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Theatrix

New collector - interested in Iconic pieces

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Theatrix

Good Day to all!

I'm new here and also new to REP watches. 

Quick backstory is that my experience has been buying authentic watches for my children as college graduation gifts.  Budgets were $10K each......

Traveled to Dubai for the New Year and experienced my first REP watchs being sold in the Gold Souk there. I purchased a REP Houblot big bang for my 17 year old son so he would become acclimated with wearing a watch. This is how it began for me.

I had promised myself that once all of my children (5) graduated college then I would reward myself with an authentic AP ROO chrono in rose gold.  My OCD kicked in high gear and I have spent the past 2-3 days researching and ordering 3 separate watches, an AP RO chrono M-Schumacker,  a Breitling Chronomat Evo  and a Rolex Daytona/Osyterflex  with boxsets.

I'm no longer convinced that I should or need to invest the significant amount on authentic pieces when the replica are so good! Have others reached this conclusion as well?

In any event, it is my intention to now educate myself on the various factories such as NOOB and J12 and others to better understand quality issues and what can be done to improve upon the REP's available. 

I would be particularly interested in being able to substitute the Asian movements for REP Swiss movements if possible. Has anyone done this?

I'm also interested in any cabinetmakers here who possibly do one off's of an exotic wood watch cabinet.

Appreciate any comments and thank you for reading.

 

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Silbertc

Can you adopt me?

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Glaude

Hi Theatrix and welcome !

The first thing you have to do is indeed a lot of reading, start with all the sticky post in each section and you'll probably be up to date for most of your questions or concerns.

Next you can use the search box to see if a straight swap for a Swiss movement is possible or is worth doing, there's been a lot of topics about that and it very case/model dependant and sometime not worth it (already good movement in the rep or too expensive to buy parts)

As for the cabinet makers, I don't know any in here, but seek for a good woodworker and provide him some pics of what you want.

And lastly : Whether it's worth it to buy gen or stick to rep is a matter of personal preference and tastes, you won't find any consensus on that question.

Enjoy the reading :) 

7 hours ago, Silbertc said:

Can you adopt me?

If you're saying that because of his recent OCD crisis, since he's stating "with boxset" I'm pretty sure he's talking about reps, but could be gen also.

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deju
6 minutes ago, Theatrix said:

Good Day to all!

I'm new here and also new to REP watches. 

Quick backstory is that my experience has been buying authentic watches for my children as college graduation gifts.  Budgets were $10K each......

Traveled to Dubai for the New Year and experienced my first REP watchs being sold in the Gold Souk there. I purchased a REP Houblot big bang for my 17 year old son so he would become acclimated with wearing a watch. This is how it began for me.

I had promised myself that once all of my children (5) graduated college then I would reward myself with an authentic AP ROO chrono in rose gold.  My OCD kicked in high gear and I have spent the past 2-3 days researching and ordering 3 separate watches, an AP RO chrono M-Schumacker,  a Breitling Chronomat Evo  and a Rolex Daytona/Osyterflex  with boxsets.

I'm no longer convinced that I should or need to invest the significant amount on authentic pieces when the replica are so good! Have others reached this conclusion as well?

In any event, it is my intention to now educate myself on the various factories such as NOOB and J12 and others to better understand quality issues and what can be done to improve upon the REP's available. 

I would be particularly interested in being able to substitute the Asian movements for REP Swiss movements if possible. Has anyone done this?

I'm also interested in any cabinetmakers here who possibly do one off's of an exotic wood watch cabinet.

Appreciate any comments and thank you for reading.

 

You think that the reps in the souk are good :lmao:   I wouldn't even buy my gold at the souk, it's a tourist trap! 

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RepGuy

Sounds like a long winded "who has the best XXXX" post. Regardless, welcome to the forum. Be sure to read the New Member Posts, as they explain a lot of questions you will have.

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fetasigma

Most of the time you will find that the Asian eta clone movements are just as good time keepers as thier Swiss counterparts so changing movements really isn't necessary. The quality of the reps nowadays makes some gen purchases superfluous. As to the quality of a particular watch take a look at some of the super rep lists to get an idea.

I have a few Gens of watches that are not easily repped but have a collection of over 30 becuase they are Much more affordable and it also allows me to own watches that I could never aquire in real life.

This hobby has no ends. You can also build watches out of pieces as well as have them modified to make them as close as you can get. I am in the process of building a vintage Rolex spacedweller as we speak.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

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Theatrix

Appreciate the responses......not quite certain why RepGuy  would need to be so negative, but to each his own!  BTW, my post was meant to provide a brief summary of how and why I managed to get to reps.  I apologize if it was long winded.

Obviously there is much to learn and I do very much appreciate input and direction.

Deju, with what little knowledge I have managed to acquire over the past few days, I would agree that the Gold Souk would be the last place to buy reps and far as gold is concerned, also agree.

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fetasigma

Just wait until you get into vintage Rolex, sure you say you won't but.....

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

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RepGuy
33 minutes ago, Theatrix said:

not quite certain why RepGuy  would need to be so negative

We get a lot of questions along the lines of yours asking for specific information which is found in the New Member Posts I mentioned. It's not negativity, it just gets old, hence the short original answer.

You have a good question in regards to the custom cabinets, but your other movement question can be solved with a bit of reading in the stickies posts. With everything involved in getting a good replica these days (especially since you mentioned AP), researching the factories themselves (ie. Noob, JF, ect.) is a good start, but you'll want to really start reading to get the whole picture. Don't jump into anything you're unsure of, and remember to use the search bar prior to starting a new thread on a question... odds are there have been multiple threads about it already.

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