First PAM 183H // Chinatown NYC

[epspi]

I chose the Black Seal as my first PAM because of the thickness. Was going to go with DSN, but figured >$400 was too much to dish out for a watch I hadn't seen, so I took a trip down to Chinatown and looked around.

Chinatown Observations

PAMs seem to be losing popularity here, or are simply being kept underneath. I didn't think I looked particularly suspicious (although I was in business clothes coming from work), and yet still in several cases the salespeople would look me up and down before declaring that they have no PAMs. The 183 was almost impossible to find; much more popular was the 292 all-black "Ceramic." Two salespersons claimed they could fetch a Black Seal (183) but that it was $180 (which would make it 6 times the price of an average Chinatown watch); I didn't wait to look, since most of the Chinatown salespeople didn't know what I was talking about when I described for them something that doesn't look like the 111. Only two places had the 183 (both H, and they looked to be sourced from exactly the same place). Both wanted $90, neither would go for $50 (but I'm not very good at bargaining). I took one for $70

I think $70 is not bad for something that seems to have the right dimensions (I crudely measured it to be 45mmx11mm, even though it seems fatter than it should), no outright errors, and a seemingly-functional Asian 6497 with swan neck / dagger. As you can see in the below pics, here are some of the obvious problems:

• cannon pin too short, sandwich dial doesn't have enough of a gap, lume blows, face text is gray (should be white or gray?)
  
• no AR, who knows what the crystal is, crown stem doesn't stick out at all (should it?)
  
• movement / bridges are dirty, bad stickers (evidently by a child or someone with epilepsy)
  

What do you guys think?

Maybe a thicker band would make the watch look thinner. Maybe one of those black calf ones with the orange stitching

Heavy lens distortion at wide angles

Pin too short, sandwich not thick enough, font color too gray?

Lume is really bad

Not sure if the crown should stick out farther

Seems to be not bad for the price

This is just sloppy