The Mentalist

Dude, stop masturbating. Seriously though, hope you get well soon. Sight is the most precious sense (apart from humour). Sorry to hear about your woes.

Don't be so hard of the fella. The first time I heard the term I thought the dial lume was filled with radioactive cheese. Sort of like an emergency ration for Italian Navy frogmen. if they got stranded behing enemny lines they could eat their watch dials in an emergency. Seriously a sandwich dial is a dial made by sandwiching a layer of lume between two metal plates with the hour markers and numbers cut out of the upper most plate revealing the lume in the middle.

Agreed. Speaking of which, when was the last time you were taken up the Ar$enal?

It's a watch face that always tells you it's time for a sandwich no matter what the time is.

Honestly? Nope.

I've been staring at mine for the past 15 minutes under a 30x loupe and I can't really see what's wrong with the A. Sometimes I think you folks have too much time on your hands.

fair enough. It was $25 the last time I checked. That's hyperinflation for you.

I'm not looking to install the dial but cannibalise Silix's logo from his dial and install it on the UPO dial. Apparently it fits as the pin spacing on both dials are the same.

Thanks buddy! I know Silix sells just the dial for something like $25 (it is well documented on here as others have bought the dial from him). Maybe if you were to shoot a mail to him and ask him to confirm the dial is the one he has on the site? Still for

I suspected as much that he's selling them. Jay is acting like a tool because I cancelled several orders from him in the past because I got sick of waiting months and he's never forgotten it. Any UK based members care to help me out by ordering one for me on my behalf?

Fantastic! let me know if you find it. Sure, the hands may be reasonable, but when you add the cost of the bezel, tube, face, double AR and labour, you get into dangerous territory. To put it into perspective, I could get a near mint SMP for the money. Often I think modding is almost an illness in the same way that gambling is. 'Losses' become 'near wins' and when a rep becomes so modded with real parts that it almost becomes a gen, ultimately it isn't, no matter how much you spend on it. The law of diminishing returns bites hard.

Yes but it means ponying up for the gen hands too otherwise the lume won't match. Once you're all done, you not too shy of a used Gen. All I want off the Silix dial is the logo to mount onto my UPO dial.

Silix won't sell me one. If anyone can get hold of one of these dials from Silix, please let me know, as it's holding up my UPO mod project. Whilst it's his prerogative not to do business with me, I still think his entire attitude stinks.

In my experience, that's how it works. They make legitimate watches during the day and on the side they crank out reps with the full consent of the factory bosses.

I commissioned a custom pocket watch in China for myself via my Chinese point man. The Shenzhen factory in question seemed very skilled in replicating details which rang a few alarm bells so I asked them if they did 'reps' on the side. Put it this way, it's not as closed a shop as it would appear to be.

I'm chinese and that cracked me up. Then again, I have an accent like Hugh Grant so maybe I'm not the most suitable chinaman to judge.

Yes, and arguably the most famous rep car of them all. A genuine Ferrari Daytona 365 GTS/4 spyder, at mid eighties auction prices was ridiculous (I've heard up to $10 million a car) so it was not only impractical, but downright stupid to use a real one. The McBurnie Corvette based replicas were therefore used, albeit modified with real Ferrari hardware such as real Borrani wheels and decals. At the time noone could have guessed that the rebodied Corvettes used would get so much attention and this really annoyed Enzo Ferrari off so he started legal proceedings against McBurnie and the wider Daytona replica business which meant that they had to cease trading. You can still get Daytona replicas, but they are very much under the radar now. Rowley Corvette make an awesome one and one day I will probably splash out if they can make me a RHD version.

Yes, and there were actually three Testarossa's. Two were real and a third was a Testarossa 'stunt' car based on a De Tomaso Pantera which was destroyed after filming as part of the product placement deal with Ferrari. The Daytona Spyder was a 79 corvette with a custom bodykit built by Tom McBurnie. They originally belonged to car dealer Al Mardikian but were confiscated by the Feds and sold at an auction in Palm Beach where Michael Mann saw them and bought them for the show.

I don't see what the big deal is. Replica Ferraris on MR2's, Fieros and Peugeot 406's have been commonplace and legal for years. My local bodyshop builds a near identical 360 on a a 406 doner and real Ferrari hardware for around

you be needing one of these: www.headblade.com

Angus aka Puretime. You can PM him. I highly recommend his 111e. Perhaps the best out of the box PAM rep out there.

The 'closed factory' Seamaster was nigh on perfect so we all know it is possible. The Panerai Ferrari's and the SFSO are all virtually perfect too. What their reasons are for not doing it are their own. We have to live with it.

The way they see it, is that they can release upgraded models and this leaves them room to do it.

It's a cliche around these parts but pick your dealer first, then your rep second. Whilst you can never be guaranteed a perfect rep, you can mitigate against the worst happening and you being landed with a turkey by choosing a dealer who has integrity. Personally I put my business with Andrew or Angus. I also hear Narikaa is very good and so is TTK as both inspect their watches prior to shipping as an extra layer of QC. For PAMs, Angus is your man. And one other word of advice. Lose the attitude when replies don't come as quickly as you would like. It tends to have the opposite effect.