So the ceramic bezels have pushed the HBB up $$

[Watchmeister]

Well, does all this price variation imply the cartel is becoming a duopoly? If I didn't already own one I would not be buying now. I would be letting it settle down. Even if the the ceramic bezels truly are from the genuine fabricator these pieces will come up second-hand and that way the prior owner has already acted as your guinea pig. Than you either pay for a well put together one or buy a busted one at a big discount and service yourself.

[jfreeman420]

I remember a while back when the first asian seconds at 6 daytonas were going for $1,000. A few bought them but the price quickly dropped. This is the first time I have ever seen the price on a replica go up. Kinda scary. I was waiting for the price of the gold ceramic model to come down. Maybe I will never own one, or maybe I'll just buy the genuine for my next yearly purchase. I can't see giving that Bivin guy $20k though.

I will be in NYC the first week of October. One of my objectives while I'm there is to seek out a good watch supplier (this to offset the pain in the ass of going to my g/f's brother's wedding). We will see what happens.

[POTR]

If I wasn't stictly "unobtainable vintage" with Rep watches, I might consider investing about four thousand bucks in setting up a couple of EMD rigs to produce properly 'engraved' stainless foundations for a certain other ceramic bezel... you know, the one that looks so good surrounding a "Maxi"...

Of course that might lead to things like a "proper" looking ceramic "Clown" bezel (if you can call that proper)... and perhaps tooling for a hybrid movement plate using only a few parts for one function from a 7753 and a quite a few more parts loosely based on a 7737. You know, something that might actually add something closer to $200 in real cost to a Rep, although, I don't know who would want to buy that ....

[anton]

I remember a while back when the first asian seconds at 6 daytonas were going for $1,000. A few bought them but the price quickly dropped. This is the first time I have ever seen the price on a replica go up. Kinda scary. I was waiting for the price of the gold ceramic model to come down. Maybe I will never own one, or maybe I'll just buy the genuine for my next yearly purchase. I can't see giving that Bivin guy $20k though.

I will be in NYC the first week of October. One of my objectives while I'm there is to seek out a good watch supplier (this to offset the pain in the ass of going to my g/f's brother's wedding). We will see what happens.

Let us know when you come into town! I'm a native here (so are others) so maybe we'll spend one day for a GTG and then go off to either downtown for a rep supplier or midtown for a gen supplier. I'm looking to maybe getting something for the wife. I sure could use your input.