Logan

The watch looks amazing is real life.. if you're wearing fatigues or a flight suit.. otherwise it's a bit silly in my opinion. Definitely an occasional use weekend watch. I have a Black Steel on an olive drab nato strap that has the same problem

A Stolex Oyster.. sorry mistyped that writing the previous post and it seemed rather appropriate

I always wondered how many stolen watches the service departments pickup, especially now you can't buy parts any place else.

Anyone with half a brain checks a watch immediately you open the package.. if you don't have half a brain.. well thats too bad..

Kim was educated in Switzerland remember..

Very nice work ! Did you do the bead blasting yourself? If so what grade / size beads did you use and where were the sourced from. I brought a little air brush sized sand blaster recently but having trouble identifying the type of beads to get.

Give it time.. our Chinese friends are always improving. Theres nothing wrong with just having one watch of course.. many normal people do that I hear

The brands are hurting so I guess they think cracking down on reps will increase sales. They are probably right to a limited and short term degree, but I've always felt that reps do increase the desirability of a brand. Like the old saying "the only thing worse that being talked about.. is not being talked about". If your designs are not being copied then it means no body cares.

wow.. I wonder how many of those I've read.. even if it's one in ten thats still a heck of a lot.

Half the watches pictured were probably reps. After all domestic China is almost certainly the largest market for the reps we buy. As we're well aware you ever tell from the pictures.

My parts showed up safely this morning. The finish is amazing in person. I hope to spend some time on the conversion this weekend.

The bottom of the SEL's is a bit untidy, but overall it's very good

Of course you can get paid an awful lot of money in Australia at present.. the initial job offer you have is probably only the start. Once you live there a lot of head hunting of talented people goes on. I live in New Zealand but every second person I know has moved to Aus recently it seems.

A very crude way to reduce the diameter of something like that with serious tools is to spin it up in en electric drill, then hold sand paper or a fine file against the spinning screw to remove some metal and reduce the diameter. It's slow going if you need to remove much and not exactly elegant, but without either a lathe or drill press you're only other option is buying different screws.

Why don't they fit? too short, too long, too large diameter?

You have to justify the insane amount you've spent on your genuine somehow. Theres really very little difference in the actual watch when you compare the latest H and Noob offerings. The only difference is the w*nk value of buying in the fancy boutique and being able to boast about it.

I have all my replicas insured.. the insurance co was surprisingly co-operative about it. I had to justify the cost which I did via Paypal and the dealer sites but otherwise it was pretty easy. Of course where I live replicas are perfectly legal to own and import for personal use so your results might vary in other locations.

At a guess I'd say the packaging and the source (China) is the reason they think it's a rep, not the watch itself or the brand. I cannot imagine anyone at customs knowing it's a replica, especially that watch as it's incredibly good. I'd wait for customs to contact you and take it from there. Plead ignorance until you know what they want.

The OP didn't state if the shipment was one watch or a box full..

Weird.. I have travelled the world extensively and have never had even a glance at my watch anywhere. Of course if the one they were checking came from a suitcase full then it's a different story but I'd be very surprised if you'd have a problem with anything off your wrist. I can't speak for Switzerland though, might be different there due to their unique perspective on rep watches If you had a rep in the presentation box in your suitcase then you're possibly up for duty. A tip from my own customs, anything you are wearing is duty free, so if you're a guy who just brought the engagement ring overseas, put it on. You might look silly but it's duty free. Likewise if you buy a loose stone for custom mounting, have a cheap mount made so you can wear it thru customs. For the same reason, I never travel with multiple watches, I know it's cool to have a dress one etc.. but get over the ego and leave them at home. If you must take a second one only and wear it on your other wrist.

I have a feeling we're going to discover how over used the name Noob has been.. I'm sure everyone has noticed that every second watch was suddenly from the noob factory.. I suspect the raids were on 'a' noob factory.. not 'the' noob factory.

What a waste.. his stylist probably picked it for him and told him which clothes to wear it with..

I was at MBK in Bangkok a few days ago and they had all the usual low grade reps on open display, and many more slightly better ones under the counters, But as soon as I asked about ETA or 7750 based reps everyone clammed up and started looking around for police. In a whole day there I didn't find a single rep of the type we have here. The closest was one guy who claimed he could get them delivered by motorcycle within 2 hours, but had to be paid up front. I'm convinced the raids are targeting the new super high grade reps specifically, I've long maintained that the Swiss didn't really care about the tourist grade reps we see all over the place, but the new stuff we're seeing now has them really worried.

I read somewhere recently that something like 75% of daytona sales are to females.. This probably supports that.

I was at MBK a few days ago and could not find anything decent, a few places pulled out a box of slightly better reps after a lot of prompting, but still they were nothing great. I did wonder if it was related to the GZ crackdowns, pretty much everyone was extremely suspicious and starting looking around for police when I started asking about eta or 7750 based reps. I finally found one guy who said he could get better reps delivered by motor cycle from elsewhere on town, but only to order and I'd have to pay up front. They are all being very very careful.