Watchmeister

Ubi- Very nice date font. On my wrist - one of the Panda twins. Relume and sprayed dial, Finepics date wheel and, of course, old school recase.

Well I hope you figure out your new camera quiker than I am. I have had mine since Christmas and I just found the on-off button. And that lense thing is scary.

Hey Ziggy- For once I guessed right. When in doubt always blame the cannon pinion. By the way I am in Toronto for the day and it is too cold to be believed. They are not even sending the kids to school. What happened to that tough Canadians thing.

The Oyster Bar - come and get them. Oh, yeah, I am Kruzer and I am in way over my head - and damn proud of it.

If you have the budget go with the 2893. On the cyclops the 7mm will be a great improvement. If you can find a Watchmen 6mm cyclops it will be more accurate in terms of actual sizing.

I don't have the answer but maybe this helps. There are at least two different pusher set-ups for the Daylights. One has the pushers going all the way through the movement spacer into the movement. The other has shorter pushers and a spring loaded extender mounted into the movement. On all my daylights the reset button doesn't work until you press the satrt stop button to stop it. If you just got it then ask to return it. If you have let a fair amount of time pass then send it to one of the Watchsmiths. Ziggy had to do a fair amount of rework on a couple of mine when I was switching cases. For that matter, that quality watch deserves a relume.

That was as far as I got. Glad to hear you are happy though.

If you have been unable to get a J12 that satisfies you after several attempts from multiple dealers stop trying to buy it. If you ordered and reordered a $4,000 gen because you were unhappy with it would you keep reordering that?

I may have to cannibalize the yacht for that one of a kind upgrade. Just hope the wife doesn't notice.

Well, maybe I will stick with Ghetto lending at Western Union. It costs a lot but in truth I usually find the dealer will offer a sympathy discount to help make up the difference.

Ziggy- Actually I think he is extremely happy. It turns out that the minute there was any light from lights far away on the water his watches lit up. What he forgot to mention is that when he pulled the watches out of the package they were dark because it was dark out and so the watches hadn't seen the light of day or any other light for that matter for a week. Either that or he does think they suck. TJ- If I am reading your post right you neglected to mention that the reason you were initially disappointed when you pulled them out in the dark was that you forgot that it takes light to make light. Not because it was a crappy lume job. Do I have this right?

You spend the money on the mods because it is worthwhile and amkes a difference to you and nobody else. Every watch I get (unless I conclude I will never wear it when I see it) gets a relume. It looks great and makes me feel better.

Apparently my attention span is not long enough. I got to the end of the thread and thought he was unhappy with the lume.

I would not invest a lot of time or effort into the decorated movement version. Actually I find neither the FA Jones nor the Portuguese Chrono reps very impressive. They feel cheap - at least the decorated movement version on the FA. I have tried on the gen FA and it is light years better. Another example of trying to improve the aesthetics and sacraficing everything else.

Yes, he has run off with our money. Troubles can range from production problems to customs seizing the whole batch he was planning on shipping. He will deal with it and you will get your watch. I bet my money on it as well. Perhaps he should do what websites selling legal branded items do when delayed - "Out of Stock"

It does look like a stick on plate. Perhaps they came out with the rep first.

Looks great.

It's not about doing no wrong. It's about how someone responds when something does go wrong. We are typically buying timepieces coming from around the world thru the various postal systems. Add the facts that it is against the law to sell these timepieces in many countries and that quality control can be quite varied and we can all expect things to not always go perfect. If you have had a bad experience with a dealer the membership wants to know about it and the facts surrounding it. That helps everyone here.

My first threshold is original movement and ability to take gen parts when possible. Then I look at the various "brand" experts and their reviews - Bytor on Omega, Ubi or Nanuq on Rolex, Thomas on AP (still want that Freak - the watch you perverts ) a number of folks on PAM's etc. Finally, in spite of the fact that collector's items do become rarer they do come up on the trading forum and the prices are not usually higher than they were new. Second hand from the right person can have the other benefit of it functioning properly. I would never have had the nerve to buy a seconds at six or DW Daytona new. I do think the collectors items will become fewer but rarer as many brands have larger runs done now. Bit that will make the collecting more fun. Let's face it, Eddie's Pilot Chrono in 100 pieces or the Honpo original 7750 187 in 150 pieces are rarer than the gens. Not as high quality but rarer. I love that and I hope there is a lot more of it.

Very impressive. I feel myself weakening. Especially after the China meltdown last week.

Actually, I don't think the dealers have much option other than to go "public". As I mentioned earlier, the manufacturers have stepped up production big time and the distributors and dealers now have much higher minimums and shorter product cycles resulting in shorter time frames to get rid of the last version. You either go big or go broke. Alternatively a dealer can take a niche strategy but that will severely limit their offerings. It is a very different rep world. Eighteen months ago a run of a thousand for anything other than a cheap Rolex was unthinkable. Now it is the norm across many brands. We do get better aesthetic reps across a broader spectrum of brands this way. It turns out the rep business is no different from any other. Mom and Pop to large scale with room for the niche providers. Our forum is a hiccup whether we keep it private or not. What it does do is jeopardize some of our smaller veteran dealers (Eddie, River, etc.) who remain small and often have day jobs. But I am in favor of anything that protects them.

How much does Moneybookers charge for $350?

Sorry to hear about this. Unfortunately, the dealer is unlikely to make you whole on the Breitlings as he didn't sell them to you. Forget about the watchsmith of course. What I would suggest is to ask the dealer if he could give you a very good price on the breitlling(s) if you still want them. Of course I would hold off on sending any more money until you receive the AP and the Omega. My rule of thumb on broken watches is to try and get them fixed by one of our watchsmiths or locally. If a watch comes broken from a dealer I send it back directly to him. He can decide whether to fix it or send a new one.

I wear one and usually bring another one or two in a simple leather case. All that has happened is that I get complimented on them. The watches don't look brand new and its not like you are carrying the boxes or papers. Concern over Swiss watches in Switzerland is pretty funny. I used to travel to Switzerland monthly and no one ever gave it a second thought. After all, no Swiss citizen actually makes Swiss watches other than the movements in super high-end watches. It is all guest workers.