giorgio

But Jay claims: "Sapphire crystal, with awesome double-sided AR coating" - and he hasn't been known to lie about his watches. Slow shipping - yes, lackluster communication - yes, misrepresenting his goods - not that I've ever seen.

You don't see a reflection on this watch either, though.

I look at my phone if I need to know what time it is. I noticed that sometimes I'll have to check my watch three or four times before I remember to stop adoring it and actually make a note of what time it is. I'm sure it's a common problem here.

Nice. I have the 116509 "F" serial(white gold, black face, red hands). Not the most popular one, but always been my favourite. So far so good with the movement (fingers crossed). With three at least if one or two crap out, you still have one to wear.

Darn, I guess that means that my 1:1 perfect sub with a 3035 clone dream is just that.

You guys don't remember what some of the first Daytonas were selling for back when they first showed up with seconds at 6:00 and the right sudial spacing? If they did rep a 3035, they'd probably try to pass the first dozen or so off as gen to pay off the R&D and then slowly drop the price 'till they saturate the market.

I totally agree with that. One of my favourite watches is the Breitling Emergency Fantasy Yellow watch. It has four pushers, a second hand, a countdown bezel, the pearl is horrible. Doesn't come close to any actual Breitling model, but I put it on a brown Breitling strap and it looks awesome, fake, but awesome. Yeah, I wanted a Colt as a humble "cheap for a Breitling" type of watch. I was hoping it would be the quality of the Asian SOSF, This isn't it. I think they used the leftover Seawolf cases to make these.

Great deals, but it took 29 days for my Carrera and Indy to come, so you have to be patient sometimes. Others get their stuff in a week from him, so I guess it's hit 'n miss with the service.

ETA Air kings from $130 ETA Explorers from $130

Wow, when they say 100% mirror image, they're not kidding!

I don't believe there are any swiss parts in an HBB, IWC CD, or Breitling Blackbird rep. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Nice list. I have a couple of those. As for chrono's, Jay has 3 versions of the planet ocean chrono for $150 with a 7750. The subdials are off from the gen, but it's the cheapest mechanical chronograph on the planet.

Been discussed here already I think one of those watches is worth $275 and the other one is worth $300.

Seems like everyone has been on a mission to pick up the perfect replica, and some spare no expense in doing so - spending almost as much as (if not more than) the amount for which they could pick up a decent used gen. Looking at my winder and seeing 2 BCE's, a white gold Daytona, Platinum YM, Sea-Dweller, LV Sub, TT Sub, Super Avenger, Chrono Avenger, SM PO, Carrera, and about half a dozen "bad reps" I decided that I was missing something: A truly believable rep. Sure my latest TT BCE gets a lot of attention from people who pay attention to watches, and the Super Avenger gets noticed by everyone and their mother. But ultimately someone pops the dreaded question: "Is it real?" Get that enough times and it starts to feel like people suspect your Citizen Eco-drive might somehow be fake as well. My first "totally believable" purchase was the Tag Heuer Indy. Azerbyjam did a nice review of it here. Pretty close, authentic movement, and, while it's highly recognizable, I've never been questioned while wearing it. Although it's very sporty, being a quartz model makes it slim enough to wear with a suit. A few weeks ago, I noticed that a couple of dealers here had a repro Colt on their site. The pictures looked decent, and while a little off I figured for $100 it might just fit the bill in the "believable beater" category, so I went ahead and ordered one. I realized that for this price I could have just picked up an Asian SOSF, but that watch is so widespread that some of the AD's here actually have posters of it in their shops - and I wanted something low profile. Although it doesn't look too bad, it's flaws are glaring when compared to the genuine article. First off the case is the wrong size. A genuine is 41.4mm X 12.4mm with 20mm lugs. The rep is listed as 41mm X 15mm. A little thicker than the gen, but not too far off. This however, is not the case. The replica I received was 45mm across and closer to 18mm thick, with 22mm lugs. Seems they had some unused cases (or tooling) from the Avenger/Sea wolf that they put to use. Here are some comparison shots between a BCE and the Super Avenger: Another glaring error is the bracelet. The Pro II, it features flat links, slightly angled to the left. The links on the rep bracelet are cut down to the right. How someone could screw that up so badly escapes me. Also, the bracelet links are pinned together as opposed to using threaded screws. The finish on the bracelet felt horrible, but I must say is rather nice after a quick treatment with some polishing compound. The Dial, although not perfect, is fairly well done. The print on mine is nice and crisp. The markers and hands are okay, and they captured the pattern on the dial with some accuracy. One thing you will notice however, is the rehaut. To make up for the oversized case, the dial sits back what looks to be a good 6 or 7mm. It looks even deeper since the rehaut is conical, to compensate for the greater diameter of the case. You will note that the caseback is a bad copy of the replica chrono avenger caseback (how funny is that?). It is laser etched and features the CA model number and the famous serial number to go with it. The clasp is also laser etched, and is missing the "swiss made, registered model" part. On the plus side, my watch actually passed the pressure test and is water resistant to 10ATM, which means that despite being a bad copy is a good enough watch. The movement is the Asian 2813 - nothing special there -and mine has gained about 2 minutes in 2 weeks that I've had it (about 8 or 9 sec/day), which I guess is okay for a cheap watch, and that can be regulated. Here's what it looks like on my 7.5" wrist: (forgot to set macro, sorry!) All things considered, I don't think anyone should be looking at buying this thing unless you can find it for under $60. I would expect to find this watch on the streets in Chinatown, not on the "Swiss ETA section" of a dealers website. Fantasy watches and faux chronos aside, this is either the best of the worst, or the worst of the better replicas.

The TT bracelet adds about $1000 to the price, so I'd imagine a few people opt out.

I think it comes down this. They see n00bs come in complaining about the $1200 rep they got from euro or bluefakes. Then they look at some of the members' extensive collections. Several members brag about how many gens they own in addition to their reps. So they figure if 10% of the active members on 4 boards can afford to buy 7 or 8 $300+ reps a year, then surely there are a few (insert whatever here) that will pony up $1000 for this watch. That way they can raise the steel versions to $600+ and put the lite version in at around $400. When I saw how many people jumped at the SOSF at almost $400 shipped (I know it's a nice watch, but as far as the sum of its parts go...) I knew this was coming. I'm waiting for Teejay to jump in with his "I told you so!"

I'm willing to bet 50% of the COST is the ceramic bezel. We used to order ceramic bishings and eyelets where I worked, and they ranged from $60-300US. But that was zero-tolerance specs for an industrial application. So lets put these at $150. Add $10 for a decorated rotor, and $275 for the watch with sapphire and double AR (The latest BCE, though I'm sure the BCE costs a lot more than the HBB to produce), and we're still under $500 - and those are RETAIL assumptions.

I almost spewed coffee on my keyboard when I read that ('cause it's true). This is probably my favourite "traditional" British food: It's "Nature's SUPER food!"

It would be quite a stretch to call either of those "traditional" British, considering Balti can be traced all the way back to the '70s

They have all the variations here: http://authenticwatches.com/breitling-chro...gold-steel.html Most Breitling models right off the bat have at least 2 or 3 strap/bracelet choices.

"A very reasonable" $968 - but they'd never charge us that much because "they would find this unacceptable"

It's funny 'cause it's true.

Pardon? Oh, I see! May I ask how you can be so sure that's a genuine dial? Did you order it from Breitling? I think to believe that at the conclusion of a six year production run, Breitling decided to retool their dies so that the Chrono Avenger would more closely resemble the replica would be wishful thinking. But if that is true, then the 8/10 is not the only thing they changed:

Okay, I think I missed part of that. Are you saying this is your first genuine watch, or first generation CA replica? Again, what's genuine, the dial or the watch? Because if the watch is gen, why is the datefont wrong? And if you're saying you replaced the dial on your replica, how can you be sure the dial's genuine? A genuine ETA 7750 would cause the date to line up perfectly in a replica dial window as well. I'm not trying to rag on your watch, just want to clarify what you're saying.