Hi from DC

Hi,
I'm a long time watch lover but new to this forum. I recently purchased several nice reps, but unfortunately, right before I found out about this board and it's trusted dealers.

The reps I bought are:

1) IWC Portuguese Moonphase (fantasy watch, Lemania replica movement)
2) Hublot Bode Bang (V5, matte stainless finish, I believe this is also a fantasy watch)
3) Hulot ceramic skeleton Tourbillon
4) AP ROO Survivor V2 A7750
5) AP ROO Barichello II V2 A7750

I am still awaiting delivery of the Barichello, but all the others have arrived. I also have a few genuine swiss watches and an homage or two.

The dealer I bought the watches from was nice enough, but unfortunately the Survivor's hour hand is loose (spins around the dial when I shake the watch) and the dealer basically told me to fix it myself. I guess they really don't want my return business.

So at the moment I am enjoying 3 of 5 of the new watches while searching for someone who can fix the hour hand on my Survivor. I understand this to be a relatively simple procedure, but since the watch has to come apart, I've been quoted up to $250 to have the work done by a vendor here, which seems over the top. I'm hoping to find a local shop to do the work, but there are some problems with that as well. First, its a replica watch and I'm not sure they will even want to work on it. Second, its an Audemars Piguet replica and I would imagine most local mom and pop shops who would do the work haven't seen many if any of these things before. So I'm a little stuck here. I suppose I could just take the nuclear option and file a paypal complaint that the item I purchased was DOA and the seller doesn't want to do anything about it. I guess I'd appreciate some advice on this, and better yet if anyone knows a decent repairman in the DC area, or anywhere in the CONUS who can do this for less than the cost of a nice new replica watch, please let me know.

All that said, I've always been a watch geek, and now that I'm here I'm happy to have found a group of people who have the same interests.

Cheers everyone,
Paul

Welcome Paul:)

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Hi Paul, welcome to the forum!

If the issue with the Survivor is simply that the hand came loose, pretty much any experienced watchsmith should be able to fix it. The key is finding one who is rep friendly. If it has a bad hand, or has an actual movement issue it might be a bit harder. Some watchsmiths don't have A7750 experience, and I don't believe that the parts are interchangable with the swiss Valjoux movement.

The PayPal issue can become complex. PayPal USUALLY will side with the buyer on almost any incedent, but you don't want to use ANY wording that refers to a replica. Thay have been known to close both the buyer's and the sellers accounts when they get wind that the sale was for a counterfit item.

The Survivor is a fairly high end rep, so I'm certain that you can get it repaired for less than the cost of replacing it. The only real difficulty might be if the hand needed to be replaced. Parts for reps can be difficult to get, because many times the rep 'Factories' only contract for enough hands and such as they need to complete the watches that they are building from yet another 'Factory' that might only make hands.

I'd find a rep friendly watchsmith and see if the hand has just came loose in shipping. It's really not that uncommon. Heck, you MIGHT just want to send the watch to a modder and have it superlumed if it's not already. They would have to remove the hands for that I believe, and part of the job would be to REPLACE the hands.

Hey guys, thanks for the welcome.

KrisOK - Thanks for the advice. I took the watch to a local shop today. I have a vintage Longines in need of an overhaul anyway so I thought this would be a good opportunity to forge a relationship with a local. We talked about the gen Omega SMP Chrono I was wearing (service is $495 for this watch, ouch), then I showed him the Longines, and then I pulled out the Survivor. I explained the problem, and he said, well this should be under warranty, AP is a very good brand and there should be no problem there. I then explained that this was in fact a high quality replica, and he seem shocked. He said "I would never have known if you didn't tell me." We then got to talking about replica watches and how quality has increased greatly. He mentioned in passing that he would be very hesitant to buy a Panerai from anyone but an AD - which I think is very good advice at this point.

Long story short, he is going to overhaul my 18k Longines from the 1940's (passed down from Grandpa), plus fix the hand on my Survivor for $225. I think that's a very fair price considering the movement in the Longines is stuck and I'm not sure what will be needed to fix that. 2 week turnaround on both. I told him when I come back in I'll bring my Hublot Tourbillon. He said he gets tourbillons in for service every now and again but hasn't seen a replica and was curious.

All in all a very nice guy. Now, the question is....do I just write this dealer off, or try to get them to give me a deal on my next watch through them for the trouble of this deal, and then write them off? I'm leaning towards just writing them off.