold up surprisingly well, you just have no idea what you will get. There is no way to evaluate the quality until too much time has gone by to return. You have to remember, these guys build "fakes" for a living.

I believe these are all prototype pictures put together by who knows just to drum up excitement. I heard they were still working on several critical componants well before all these pictures started floating around. I believe they are still working on them now. I think it will all turn out to be the same watch from the same factory. The actual shipping model will not be any of these. These photos are based on best intentions mixed with whatever the heck they have around. Really, what are the odds of multiple factories working on this watch at the same time within a couple of days of each other for a release??? We just have to wait until someone buys one after they start shipping. Only then are we dealing with reality. Even then their could be significant changes/adjustments after they dump all their old parts like Pug said. Patience.... Patience..... Patience

I like the manual winds. Although I have several, the automatics are lame unless you wear them everyday so they don't run down and have to be reset. Continuously setting the time puts excessive wear on the crown and tube, which are not exactly the strongest things in many of our reps. Winders are about the lamest concept ever. Now I have to buy automated accessories to keep my automatic watch running? Automatics were more designed for the "one watch" guy in mind and they work great for that. If you have 30 plus watches they are really a pain. I do like some of the simpler designs, however I am NOT a fan of date windows.

I think we need RWI. I use these sites for information gathering and not a social club. I don't mind helping others when I can but these new sites have a very small history and very little information available for searches. You have to post everything and hope someone wants to answer. Even then you only have a very limited amount of information from a single post. That is hardly enough to make a purchasing decision. We need RWI for its extensive database of searchable information. I don't care about the politics etc aspect of these sites. You can ignore those. It was also very reasonable for full access and didn't try to peddle features for ongoing and never ending access charges.

This thread is starting to go in two completely different directions. This poster really likes the strong "AR look", which to me meant highly noticeable deep, rich AR. He does not appear to be seeking the extremely light "gen" look which is closer to no AR. If that were so he would not be calling it the "AR look" it would be the "no AR" look. He realizes other people like light AR, yet requested ideas on where to get "strong" AR. Other posters are now trying to talk him into or discuss the "gen" AR look he is not looking for. My response was to get him what he wanted. I believe it is better to be happy with what you bought than have a gen look that does not impress you. If people want to discuss the gen look it would probably be better to start another thread for the um-teenth time on the "gen" AR look on a PAM. We can then discuss every different model and all the other factors involved. We are starting to move this guys thread into the opposite direction he requested.

You are correct. There have been dozens of threads discussing the Panerai AR. It is individual from model to model and differs with manufacturing time periods. They even changed in the middle of manufacturing runs on some models. Someone's perception of the genuine AR color is what they have been exposed to in AD's, real thing and pictures. No AR is also popular on many gen models. I have seen people swear two or three different colored AR were seen for a given model. A lot of that is due to repairs etc. It was probably not the best choice of words to call the yellow "real". It is real for some models and not others. One thing is for certain and that is many reps have/had the yellow and that is currently not an option for us. You get blue/purple or nothing. The blue/purple being darker shades are harder to control and easily become overpowering. I thought it worth mentioning because there are many threads saying the blue/purple screams fake on many models. You are right about single sided. I only mentioned double sided because the custom guys will make the AR however you like or think is "genuine" for your particular model. The dealers are take it or leave it.

It is pretty much all the same AR on the better Swiss Unitas models. Davidson just has the best crystal to put it on. This makes Davidson's AR look better. You have to pay for all the other mods on a Davidson bringing most up to $400 or more shipped. The AR is all the somewhat fake looking blue or purple. If you want real thick AR have one of the custom guys on the board do it for you and you don't have to buy a bunch of other mods with it. They really lay it on double sided and thick if that is what you like. Some are even talking about doing the Panerai yellow/clear color AR very soon!

The Zigmeister, I have not been able to find a thread or post regarding the successful replacement of gen crown and or tube on either version of UPO. There are several threads floundering with no documented success. They are talking about glueing or custom taping holes for the tube and all sorts of things. Could you please post the thread where you got your information on the successful gen parts fix? There are quite a lot of people interested. The proper gen part numbers are floating around here with no problems getting them. There is just no procedure that works. Thanks

Women and PAM's, definetely Yes. Anyone wearing watches with watch lugs hanging off their wrist in the air is...er....um....er... not so stylish looking. I must compliment the enthusiasm of our lady Panerai watch collectors. I do enjoy the posts.

I believe Jay sells the version with the mineral glass. There is a sapphire version with a slightly different dial available as well. It also costs more. I like the dial better on the mineral glass one so I bought that version. I love the heck out of the watch. It just does not follow the big and simple traditional dial for Panerai most people favor. I also replaced the stock rubber band with a black carbon fibre band. The carbon fibre goes well with the waffle dial. I will also replace the white stitching with blue to contrast with the blue seconds hand. Great combo!

I really like the black better. If you go brown definetely the dark brown gator. The lighter brown PAM style straps don't do a thing for me on this watch. I guess if you want to wear it like a sports watch with jeans and shorts all the time those bands are fine. I have lots of watches for that and I like this one kicked up a notch as far as dressier looking. Not many chrono's look good dressed up with leather. Of course you can always have one of each.

I think it is fine to post interesting items from eBay for all. Why let one person out of the entire forum ride solo? If that one guy wants to steal it or bow out early he just wasted everyone else's chances that may have paid more and actually bought the product. It is not like posting it on EBay is some secret society to begin with. There are ten times as many people watching for the last minute as bidding. It is idiots bidding early that establish high pricing and force the product to go for a great deal more than it would or should.

Could I ask what the two front and center pieces on your last pic are and where they are available? They are quite nice.

You should also clarify if you are talking 42.5mm or 45mm model. Silix gets both of these models from completely different factories. Silix 42.5mm is the same UPO everyone has. Their 45mm PO is totally different from everyone's. Paul at Wo-Mart has been selling a so called 5th generation of the 42.5mm for several months.

Thanks People I guess this leads to another question. It sounds like 125X75X5mm would work and 125X80X5mm would give an even longer holed end for thicker straps. The question is if I go 125X80X5mm am I in danger of being on the first hole with no place to go if I need it a bit tighter? I would imagine you want to stay someplace in the middle so you have some versatility. I am not sure how all this works out without a strap this size in front of me.

I am moving up to my first PAM's (177h & 005) and obviously going to be tossing the straps that come with them. I have heard of several people ordering the same size as their 20mm straps were and having problems with the thicker straps being short. I wanted to find out if there is some rule of thumb to go by on a 24mm? I guess these PAM straps average 4.5 to 5mm thick. I have a 7 inch wrist. My deployant strap size for a 20mm is 115 x 75mm Long. What size would I get in a 24mm thick strap? Do I have to watch out for how far down the strap ring holding the excess strap? Some have doubles.

Hmmm.... sounds pretty flawed. I can understand their efforts are well placed. However.....Is that full retail what they purchased their watch for originally or full retail now? Which dealer sets "retail" price? Who is to say what dealer the watch was purchased from originally and what special deal it was part of? Who knows where all these watches came from originally or used and what specific quality of parts may make one distinct from another? What constitutes a mod? I wish them luck in their pursuit of this.

I think a lot of people are buying from Ruby, Silix etc which are typically about 25% or even more lower than Josh and Andrew. They also buy strategically good buys with high demand. They wear the watch for six months or a year and take care of it. They get tired of it and toss it on the forum and someone who only thinks Josh or Andrew can be trusted purchases the watch for what these people bought it for. Prices in general are always moving up for the most part which helps used sales as well. Some products get discontinued. It is not exactly hustlers and suckers but more those who know how to work the system and those who do not. A lot of buyers just don't want to put the time into this hobby many of us have and continue to do. I can't blame them because some things I want to just grab a couple of toys and move on. I did this same thing with gun collecting and I never lost a nickel on a gun buying them strategically. I used them for years and some I sold for more than triple what I bought them for. Ebay does however show there are people out there who are dumb as a post about buying.

I am pretty sure that is a Seagull ST19 movement and not a 7750. It is the one all the dealers call the Lemania or Venus copy etc. They put it in a lot of Radiomir's and other brand 42mm with two subdials. I really like this model. I just can't decided if I want to pull the trigger on this or the rose gold. I already decided the three sub model is too busy in a 42mm case. Reading about the 25mm lugs going to 20mm straps surprised me though. I have to look into that.

Ruby recently had some when she was having all those 036's built. The factory just ran out of 036 builds in the last week or so. I found out the hard way! She was also building 176's with the same thick crown on special order. They may still have Ti crowns. Like myself, you may have just missed the boat in the last week or so.

Thank you a great deal for the information Lefty and it really helps to network on these things. Mine is going back today. The stem is inconsistent in locking down after setting the time. Sometimes it will lock right down in about six turns, other times it won't lock down at all. It is "squirrelly" and does something different every time I set the time, which is quite frequently now that I am checking it out. It will even bind up and appear to be locked down when it is not. Your moisture problem sounds related to the crown not sealing as well. It may not have an O-ring but is should seal a lot better than that. I would imagine the crown being seated correctly or not locking down are causing both problems. I will let you know if I have any other challenges and please do the same.