cougar1

Hey Khashayar, looks great, thanks for the review, great detail and photos! Glad you like the watch, many thanks for the kind words also. Stick around the forum, with contributions like that you'll be a great addition to the community.

Thanks for the extra pics mate, looks great!

Looks very nice. Thanks for the pics, any more of the front?

I'd leave it as is and do a clean up myself, even if he doesn't know how to re-touch up a case just giving it a go over with a toothbrush and some water can do great things to improve the look. If he wants to go a bit further then some cape cod and selective taping can really improve it. Rebrushing a bracelet is pretty straight forward. Sending it to omega for a touch up is fine but it will be costly and it is a sunk cost which will make the watch look good but won't really be recoverable in the sale. Some broadarrows are very sought after. The white dial blue markers one is pretty hard to find, and it will sell well regardless of how it looks.

Looks very very nice to me hazey. The below 30 just looks like reflections and the screws, well would worry too much about a slight notch, many of them are like that. Dial, pearl and everything else looks great.

Welcome bobkat, this place is a nice relaxing spot, great to put your feet up and sit back and enjoy sort of atmosphere, .... compared to the mayhem on the others at times, ....it's soothing here!

I saw this over on RWI, and I still like it great pics bobkat!

Certainly not worth the extra, especially at those hike ups. You'll pick up a brand new eta later cheaper. Buy the asian, most are just perfect for a 3 hander like that and you are unlikely to have problems. Their asian vs swiss price difference hike up lately is getting insane .

That's not a requirement here , but still, it doesn't hurt the seller to do it and can actually help the sale.

That was an interesting read, thanks for the heads up on it. It's one of those situations that I think we may all have been in at one point, and yet there is no real rule about how long to wait before opening up non-paying 'I'll take it' PM to the next in line. Some people wait two days, others two hours, others an hour?. My personal thoughts on this are, if a buyer says 'I'll take it' then they should be prepared to pay immediately on receipt of payment details. Immediately being within the next 1 to 15 mins etc. If they are planning on popping out to the pub for an hour or are travelling home or about to take the dog for a walk then surely send a PM to specify this reason why payment is going to be delayed and ask if this is ok. At least a seller knows where he stands then. Wondering what are other peoples thoughts on this? Of course, lots of variations can arise, say seller has to go for a few hours and then misses a potential instant sale, buyer is offline when he returns. Lots of different scenarios.

I hear you on that!

Thanks Noel, we could do with more feedback, tempted, as they look pretty damn good. http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/157945-new-50th-an-smp-is-up-on-pc/?p=1228284

Some nice in the flesh pics up on RWI by Blitzgheist, reposting here in case anyone didn't see them, this is a pretty good rep by all accounts:

No they are just straight stock rep hands, no relume, just a whiter tone than some of the other rep hands I've seen. Keep an eye out for some of the brighter rep hands, I believe some batches are better than others.

The gen hands are definitely whiter as mentioned above, it can be very striking. Although some reps have less washed out hands than others so look at the rep hands carefully, I've seen some that were almost translucent looking and very off and others that were pretty close: Here is a gen dial/rep hands combo that looks close to gen, apart from a little bit of the rep minute hand near the base where the lume is uneven they match very close to gen.

I wouldn't bring it to an AD, or anything IWC related?? You should have a few options with good independents though, cheaper than officialdom anyway.

I'm the same, have done so since as long as I can remember. I think it can lead to more dings and scratches but not in all cases, the many times I've tried to switch around the other way I've knocked it into door frames and once a traffic light. I'm an awkward bstard with my left hand. So I'm happy with wearing them on the right, they just sit better for some reason also.

Not bad mate, hope things are good, every-time I see the mark xvi or spitfire on bracelet lately it makes me want to pick one up Great combo and not too many seen on bracelet on the forums.

Looks great mate, very classic looking.

Great mod bamcky, I really like the look of that one!

Very nice mate, looks great!

I see what you mean bamcky, but that is not a scratch...per se. The thing is the bezel is not coated with a matte coat, the matte effect on the gen is made during the construction process, i.e. it is mattifed base ceramic rather than polished ceramic like the LM etc. The bezels will show things like oil marks and fingerprints etc and surface blemishes on scratching etc, but I guarantee that all that is needed is to wet a finger and rub the bezel and there will be no more scratch. Marks will happen but a quick wipe takes all off. Can't say much about the gen ceramic smp numbers coming off, that probably has a different construction process and is probably just painted on as is shown in those pics.

The difference between the gen black bezel is the numbers aren't painted on (as is the case in the rep) The numbers/markers in the gen hollowed out in the ceramic bezel and then filled in with a Chromium nitrite compound and then the bezel is smoothed around the compound and the ceramic to make it flush. It is definitely not painted on. The chromium nitrate compound used for the numbers is extremely hard, harder than the ceramic bezel around it. This is for the black bezels . The LM blue bezel is constructed in a different way using zirconium oxide (LM) but again it is hollowed out markers and numbers and is smoothed later. There is no way of removing the numbers on either, you would have to destroy the bezel to do it. Unfortunately this is a case where the reps are just mimicking the look, they certainly didn't go through this process.....but I would've hoped they would use more durable paint

See that's what they do It's fine, it's minimally not straight, seriously you will not notice that on the watch. You can reject it on that if you want, your prerogative but you may get one with worse pearl. Imo, it looks pretty good, it's centered in the triangle and pretty flush and has no glue or other residue sticking out of it, which is good for a rep. Edit: also the reason why it looks like it can be pushed up is the holes are cut a tad bigger in diameter than the pearl, you push it up to fill the hole and you get a edging on the bottom. Such is life with reps.

I don't know if they are ceramic or not, have to get someone to test, they certainly look ceramic but that proves nothing unfortuately. They are substantially thicker than any alum bezel I've seen though. The paint fading is another issue, has happened to some, but from what I can see it's mostly around the pearl area, where they may have been poking it with a stick to straighten the pearl. It looks like they used Ceramic on the blacks and alu or steel on the other colours? I don't know why ceramic has become an issue, it's not that rare on reps, hublots etc...definitely possible they cut corners, but until we have a materials test it's all just hearsay. ??? Sunnys CPO: DMS also did a matte finish on his pumpkin: