HauteHippie

What a game, indeed. And yet I'm glad to see, with this article, someone in the press able to talk/write about it without really making any comparisons to 1980, Cold War evocation aside.

Sounds like a good project. Let me know if I can help.

Interesting... I was looking at a 1968 Rolex Date model 1500 that had the sigmas on the dial also. How rare are these? The watch was for sale at $1400 and I almost pulled the trigger. PS sorry to pull the thread off topic.

CGs look fantastic. Next to a shorter (correct) crown I wonder if they'd need to be shortened. Sometimes they are a bit too long. Anyhow, great job so far!

I'm not a Cartier guy either.... but for me, it's always been the Roadster that has had this effect.

It's called "binning" like Intel and AMD do with microprocessors. Normal manufacturing results in variability at the output... Kind of accidental, but they take the opportunity to collect the better stuff and sell it at a huge mark up. I'll stick with normal C3 myself... I've never been disappointed by it.

These have double AR from the rep factory. The outer layer is very thin. I'm not even sure what purpose it serves. The inner layer is very blue. Overall, the crystal has a blue tint and is very reflective from the rep factory. Not terribly attractive IMO.

This one, with a gen Pro-II on it...

Except for when it has a pinkish tint, which is common. The feel of the crystal, and the sound as Pug mentions, is the best way to determine what it is. Temperature -- yes it's the sapphire that stays cooler -- is a good one. And after handling ... who knows how many ... crystals now I've found that weight is usually an obvious "tell". Many/most mineral crystals are simply "too light" for their size to be confused as sapphire.

Wow, you're not kidding. And he has pretty darn good taste in olive oil too.... but his taste in blazers, well.....

Hehe, only gen crystals will do on some of these vintage pieces!! PS, It's not mine anymore... But it is still in the RWG family!

Wet sanding with 4000 grit lightly and evenly around the insert should achieve the desired results. Linky In fact, you might even need a larger grit... 2500 or so.

Here's one that I aged a while ago. I wasn't going for the uniformly faded look as I had seen many shots of genuines with unevenly faded and worn inserts, and I liked the worn look. I think it looks a bit better in person...

V nice. I'm jealous... I only have two!

Very gorgeous, T!

That looks fantastic. Love it! And would love to hear about how you achieved the desired look.

Looking good!

Faulty conclusion. It's better to look at the stats of counties in states that had high crime rates to begin with. The Texas population is ... unique. But Texas isn't unique in having introduced concealed carry. Seems banning hasn't been a good thing either.

I'm not guessing. Across the US, the stats are very clear. Not everyone in Texas is armed, though many/most parts do have relatively low crime rates. Pulling US stats in to the picture, though, is flawed in and of itself. There are many population factors in the US that make comparisons to most other countries extremely difficult at best. But it's still fairly obvious that the deterrent of an immediate, violent death is effective in any country.... except of course where we have to start dealing with religious fanatics seeking 72 virgins in the afterlife or what have you.

Sounds like the government isn't the right tool to use for fixing the problem - one way or the other. Not a big surprise. Not likely. Minor crimes tend to vanish almost entirely, while significant crimes decline drastically.

Wow, what a deranged gun! I wonder what kind of upbringing that gun had. Chances are that gun did not come from a loving family. Hopefully, though, that gun got what it deserved - death lethal injection. Or has that also been banned?

Perhaps the UK should go the opposite direction. 180 degrees opposite... Require citizens to own and carry handguns. How many muggings and violent crimes would happen when the thugs had to worry about an immediate, violent death themselves while committing a crime? It seems fairly clear that the problem can't be solved on the supply side, i.e. you can not take weapons out of the hands of those who want to use them to commit crimes. So perhaps it's time to tackle the demand side of the problem, i.e. the relatively high (much higher since the ban) demand for committing crimes against a defenseless general populace.

So how is it that the ban is "working well"? These bans are designed to reduce gun violence, are they not? It's sort of a rhetorical question. We've seen many times over here in the US that things like relaxed CCW regulations are what actually produce the results that bans are supposed to.

I don't follow the UK's activities, outside of economic matters, terribly closely... But a cursory look at the gun ban situation doesn't reveal to me much in the way of success. And I did remember a statement from the 'home secretary' not too long ago talking about the dramatic increase in gun violence since the ban. I looked it up and here is the quote: Mr Davis said: "While we welcome any action, however overdue it may be, to tackle the scourge of gun crime the Government's own figures show that in 2005/06 there were only eight incidents where deactivated or reactivated weapons were used - just 0.04 per cent of gun offences. "We need sustained action to tackle the other 99.6 per cent of this serious problem, bearing in mind that gun violence has increased four-fold over the last 10 years." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1575147/Government-accused-over-deactivated-gun-ban.html 2008) My understanding is that the ban was enacted in 1997, i.e. the 10 year period over which gun violence skyrocketed was post-ban.