Watchmeister

Standard 1680 frankens are impossible to build reasonably relative to the price of a gen. If you are patient dial and hands do come up frequently. I paid $300 for a great dial vetted by Ubi and a Yuki case for $125 and still didn't move forward. Here is a recently sold set of dial and hands and a whole watch. http://www.ebay.com/...=item2314a73cd0 http://www.ebay.com/...%253D#cvip_desc With proper movement and dial and hands you are into the watch for $3k and a gen is $4k ish. So I would save up and buy the complete watch.

In full agreement you should send it back. From my perspective the minute you have a real issue it should be sent back whether for replacement or refund. That depends on the dealer and the problem. Dealer certainly can't replace or refund without the watch being back in their possession. Obviously these things don't happen on purpose - otherwise they would be out of business. The one other thing I would add is never go the route of getting it repaired locally. The minute you go that route you have abrogated all your rights and it is no longer the dealer's problem. Most problems I see stem from folks who for whatever reason are not willing or don't want to send it back and then end up in a complete screw up. "The repairs were too expensive", "the repairman did not successfully repair it", etc. I feel so strongly about it that I would tell folks who aren't willing to send back a defective watch to China not to buy a rep in the first place.

Have they improved the deployant clasps since the 1st or 2nd version of the XL's? Both the one I got with an original XL LE v2 and a second one I bought separately broke. Also, I have seen an increase in the number of Chopards I am seeing in the wild. Chopard opened up a boutique in my neighborhood a couple of years ago but I haven't gotten close enough to one on a wrist in real life to see whether it is just an increase in rep sales. I still say the rep is one of the best out of the box.

The strap really does make it more sporty. I concluded since it is one of my smaller watches to use it more as a work watch so after trying a number of different approaches - carbon, brown leather with studs, etc. I am right back to a simple black croc. No pics today though. No access to photobucket.

Noob, Noob, Noob......!

+1

I am a more simplistic person. Everything can be blamed on free/cheap money and lax credit policies - irrespective of who was in office. Free money caused the average consumer to borrow and then spend too much whether on homes or tv's. Free money caused the banks to do the same thing. Borrowing at very low rates and then making loans to people or businesses who had no business borrowing or simply using the borrowing to lever up the balance sheet to take what turned out to be unlimited risks. Heck, the U.S. government did the same thing and they print the money. And as to how we are going to reduce government spending? This should be interesting - if each of defense, social security and medicare/medicaid which have largely been regarded as untouchable take up approximately 20% of our annual budget it is going to be a very interesting debate. One last thought. What do you think of the concept of one term limits? That way all of these megalomaniac politicians will focus on something other than the next election.

Exactly right. When I was referring to "older industry CEO's" I was referring to CEO's of older industries which can be read as widget manufacturers in WIsconsin. The 60 year old CEO in Los Angeles ain't wearing a Rolex Datejust.

+1

Sander has posted them in the AP section. As far as I know he did a couple for himself and friends but isn't doing it anymore. Also bear in mind the projects are expensive no matter who is doing it. The basic rep with movement, gen dial and work starts at $3.5k and if you add hands, crown, pushers, etc. that price will quickly swell fairly dramatically.

That pearl does look good. I have to take back what I said because all my watches are tritium based and so I tend to swap out the pearl for the more primitive tritium pearls. Historically they come up on Ebay from time to time or another member helped me out and provided it.

You can try him.

No. Americanized names are incredibly common for business people in Chinese businesses. Westerners can never get the spelling or pronunciation correct.

A WIS with a sense of humor.

And I was about to start chastising you. Stunning piece. And I have to agree the crown is the cherry on top on that one....

I have always assumed everyone was changing the pearl on the WM inserts.I never thought they were particularly good.

Great reference thread. I have always felt that If I had the money I would go for a vintage rather than a new one,

Great info. I never would have known that there was a reasonably priced case with He valve. I thoroughly enjoy posts which show the beginning of a project and then follows its further development. On the dial you currently have - that was an original t service dial and you actually relumed it?

Great write-up. I had always heard about the Pre-V debates but never knew the specifics. Folks like you and Wolf have forgotten more than I will ever know.

Many older industry USA CEO's do wear Rolex. They tend to be 50-65 so they first encountered watches in the 60's and 70's. When they were growing up it was the status watch. No one in the USA wore the haute horologie brands. And there is a whole generation of CEO's for whom a Gold Rolex means you have arrived. But most of those folks own only one watch. It was either a gift or bought as a simple status item. From my own observation very few foreign CEO's wear Rolex. I most often see IWC. The next most popular are AP's and after that I see a smattering of Jaeger's, Patek's, etc. Also age is critical. We all forget there was a 10-20 year stretch where a thin quartz watch was the it watch. I have to agree that most of the folks with really interesting watch collections are entrepreneurs, traders or just younger wealthy people. And on the younger tech CEO's many don't even wear a watch. They have a cellphone or blackberry.

Looking forward to seeing your purchase. And to reiterate if you have any concerns once you see those pics either post or ask an expert to look at them. Dealers post QC pics for two reasons. First, because once one dealer did it everyone else has to as well or they are not competitive and won't sell as many watches. And second, dealers are trying to reduce the number of returns. Read the fine print about okaying QC pics. You own it. So if you are satisfied with what you see I agree with the adage of respecting your dealer's wishes and don't post pics. But if you are concerned get a second opinion - whether privately or publicly.

Your timing is impeccable. With the whole new generation of PAM reps you can now get something very nice right out of the box. 104 looks great. There is also a wonderful comparison by Puretime on two of the top PAM factories' reps versus gen for the hand winds which in addition to being a good comparison is also an excellent primer on what to look for in a rep. In any case, enjoy the ride.

I am a huge fan of EMS (which is the equivalent of Priority in the U.S.). It costs too much but I concluded years ago that I was better off buying fewer reps and insuring i get them. By the way I have the same experience with China. The U.S.-China route works surprisingly well. Over the last couple of years the time of shipment seems to have fallen a lot. 2-3 years ago EMS took 3-4 weeks, Now it is anywhere from 1-2 with an occasional 5 day surprise. And yes, the tracking is often worthless other than to tell you the item actually shipped. And I am in a 100% agreement. No tracking number - no point.

If the Blancpain is much more your wrist size (only your opinion matters) than go for one of those. I am not sure if that is one of the more accurate versions but there are a number. I have worn a lesser priced gen (no nuclear crap) in the past and actually thought it looked rather elegant for a sport watch - even under a suit.

I am with you that posting QC pics simply for the sake of posting them is a waste of everyone's time. But if you feel incompetent to judge because you do not know the brand or the specifics of a version or you are genuinely concerned with what you are seeing you should post away. First and foremost we are here to help and protect our members - not dealers. Let's face it the dealers are now big volume business and I am convinced that even with the best of intentions they don't always have the time to properly look at all the watches they are shipping out. It isn't like they are selling gens where only a few sell every month.