cougar1

I find the happy feet themselves less bothersome than the fact that all the happy feet logos just seem too thin, if they were similar in thickness to the gen logo but with happy feet included then we wouldn't be half as ocd about them

Yep, all those aftermarket bezels are crap, the pearl on the 42mm watch out of the box is usually better than most of them, on the other hand if you ask them for a bloody accurate centred one for a change and not to send any crap then they might make an effort, one or two bezels from these guys had decent enough pearls...as seen from mods on other forums on the 45mm PO's......still nothing like the gen though. The pearls on the 42mm are much better centred at least than the 45mm, doesn't really need a mod, unless it's a one off really bad one which would be rejected on qc pics. The only perfect pearl is gen bezel....not even gen pearl transplanted in rep bezel...but full gen bezel.....a cool £200 these days

Mary (watchinternational) aka 'Marry' above has been a dealer on all the fora for quite a long time, I haven't used her for many years, found her a bit slow at times but I think she was one of the first...if not the first to introduce QC pics, which were then slowly adopted by all the other dealers. Not too sure how she is doing in reputation compared to the others lately but is still a favourite of many. Can't say what the hell happened with that caseback but looks like it was opened along with others after QC (maybe to regulate, who knows) and was replaced with the first caseback on the workbench that came to hand??. http://www.watch-international.com/

He means the orange 45mm PO vs the orange 42mm PO wetwork, the black 42mm PO is just as 'accurate' as the orange 42mm PO. In other words the 42mm PO are overall more accurate compared to gen than 45mm.

Lol at above.... I think you're fine until you start to tell the wife you are going out for milk and a newspaper for 10 mins only to take a detour to the post office to try and intercept your incoming package from China, god forbid it might arrive at your door only to have the other half going "what's that?, there's Chinese writing on that package, is that another bloody watch".

Edit: Removed as requested. You didn't hear it from me

Bloody Senator Sixties not available anymore....disappointed because a few weeks ago I checked multiple dealers and got same answer....no longer made....such a shame! The VC patrimony range are great though, if you can get one with the date wheel perfectly aligned, even better.

The pearls on the 45mm UPO's are almost always off centre, that one looks pretty good actually....in that it's not lopsided at least. The 42mms are better in terms of centring the pearls. Also the happy feet issue just concerns the dial logo, the feet are accurate to gen on the bracelets/casebacks etc

I'm not getting involved ......I've enough on my plate already

my brain, eye, hand coordination would never let me do that, I'd get confused and probably end up dropping the watch while trying to get it on

Hehe, good spot, the csi's are out in force tonight lol Also the strap is on upside down in the first pics.

Cheers, felt relieved when I had the package in my hands, there would be nothing worse than getting the package 6000 miles around the planet safely only to lose the friggin thing in a depot less than half a mile from my house Saying all that, never had a problem with rep packages before, so I guess a minor blip is acceptable as long as it turns out ok in the end. As for Rolex, the only sub I have is the noobmariner 16610 with clone eta 2836-2 and I'm more than happy with that. The quality is excellent for the price on those. I do realise we can go and buy an mbk with some really nice but minor extra touches for an extra $500-$600, but to me I don't see the need....Not a huge rolex fan here, The only models I like are the plain sub 16610, both the 36mm and 39mm explorer I and at a real stretch...a milguass. All are replicated very well. I just picked up the 36mm explorer I in the package above and it is a smallish watch but an exceptional rep...very close to gen, probably the best ever replicated rolex (though that's arguable ) As far as new stuff on the horizon I'm not sure, a rolex superclone sub with cloned 3135 movement was released recently but the jury is still out on that and the movement is so new that we don't know much about how reliable it will be over time. I think the mbk is still the one to have if you want the best sub. There are some promising things on the explorer II with recent releases but I never really like the look of them. Edit: Just to add, you mentioned earlier about being called out and all that, from my side I don't really care too much as everyone I know realises I'm a watch fan anyway and they don't bother questioning if what I'm wearing is rep or gen, I tell everyone that asks that every watch I wear is a rep. The funny thing is I find I often tell people than a gen i'm wearing is a rep, I get some odd looks, it just cut's out the bullshite and that way I've probably got less chance of my house being raided by masked men somenight .....but if you really want reps that you'd nearly need forensic training to tell rep from gen then Panerai is where it's at apparently. PAMs are not for me but many love them once the try them. Might be worth a look aswell!

Lovely watches, especially the 5107, hardly any of the dealers list these in their selections, they must be obviously difficult to get hold of. I must contact trevor...probably won't hear from him for a while at this stage. the VC patrimony as said above is another good one.

I got a bit of fright on Wednesday last, a package from Josh with an Iwc mark xvi and rolex explorer I in it was nearly lost by my local post office, the tracking said out for delivery on wed, wed evening no sign but the tracking was updated to say attempted delivery no answer at address. No sign of any missed delivery note when I got home. I thought fine, but how did all this happen as there was someone home all day. Rang up Thursday and they couldn't locate the package at the local post office, they said they'd no idea where it was and that they'd let me know if it turned up. Great i thought and expected the worst. On friday evening I get a call from my local postie (fair play to him) saying he had found my package in the depot and that there was a messup in their tracking of the package and it was now in his van and he was on the way to my house with it. Thank the lord!

Both those AT's look stunning Ryaku, you did a really great job, almost impossible to tell from gen with either except by by looking at the movement (Which is never going to be seen on the wrist anyway). I really like the railmaster aswell, I have one of the older ones with the AR and the good strap, yours looks excellent as it has the proper matte dial. I love these older AT's aswell, theres just something about the simple design and perfect fit that makes them very sought after, they've got a kind of cult status now as they aren't made anymore.....I don't know why Omega discontinued them, the new teak dial ones are lovely but alot of people perfer the classic non-fussy look of the old dials. If you're ever thinking of selling any of those let me know

That looks very nice Wagner, congratulations. You posted great pictures aswell, enjoy the watch!

You did a lovely franken white/blue dialed version some time ago ryaku, do you still have that? It is correct about no parts available for these aqua terra's afaik, I went looking for parts some time ago as I was going to attempt a similar job and couldn't find any at all. You're right, the blue marker white dialed version seems to be the most sought after and hard to find these days. I've seen these go for around £1500 in the uk. I picked up a gen rose gold marker (white dial) version sometime ago for a reasonable price £700ish, it needed a refinish but it looks great now, not quite as sought after as the blue marker version but still a lovely watch. The reps out of the box don't quite replicate the lovely colours on the blue or rose gold marker versions which is a shame. The black dialed rep doesn't look too bad though, apart from the happy feet .

Just seeing your last post on page 3 now wetwork, no probs the forums are here to help. Keep us posted how it goes and let us know how you find it. Next thing now is you'll be modding it You mentioned as-well about almost buying off a typical scam site, I think almost everyone here has had a similar experience and either were lucky enough to find the forums before proceeding or as they say, once bitten, twice shy. There are so many of them and their shtick is so believable it is almost hard to resist on a first encounter. I particularly love the way they put up gen photos at times, stick the site logo on and you'd think you were in heaven with the offerings for $500. It's such a shame they exist, they bring the rep game down to a really petty level. I do wonder sometimes when I encounter some of the more extreme anti-rep watch enthusiasts on gen sites if they've been victims of some of these sites. I'd imagine quite a few never found the forums!

I'd say when it comes to reps, never take the waterproof claims at face value, always recheck and get your own tests and mods done if necessary to be certain. Tbh, imho all reps are generally best kept out of water altogether, just too many variables when it comes to reps. Saying that, there are plenty of threads across the forums where people have been happy with the proofing out of the box just don't rely on it. The deville, can't say much on its accuracy compared to gen, but a2813 (asian21j) are generally decent workhorse movements, for the price they are sometimes worth just winging it, usually if they do fail then the idea is to just replace the whole movement with another rather than trying to repair. a21j are a strange beast, some hate them and have no luck, I find that if they get through the first month without any issues then they'll probably last 10 years

Yep as an out of the box rep, it look pretty damn good, only question now is how much do you want to spend to make it perfect The pearl is very decent considering some, so you could put off the bezel, as said crown and tube are almost a necessity on these. Either relume or gen dial needed as rep vs gen lume is night and day difference. An improvement to the AR rather than shelling out for a crystal and this would look shiite hot. So all in all, exactly as Jkay said

It seems to be on the agenda for a few years, they want to go back to their own classic size of 42mm, they were obviously milking the fad for all it's worth over the last decade. They've probably come to the realisation that they can still have the big pam lovers and get a little bit of action from the 'no thanks I'm not wearing a wall clock on my wrist' brigade aswell It's funny as rolex and omega were slow and reluctant to jump in on the big watch parade, they have done so of a little of late, but now they may well go backwards aswell ...can't beat 38mm-42mm imo

Better not go through...I'll crack up if they take away my s-c-o-r-p blueray rips

Panerai have released a few new watches of late in a nice sized 42mm, I guess to appeal to a wider audience. With many more wis being ever more critical of large watches in the past couple of years it'll be interesting to see where it goes from here. Let's face it Panerai were big players in starting the trend, is this the beginning of the end for 44mm+ watches? There are several others, but these are obviously being aimed as the main release. They look quite good imo, not too big not too small, some people think they are the ladies new offering, they aren't...what ye think!

Looks gorgeous, such a classic design!

I think the teak dial AT's are sorely lacking any upgrades, such a pity as they are a lovely watch, I would love to see them have a decent crack at it as it's not the most complicated design. At the moment we've only got as far as the Watcheden cheapy version or the versions from puretime which are way too big. Also afaik the old AT's can be frankened, I've seen some threads in the past about a dial/hand swap being done, other than that I don't think much else can be done, the gen decorated 2500 has not been replicated well, although there are a few older rep AT's that had a decent enough semi-decorated silver rotor. These days they just leave the untouched gold coloured 2824 in the displayback.