Watchmeister

I just assume that if I buy an Asian 7750 there is a real possibility that I will be swapping it out for Swiss.

Holy cow! I forgot to order a roulette.

We still have additional to sell. It is just time to move on to the next project.

Pug- What di you care?

If you were a dealer with all the public complaining (both deservedly and not) what would you do? You would post the ones that you have excess inventory on. Now factor in that the people here feel enabled and are very quick to run to Paypal inspite of the fact they are buying illegal goods. Oh and last point, there is some fear, which may or may not be true - that our forum is under surveillance by the powers that be and you become a lightening rod for folks who want to shut you down. If I were in their shoes all I would be doing here is posting my website info.

tourby- I agree. Five kids later and the days of Ferarri's are long gone. But I do like the design.

We have had very good demand from all of the vintage fanatics on the recent date wheel offering. We have shipped out the entire first group we made and the second group will be shipped out over the weekend. Since most of the demand has been met, we're now focusing on the next project. We will stop accepting orders on the Vintage Date Wheels on Thursday night. All who bought an overlay can say with a straight face that your watch is one of only 100 correct font versions on the planet. We want you to know that the membership has cooperated beautifully and so we have gone to the next step and invested all the excess proceeds (plus a little of our own dough) into machinery for subsequent projects. Big thanks to all. On this project all of the cutting work was done either by a commercial print shop or by hand. The print shops (and we tried more than one) turned out to be expensive and left us with long lag times as the big shops are not very interested in tiny projects. In the end we had custom dies built to the exact size of the original overlay and stamped them out by hand. Because we felt tolerances to within .03mm or better were needed, it was both painstaking and left us with a lot of rejects. So we are going to bring the cutting in-house and automate it. As we speak we are awaiting delivery this week of a high quality sizing and cutting machine which we bought from a print shop which was doing its own upgrading. We ended up getting it for a great price and it can be programmed to world-class cutting tolerances - within .005mm. The best part is that we can now cut inserts for any date wheel. It also reduces our turnaround time and costs and, best of all, reduces prices on subsequent projects. Next Project - Inserts for Asian 7750 and Asian 21j In truth we had planned to start offering the 7750's immediately as we do have a few working prototypes that we had printed and cut commercially. They do look great and have passed the muster of several knowledgeable folks. However we want the final product to be: 1) 100% accurate in every way 2) Substantially cheaper than the cost of new DW's. 3) Not subject to the potential difficulties of putting a new OEM date wheel into Asian movements. Over the next week or two we will be learning how to program and run the cutting machine. At the same time the print shop is attempting to improve what we already have. The technical person at the print shop believes he can throw a little more ink on the numbers to improve them in terms of formation and height. He is convinced he can improve upon our current version. He's also willing to give us a better price for a larger number. The Asian 21j will come out shortly thereafter. With the new cutting machine and based on our conversations with the print shop we should be able to (and I stress should ) be able to do the 21j's within a couple of weeks after the 7750

Well the chronograph has no date but the "tachymeter" is in yellow on the inner bezel on the rep but white on the gen. I am sticking with the automatic as I know I can change the date font with the upcoming overlay anyhow.

That is what I want to know.

Chad- Stop whining. You want perfection buy the gen. It is a well known fact that the day/date version of the Asian 7750 almost always has this problem. Yeah, all of them unless you get very lucky. I have two GST's as well as this one with the same issue. It is an issue with the factory that makes the movement not the rep factory. If you want to take your watch to the next level you can relume and fix the datewheel issue with a Swiss movement. You then end up with a very good rep but the cost rises to $550 or so and you are now at 10-15% of gen cost. That is what it takes to take your rep to the next level. Here is your connection for $150 7750's: http://www.rwg.cc/members/index.php?showto...mp;#entry215772 The one caveat is that you have to have a watchsmith who can refit the hands.

Agreed that the 17j is not as good as 25j. But I am picking up a half a dozen or so well for well under a thousand and will keep one or two for spares. I am just grateful that they come in good shape and keeping good time. These ones are headed into the EL Pilot Chron, PAM 243, IWC GST Chrono and a couple of others. Tourby- I did lose you, at what price can I get a 25j? I hadn't seen one for under $250-300 or so including shipping with the exception of occasional one-offs.

Yeah, baby! Projects like these are priceless. Jeff- wear it well.

They do look really good. The only thing I see after a quick perusal is that the inner subdial bezels maybe a little too thick but I am still incredibly tempted. Someone else please add whatever else you see. But which one to buy?b The GMT looks damn good but you can never swap out the movement. The automatic can take a Swiss movement with a little hand adjustment. Decisions, decisions.

It doesn't take a Honpo to drive the new product bus. When they used to do their exclusives they were buying the watch and providing a 150 piece minimum. Now the manufactirers are doing a 1,000 pieces themselves at a time.

WTF. You can't make this post and not supply pictures. You don't deserve to get yours first. Okay, new approach. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

New Ferarri's, etc. New models are coming far faster over the last few months than ever before. The reason why you are seeing fewer second generations is that the first generation is getting better. Rep industry is not shrinking - quite the opposite. It has grown exponentially. It is only now gearing up for relatively rapid 1,000 piece runs based on the actual gens. What is suffering is quality control as a result as the factories are still learning. Heck, they are even beginning to develop dedicated movements. Too bad the ETA's are slowly disappearing just as the aesthetics are getting better.

So far, Eddie has been kidnapped by strippers, started a Chinese restaurant and turned his business over to his friend and now he eats, shoots and leaves. That is why I love this place. Three different answers and none of them right.

tourbi- I completely missed your original offering and those prices are what I have paid in the past for new properly serviced 7750s. I just concluded that it was too good to pass up 7750's for half of what I normally pay. At $150 or so it enables me to upgrade many more watches and keep a spare or two.

Is this a trick question?

The Bond is definitely real.

Even the Paneristi may find themselves priced out of their own brand with a minimum price of $25,000. Personally, I think PAM is smoking dope on those prices. But then again, if you only make 50 pieces of each you never know.

You didn't.

Prime suspect for next set of serial killings.

Tourby- I know you are an expert on movements and able to source things very well. However, for the layman like myself it is a little different. A typical "Swiss" 7750 movement which may or may not be built from used parts and may or may not have quality assembly is running anywhere from $225 on a good day to $275 on a bad one. On these movements they are 17j not 25j and are years old. That is the bad news. However the good news is that it is a true Swiss movement similar to the movements that suppliers sell at close to $400 (albeit the older model). And the first one I got I had tested and inspected by Ziggy. He came back and confirmed it is 100% Swiss, properly serviced and oiled and timed out at COSC quality. By the way my all-in cost for several was way under $175 to the door.

I don't think so but in truth I don't remember. It shipped to Ziggy as soon as I got it. I didn't care as I am planning on using the datewheels from whatever watch I am swapping the movement for. They all will take both the day and datewheel. If you are doing one particular watch you were probably smart to use the more modern version. I am planning on swapping out a Breit, several PAM's and an IWC or two so full retail was going to get prohibitively expensive.