Mrluwin 282 Posted August 28, 2019 (edited) Like most people I tend to work on the assumption that a leather rep strap will be about as useful and authentic looking as a piece of coloured in cardboard so tend to budget in a bit extra to get either a gen or a decent alternative. One of my all time favourite watches is the IWC pilot so having a couple of reps and a gen strap I thought that it might be interesting to do a review and comparison, apologies in advance for the pics I'm no photographer but if you want a closer look at anything let me know and I'll post it. All pics show the Gen strap on the left or top, XF factory middle and MKF right or bottom. As expected the IWC strap is the best of the bunch but the other two come close particularly the XF, the quality of the leather is the main difference which is difficult to get across in pics, the IWC is very soft, plush and has a nicely defined grain and a really nice colour which seems to change depending on the light I suspect that it will age very well. The other difference is the stitching, on the gen it is much smaller and intricate and seems to go right through from front to back whilst on the reps it is clearly superficial. The thread is also a lot thicker on the reps. Overall though they are surprisingly close with the XF one in particular being a great rep, the dimensions on all are exactly the same and the markings match up pretty well too. Unfortunately not all rep leather straps are decent quality and you tend to pay for a gen, in this case I feel it was worth the upgrade as it definitely looks and feels better but it was closer than some of the other abominations you get on reps! Edited August 28, 2019 by Mrluwin clarifying which one is which! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VMSG 2 Posted August 31, 2019 That is really interesting, thank you! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mrluwin 282 Posted September 20, 2019 Whilst the riveting original post obviously set all of your hearts racing I would just like to underline how good the gen IWC straps are by showing the green nylon strap I acquired for my Spitfire pilot chrono You can't buy this one directly online so I had to submit an enquiry via their website then a lovely chap called Edvinas from IWC called me from Switzerland and processed the order, I guess that the usual watch IWC customers love to be buttered up before they make their purchase but as amusing as it would have been I resisted the temptation to tell him that the strap was for a rep. Unfortunately Edvinas now thinks that I am some kind of nonchalant millionaire and calls me up to tell me about new IWC releases on a regular basis Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
copterguy 4 Posted September 25, 2019 I don't have a photo example, but I was searching for the Kevlar style big pilot ceramic watch strap to replace the rep strap, which always seems to come with the 55mm short side strap. I hate the way it sits on my larger wrist. Anyway, I found this place in Germany http://www.ernst-westphal.de/ Ordered XL size OEM strap assuming it would be 75mm short side sized. It wasn't. In comparison of the rep and the OEM, however, they were virtually indistinguishable. Evidently, IWC stopped making this configuration, so I gave up and ordered a custom croc from gunny straps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
