cougar1

Anyone familiar with the rep smp 'speedy' bracelet? Model no 1610/930....i.e. this type, not the bond type: My question is does this particular bracelet have gen like construction with the standard pins and sleeves, and will it accept gen parts clasp and endlinks without issue? Also who is one of the better dealers to just ask for just a bracelet from?.....Or does anyone have one to sell? Cheers!

Lol

I heard all about this, and even the payment was made as a 'gift' and they still went with the dispute and sided with the buyer! Or was that another case I am thinking of?..Another case where someone requested a custom build and even asked the builder to source gen parts (sub) and supplied some of his own. Then decided mid way through the build they didn't want the watch, but had paid 50% deposit paid to secure the watch and now wanted a refund on this. The seller refused as he was then left with the sourced parts. He offered to forward the parts to buyer and subtract the cost of the parts from the deposit. The buyer said 'no' filed a dispute requesting a refund on the 'gift' stating 'not as described' 'fake' etc. Immediate refund to buyer, seller left in the shi**t.

Honestly Phil, I'm no big fan of banks either, but banks make it difficult because that is how it should be. It is to make absolutely sure that they are on the right side and the case makes sense. Paypal are a little too trigger happy in this regard. In the "he said....she said" type scenario that tode mentions above you won't get too far with a bank. We all have to be wary that with the nature of this rep game it is so easy for a buyer to file a dispute with PP based on the PP 'not as described' rule and use of the word 'fake'. They then have the whole situation open up to their advantage. Imagine someone buying your watch and wearing it for a month and deciding 'nah, not for me'....well they are as good as refunded if they want to take advantage of the PP system. In fairness the rep community is reasonably trustworthy, but still the risk exists. Also this 'it's normal' stuff in relation to checks for receiving or sending money, yes it's normal, the odd thing is (well in the EU) anyway I would've broke all flag points for checks with my banking transfers out/in and my betting/trading accounts in the past few years and still never triggered a shakedown? Whereas plenty of comments from the Eu (not just the Us) also about someone selling random item on ebay like a piece of garden furniture and suddenly triggering a full ID check because the had an accumulated £1200 for the year. It doesn't really make sense, PP are a little trigger happy in this regard also methinks. The standard £/$/EU 10K check on a transaction of this amount or over is fairly accepted at this stage, after all we would be flagged carrying this amount while passing trough an airport so I can understand it also while doing a banking transaction. It's this cumulative amount over time stuff is a little obscure, especially as there is different rules and regs for different regions. Are paypal policing this worldwide now?

I actually only picked one up recently, which is shame as I'd been rereading bytors review on them for ages, when I received it I was expecting a good rep, but was really pleasantly surprised at just how good it looks in the flesh. Great rep, understated and goes amazingly well on the rubber strap. The Omega Proplof is doing well in the poll, its a shame that one of Omegas most ugly watches is probably the best repped omega of them all

Wow, classic watch with a gorgeous sunburst dial, superb stuff!

Good stuff, glad you got it sorted in the end. Give them a couple of years, until they have the anal scanners in place, then it should be real fun!

Yeah the portofino is a much better rep, it's a shame because this ingeniuer is a lovely watch, nicer balance of semi casual/dressy, whereas the portofino (to me anyway) is strictly a dress watch. I'd still pick this up for under $200 in spite of the flaws just to have a look at it. A similar looking style is the classic pp calatrava 5127 (although the PP is a little more dressy/polished) but there are no good reps of that either .

Realistically I don't think amazon cant exactly compete one to one with paypal, as you say the reason why they PP have so much proliferation is tied to the ebay setup. But it would be interesting if they could just provide a basic money transfer alternative. I often wonder why approaches like google payments didn't really take off, I would assume people just saw it as a chore to sign up to a new service when with paypal it was almost a necessity if you wanted to transact on ebay. The favourable thing for amazon will be that many people will already have an amazon account at this stage so in a way, while it won't cover the expanse ebay/paypal has, it would still have fairly large spread with amazon buyers. I also agree with you that amazon have an excellent business model, probably one of the better if not the best 'big' players on the internet in this regard. Also PP seem to be doing some strange things lately in regards to complying with these IRS requirements etc, such as requiring these identification details long before the actual limits are reached, often when people have only hit 30% of the income requirements needed to flag these ID checks. Also outside the US they seem to have similar woolly justifications for the requests, even from low level PP users. Conspiracy theories aside there is just too many things 'off' about paypal and their whole model for many people to be able to fully trust them, sometimes I actually loath having all my account details with them but needs must. I'd have serious issues about giving this 'financial institution' a history of my bank transactions/ssn/dna/retina scan etc unless absolutely necessary.

This is the 'too much power' problem that has been referred to time and again. PP are running with themselves, despite the convenience of their service. They seem to act like they are both Visa and a bank combined, and even though they don't have the power of either, PP use their monopoly to take too many liberties and it seems to be getting worse. I really do hope they are taken down a peg or two in the next few years. Western "nigerian prince" union, while it doesn't compete and has a long standing bad reputation, offer very similar and have been doing it before PP so I don't know where PP get their front from. Tbh the money laundering stuff is just as applicable to an online betting site (even moreso) so PP don't exactly have rights to go overboard with a security check. I sincerely do hope that something like amazon payments shake them up a bit in the future as an alternative. I've been on PP since the first 6 months they set up a website, years ago you had to do a visa transaction and then remove your CC details due to security reasons because so many cards were compromised, nowadays they act like the are the frigging IMF.

Yep, bit too pricy, at first I thought it must be a mistake and it has a a2892 which would put it in line with the iwc mark/portofino prices, but it does seem to be an a2824, will see what other dealer offer it for. Hard to find a dw for it, but the one in it has to go. The dial and case look nice even though the gen case is much thicker, crown is off aswell, all in all it's not going to be a super rep, just the potential to be a nice dressy watch: gen: Rep:

Yep dw is horrific, they want a bit too much for it mike, $278, swiss 2824 but there should be an a2824 about sometime aswell. If the case and the dial are ok it might be worth a chance at getting it cheaper and do some work to it. DW is a big issue. Not sure if there will be too many future iterations of this watch, don't think its too popular. Edit: actually it's listed as a 2824 asian, which is priced far too high in that case: http://www.1-pc8838.com/00iwig00103-ingenuier-vintage-ssle-black-a2824-p-12201.html

Some new reps will keep you going for a while, alot of good stuff out there these days. The Omega LM is a gorgeous watch, pretty hard to find, I heard alot of people that had them thought it was a gem but after a while it just looked a bit too glossy or polished for them and the extra expensive was hardly worth it, and went back to the original PO. Some loved it though, it would be nice to get a test run with one before you buy, they have become a bit of a cultish watch in omega circles as the are bloody rarely found new these days. The 8500 PO is always an option as is a semi franken regular PO....a very good replication can be done at about $1Kish. Lots of options, but if it's going to be a pass on to kids then I guess it has to be gen. Did you think about the AT 8500 while looking at Omegas?

Why would you say that? ....Is it that bad? The black doesn't look horrendous?

Just see now a new rep on pc of the iwc ingenieur vintage, the gen is quite thick and this is thinner, actually better in that regard. Dial looks good, dw looks awful but is correctable (somewhat). Closed caseback. No superrep but all in all could be a nice dressy rep. Who wants to be the guinea pig to try one first? Gen

This one is sexy also, pity about the heavily branded strap, but the watch itself looks sleek:

Nice mods jkay, the double AR really makes the dial pop, looks much better now.

Brilliant, looks much nicer, no cyclops, better size...more in line with classic smp/sub. Dial is cool. Whats not to like. Lets get this repped!

Hey Gran, no rest for the wicked eh

Jesus, LH, what possessed him to go shaving the inner ring of the insert? Sorry to hear this, what was he thinking? Ciborg, my insert was definitely gen, and wouldn't go in using hard plastic to press it in, or side of table or press... just no go at all. At the same time, even though I went around and around the 1600 grit, in reality little was actually shaved off, it was just time consuming and being cautious. I would imagine being a rep bezel that the tolerances are a little off on occasion, causing the issue randomly, rather than the Rolex inserts being out of tolerance?

Hi Ry, just seeing over on RWI (taka's corner) that he is apparently off travelling the world and no longer taking orders. If he is back in business soon remains to be seen.

Hi Demonslayer, I'm kinda the other way round to you, I haven't seen chief AR, but have heard all the good things about it etc. I do have taka AR and the transparent effect is extremely strong and is very close to the Omega AR transparancy on my gen 42mm PO. I've heard taka and chief are pretty similar, low hue and big transparency, either way can't go wrong I suppose. Uwe also does AR and I have that on a 4th gen PO. The golden tint is very high on uwe AR, looks great and seems very durable but very different to gen and not as transparent as the others.

I'm grateful to you Ry that you cleared up that it needed to be sanded earlier.. (although at the cost to you of a perfectly good insert ,which was a bloody shame.) if I hadn't expected that it needed to be sanded I'm absolutely sure I would've broken mine trying to force it in aswell....it was a bugger to fit!

Agree with corelli, if you can pick up the gen at decent price go for it, but retail it is costly. A double AR job shouldn't cost any more than about a 3rd the price of the gen crystal, it's a good compromise and pretty close to gen.

Had to do it recently, tried a first attempt and sods law says it was a no go...as expected. I then followed the Rymeisters lead and got out the 1600 grit emery. Went around a few times ...no go kept going doing a couple of revolutions around the emery with the insert and testing again. At one stage I was tempted to just pull out the heavy grit but thought no just keep going as it can't be too far away. Well I kept going with the 1600 for about 20 mins testing it after every few revolutions, at one stage I thought I'm gonna ballss this up but eventually it snapped in very securely and looks great now. This with an absolute 110% gen insert. Was cursing it at the time but happy now. So much for straight on click in fit, no way!