TheDukeZip

I normally don't post to the wrist check since I wear the same Tag Link GMT every day (young hip casual look) However, today is my birthday, so I upped the ante a bit and wore my favorite rep today, Seamaster Pro GMT

Geez Vic you're making me cry over here. Seriously. Be understanding of the sensitive young men in the house. Great story though.

:lol: That needs to go in your sig.

If this counts as a niche I'd say my niche is GMT watches. I only have 3 reps so far (I'm new) but they're all GMTs, and I have no desire to purchase a rep that isn't a GMT. I've read all about how bad these hacked up modified for GMT movements are but so far I haven't had any problems.

Thanks Corgi! It definitely has a unique look. I wore it to a wedding recently and caught a few people staring at it in the corner of their eye, but no one said anything. Maybe they thought it was ugly? I love it though. And yes, I purchased it from Joshua.

I'd love to see some pics of yours if you have taken some!

Best wishes to Ken and his family.

Hi vric. The dealer offered to send me a new one and keep this one for parts. A case opener I ordered arrived today so I am going to open the case and maybe experiment and try to figure out what is wrong. If I am able to fix the problem and put it back together in one piece, I'll put up a little guide. No promises though, I'm not sure if disassembling a movement is up my alley.

Well after hearing the reply on here I pretty much decided that I wasn't going to be able to fix it and I contacted the dealer since it was new. He offered me a free replacement and to keep this one for parts so I accepted. Good thing I didn't try to fix it myself!

I debated mentioning that in the first post but I thought it would be fun to see a few reactions first... bad decision on my part I guess. Oh well, no need to be on the lookout and get out of the way if TheDukeZip is on your tail, it's all good. If anyone else has the same car and you want to know how to do this... 1) put your key in but don't turn 2) push and hold trip/reset 3) turn lights on 4) turn ignition to on (the notch before start engine) 5) quickly turn lights off, on, then off again (you have 5 seconds to do this) 6) release trip/reset, then push and release it 3 more times quickly (you have 5 more seconds to do this) now you're in diagnostic mode. every time you press trip/reset the guages do a sweep and all the lights blink. Take lots of crazy pictures! to exit diagnostic mode, just shut the ignition off

Thank you for everyone who read this and give it a few seconds of thought. The dealer has proposed an acceptable solution. I deleted the video of the watch.

I heard the hairdryer trick is better, do a search for hairdryer. it's the last few pages of a thread somewhere.

Corgi... did you ever resolve this issue? I am having an identical issue with one of my watches and have been reading up on movements, contemplating attempting to service it myself (not worth sending it out for a $100 watch, no?) I had posted my problem along with a video in the Watch Repairs area but on a search today I stumbled upon your nice post here

Yes! Keep it slow! Obviously there is something up with the photo before too many people scold me for almost killing people The car was parked and it has a diagnostic mode where you can make the dials sweep up and down and all the lights blink. If you time the photo right, the lights aren't blinking and it looks almost real. I would never get the engine that hot!!!

20 minutes until the meeting and 50 miles to go... 150 ought to do it...

I used to work for UPS so I can answer this one. It means something out of the ordinary happened. Usually this means they tried to deliver it but it required a signature, so they left a notice instead. Exceptions can also be for example it got stuck on one of the conveyor belts at a hub and they found it after the trucks left so the had to except it for a day and it will be back on schedule tomorrow. If your box broke open and they had to rebox it, you called in and changed the delivery address... anything like that.

If the guy wants to cause I scene I would start pointing out all the tells right away. I guess you have to follow rules though which is respectful. Hopefully you'll get more stories and soon enough you can start a Stores From Trance's Pawn Shop thread.

Thanks dluddy. As you can tell, I've become watch-happy, which is not so happy for my bank account. Luckily they're not gens!

I purchased this watch because I needed an elegant and sophisticated looked rep to wear to a few summer weddings. I had a pretty good idea what I would be wearing and I was looking for something with a light brown colored leather strap. I have a thing for GMT watches, so the Vacheron Constantin was a perfect fit. I have seen a few reps of this watch from searching on this board that are more accurate than this one, but I couldn't locate one being sold at this time. Perhaps because I'm new to buying reps and didn't feel comfortable messaging every possible dealer trying to track one down. This particular version seems to a bit more common although it also has a number of flaws. I saw close up photos of the rep before I purchased so I was not devastated that it did not look exactly like the gen. The fact that the hour, second, and GMT hand are distributed amongst 'complications' give the watch a very unique look. The most noticable flaw is that the Vacheron Constantin wording font is too small, but as I mentioned, this does not bother me. The subdial spacing is a little off, as well as the design of the subdials themselves. More tricky to notice flaw is the date '7' is actually reversed from the gen., as well as the 30 missing from the bottom of the watch. I like to compare this watch to karaoke... When they start playing the song it says "In the Style of..." It isn't exactly like the original but it is beautiful anyways. The crown does not screw down, so I am unsure if I would dare to take this watch into the water. There is a pusher button on the top right for incrementing the GMT time in one-hour increments. There is also an inset button under the crown for advancing the date. The crown pulls out to set the time, but the movement does not hack, so if you're trying to synchronize down to the second, you'll need to set the other watch to this one. After wearing the watch for a day, I left it on my desk for the next two days and carefully monitored when it no longer was keeping good time. It happily kept perfect time for 45 hours and died 15 minutes later, a great power reserve! The GMT hand clicks over once per hour at 47 minutes past the hour and has been spot on for two weeks. This exact timing doesn't make much sense to me, perhaps there is a way to resolve this by opening the case and get it to click over exactly on the hour. I am still trying to figure this out. Like the gen., the case flips open in the back to expose the Asian 21J movement. Again, the appearance is nowhere near the genuine, but it looks great all by itself. If you are showing this to the average non-watch person, their reaction to seeing an exposed automatic movement is just "Whoa, cool." The shading of the strap makes this a perfect watch for hot summer nights out on the town. Below I'm wearing it with a seersucker sport coat. I'm not confident I would wear this as is with a dark brown jacket as shown below. This could be easily resolved by replacing the strap with a darker brown, or you could do black with black of course.

After rereading what I wrote, what I said about the GMT hand was possibly confusing. I purchased 3 watches with a modified Asian 21J for GMT. The other two 'click' over to the next GMT hour at a certain time every hour. This GMT is slightly different. Instead of homing in on a specific hour and then clicking over, this one continuously moves. For example, if you have the GMT set to 10 and the time is 6AM, at 6:30 the GMT hand will be halfway between 10 and 11. I actually prefer this method, except for the fact that the GMT hand gets a little misaligned over time. After you set it, the GMT hand is right for roughly 12 hours, when you will start to notice it has slipped a little bit and is ahead. It seems to pretty consistently slip a half hour ahead every 12 hours. Not bad if you set it once a day, or once in the morning and once at night. From what I understand from reading and searching here, this is pretty common with these movements modified to be GMTs.

Thanks for replying. I have actually gone ahead and made a short video of the problem here Today I noticed that the second hand stopped at all different times, not just 42. In the video, it likes stopping around 50-51. I am now trying to figure out if it always stops at a certain angle to the minute, hour, or GMT hand. In the video you can see that if it's stopped and I pull the crown out, the second hand jumps. Sometimes the second hand does not jump until I push the crown back in. Once the crown is pushed back in, it starts up a bit. Also, manual winding gets it going for about a minute which I show in the video. What I did not get to show in the video because my memory stick ran out of room was that once you shake wind it, it goes for minutes to hours without stopping again. When I shake it towards the end of the video it looks pretty violent but I promise it wasn't as bad as it looks. I don't want to get reamed for shaking my watch too hard!

I had seen a few reviews of this watch on this board which is actually why I decided to purchase it. I was willing to accept the flaws noted in all of the reviews, including By-Tor's Omega overview, which I expected to include misaligned bezel, bad looking pearl, screw bracelet, and non-transparent back. I was looking for a fancy watch I would wear with a black sport coat and this watch seemed to be the answer. I admit I have always been drawn to the Omega Seamaster with skeletonized hands (aka "bond") since I saw Pierce Brosnan sport it in Goldeneye. Not something to be proud of, but give me some points for honestly. Of course, that movie came out when I was in high school and could never dream to afford it. Nowadays, purchasing this watch is a possiblility, but it is nice to buy the replica first to see if I truly like it, if it fits my personality, before I splurge on a $2K purchase. I am really into GMT watches, hence purchasing the GMT version. A $100 minutely flawed replica seemed perfect. I would only be wearing it on Friday and Saturday nights, and most people I hang out with wouldn't know the difference between a Folex and a Rolex anyways. I was pleasantly surprised by my rep. I do not know if I got the luck of the draw, if quality control has increased on this watch, or perhaps I was accidentally send the "wrong version" by mistake. Either way, I love this watch. Please excuse my crude pictures. I have done the best I can without any fancy lighting or photo equipment. As you can hopefully see, the bezel came aligned properly out of the box. In addition, the pearl seems always perfectly sized and placed to me. The bracelet comes with pins instead of screws, which from what I gather so far, is accurate. It also came with two half-sized links, which helped me size it perfectly for my wrist. The GMT movement is slightly flawed. Over a period of 12 hours, the GMT hand with move forward about a half hour. After 24 hours, it is a full 1 hour ahead, which could confuse you. As long as you understand the problem and set it properly when you put it on, it is good enough for a day's use. Since it's my "Friday night special" watch, I can easily set it around 6 or 7 PM when going out for dinner, and it is still nearly perfect on spot by the time the night is over in the wee hours of the morning. I was worried this watch was going to be too big for my wrist. I weight 200 lbs., but at 6'5" that still makes me pretty thin. I'm 26 years old, and although I could afford the gen., having a huge expensive watch only would draw unwanted attention to myself. When I put it on, I instantly smiled, because the size complements me perfectly. To take a line from Will Smith, I make this watch look good! I hope you enjoyed my little write-up. This is actually 1 of 3 reps I purchased for my first watches. If I get some responses here I will make little write ups of my other 2, which I have not seen reviewed on any sites before. PS. This is where you guys tell me all the flaws you see and ruin the innocence of my favorite rep. so far The only flaw I know about is the back has the normal Seamaster back, not the clear one. To take a line from a review I saw elsewhere on the site, I'd rather have the wrong back than put the wrong movement on display. The only other possible flaw is the date font, my eyes have not yet become attuned to the different fonts yet.

I recently purchased a watch using the Asian 21J movement. When the seconds hand gets in between 42 and 43 seconds, the watch completely stops moving and ticking. It will start back up if I give it a good shake to get the seconds hand to about 45, but then it stops a minute later at 42 or 43. I could probably talk to the dealer and try to send it back but who knows how long that could take. If this is an easy fix I'd rather just attempt it myself and if I screw up just eat the cost of the watch. Anyone have any ideas?

Happy Birthday Vic! I am actually watch-less today Mainly because the one rep I have doesn't go with my outfit today, and I am still awaiting two reps (including what soon-to-be daily casual watch) to be released from customs. Why oh why did I have to look at the tracking...

I just realized my first post was to another topic and a few people started saying welcome, I didn't mean to hijack the thread ! So as my second post this can be my welcome post, I have been lurking for a week or two on this and a few other choice replica forums, and I just received my first rep today. It's a Vacheron Constantin Malte Dual Time Regulateur and it is the best watch I have owned (so far!) There are two more on the way! I hope to take some great pictures and post a little write up when I have a chance. Thanks for having so much info on this forum and preventing me from getting ripped off