Watchmeister

I agree. Give it up - if you want the bracelet you are going to have to buy it.

Perhaps their is more profit in generation one and we idiot savants are not their only customers.

Actually you should look at this auction to see a classic example of market manipulation where Rolex will personally make sure the prices stay up by quietly buying those most expensive pieces which do not find a home with collectors. There was a fabulous article on the auction house in the Wall Street Journal.

I am with Arch on this one. Clean up the dial, new crown and cleaner bezel and then you have a winner. After the original SFSO and BCE the standards are very high for Breitlings. I actually love the styling as it is a larger scale Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. I can't wait for the second generation.

Different size watches as well (42 vs 44mm). If you are determined to avoid buying a bracelet you might have better luck with a standard inge bracelet as it is a 40mm but even if it works it would look silly (too small).

Will someone out this guy, please. http://cgi.ebay.com/Panerai-PAM-183-Black-...1QQcmdZViewItem

San da Claus.

I can testify having seen the gen both with rubber and the bracelet that the bracelet makes it appear much more substantial. It also dresses it up under a suit. Rubber does look good but with a Cousteau it is not a must have. See, I can rationalize anything.

Looking very nice. I agree the bracelet makes it a very different and more substantial watch. How does the inner bezel line up versus the dial? Like Cousteau or better?

S- You are going to have to work on that.

I was being sarcastic. It is anything but wood.

Here is my fully 196. Mods include: Ziggy relume, Lello Date wheel and older genuine crown fitted by Ziggy:

I vote for II (BCE). Cousteau issues include inner bezel out of alignment relative to gen, somewhat cheesy "wood" on the back and obvious lack of lume relative to the gen (especially on the inner rotating bezel). I have not seen the Navitimer in the flesh but have read various criticisms. EVO 2 with second gen dial is probably one of the best out of the box.

I also forgot to add that the other reason why I avoid the 250/251's is they changed over the crown guard to a pseudo-historic (with lever centered on the vertical plane).

Ttk- Thanks for sharing. The Volcano is a fabulous watch. I had a chance to see a gen in the flesh and it is very cool. The orange makes it less versatile but at the cost of a rep you can afford to have a weekend beauty like that.

As already mentioned this issue has been well covered. Beyond the production issue it appears that there is already an increasing lack of availability of ETA's at reasonable prices to the Chinese rep manufacturers. ETA reps are now rarer although certainly available and in the case of a number of reps that use them their prices have risen accordingly. On the manufacturer side we are already seeing many new movements and layouts as manufacturers continue to expand their offerings beyond Rolexes and Eta based gens. So I don't think it slows anything down. ETA's are still readily available but not at prices that work for the rep makers.

I am with you on the vintage kick. I have declared this year the year of homage to vintage PAM's (with a lot of help from other forum members which is one of the things that makes those projects so fun). Two years ago was the year of vintage Rolexes.

The whole bezel issue on the 251 kept me away from it as well. You can fix it by swapping the part from the Asian 7750. But, IMHO, the bigger issue is the dial itself. The metal surrounded hour markers always look way off on reps of PAM's which have them. Either the overall marker size is wrong or the metal bezel around the lume is too thick or too thin depending on the rep. For that reason I have always stayed away from the 251 and submersibles that have the metal surround on the hour marker.

Be very careful on the "genuine" 1680 dials. There are very few and they are usually fairly expensive if they are in reasonable shape. Beyond Ziggy I am not sure who else offers the service.

I don't have to look. No way.

D- Your 63 is looking really good. Enjoy that baby. With a Ziggy relume and 2893 movement that watch is a keeper. By the way, for whoever asked about the hands they should all be black (except the center second hand which is silver).

I too like the bracelets but have the same issue with rep bracelets (no tapering). They do look great on a submersible though. My favorites (gen) are the polished steel combined with brushed ti.

Actually, I had something a little less expensive in mind. Walk into any AD and look at any of those Aquatimer SS cases. They are all brushed the same way.

Lello- I don't know what the answer is. What I do know is that I see gen IWC's all the time and prior to the pics above I had never seen polished sides on any of the Pilots or Aquatimers. On the brushed finish on the rep it certainly is not near genuine but is better than many reps. I don't own the Slevin but do have the 2006 CD. IMHO, the brushing is fairly good on that one. On most reps if you are determined to make them as accurate as possible you will need to rebrush the brushed areas. The tricky part is that different genuine manufacturers use different methodologies and so you need to look closely at the brushing technique on a gen before doing it yourself on your rep or you end up with "too heavy" or "wrong direction" brushing.

Excellent advice. The average stand-alone movement is in bad shape and very expensive.