The Watch Appreciation Thread - Part two (Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger LeCoultre,

[brax]

Speaking of the devil...

Man I miss my stolen GMT II. As my AD no longer carries Rolex I may have a very long wait for a replacement.

 

[NakedYoga]

This guy is smoking some minty fresh Catholic crack if he thinks Notre Dame is the second strongest college "brand name" (whatever the fuck that actually means).

Yeah I thought that was pretty funny too. I was half expecting him to next analyze the Dallas Cowboys.

 

[9thsymph]

Man I miss my stolen GMT II. As my AD no longer carries Rolex I may have a very long wait for a replacement.

Terrible news on multiple levels...I hope you are able to recover your watch and/or are swiftly allocated a new one via new AD.

 

[Michigan Planner]

I was in Mali, Ghana, and Niger. Was surprised that Guinness was so popular. I had assumed a lighter beer would trend in the tropics!

I've been all over the world and to some pretty sh!tty places. The two constants in terms of drink availability seem to be Budweiser and Guinness. You could be in the middle of nowhere in Paraguay or the seediest bar in the worst part of Johannesburg or a nice hotel bar in Seoul and they will all have Budweiser and Guinness with their signs proudly on display.

I never understood the appeal of Guinness in particular but I remember one of the deployments I was on, every time we'd get to some new port in the Mediterranean, two of my buddies would make a beeline to the closest bar, not for some local beer that we'd never had the chance to try before, but another damn Guinness. Oh well... nobody ever accused Marines of being imaginative!

On a watch related note - I took a brief hiatus from this one yesterday in favor of a Scurfa, but I'm back to the Speedtimer today!

 

[smittycl]

I've been all over the world and to some pretty sh!tty places. The two constants in terms of drink availability seem to be Budweiser and Guinness. You could be in the middle of nowhere in Paraguay or the seediest bar in the worst part of Johannesburg or a nice hotel bar in Seoul and they will all have Budweiser and Guinness with their signs proudly on display.

I never understood the appeal of Guinness in particular but I remember one of the deployments I was on, every time we'd get to some new port in the Mediterranean, two of my buddies would make a beeline to the closest bar, not for some local beer that we'd never had the chance to try before, but another damn Guinness. Oh well... nobody ever accused Marines of being imaginative!

On a watch related note - I took a brief hiatus from this one yesterday in favor of a Scurfa, but I'm back to the Speedtimer today!

View attachment 1795024 View attachment 1795025

Guinness is very satisfying to me. Robust but low ABV. Still, it's not what comes to mind when beer is in order on a sweltering day. Love the Speedy!

 

[Newcomer]

This may be obvious, but Guinness is actually a very light beer. A black and tan is great evidence of that.

 

[pmeis]

I swear, one of the best beers I've ever had was a draft Guiness in the Ottawa Air Canada lounge waiting for a snow squall to blow past. Two hour flight delay...handful of beers down and I was still a bit tipsy by the time the plane landed 4 hours later.

 

[mak1277]

I swear, one of the best beers I've ever had was a draft Guiness in the Ottawa Air Canada lounge waiting for a snow squall to blow past. Two hour flight delay...handful of beers down and I was still a bit tipsy by the time the plane landed 4 hours later.

Perhaps (probably) the best beverage I’ve ever drank was a Guinness at the brewery in Dublin. If I could only drink one type of beer forevermore, Guinness would be on the short list.

 

[smittycl]

Perhaps (probably) the best beverage I’ve ever drank was a Guinness at the brewery in Dublin. If I could only drink one type of beer forevermore, Guinness would be on the short list.

We left Baghdad after a year of awfulness and stopped in Shannon, Ireland for a refuel stop and had Guinness for breakfast, allowed two each. It was sublime.

 

[officine]

Well the easiest way would be if there were some sort of issue with the watch, it goes in for warranty work and the owner isn't you. Probably fairly rare with Rolex even though they make about a million watches a year. I've owned many Rolex watches, but only had a warranty issue with 1 (although actually, that one had 2 warranty issues just at different times).

I am not sure if they check local gray dealers, or look for online ads. As has been mentioned around here before, some Patek AD wouldn't sell a watch to Foo because they discovered he had sold some watches in the past (I think he believed they found a few of his online ads). In addition, a friend of mine who was buying an AP at our local boutique last year was given a warning in somewhat friendly manner (as he described it) that they were aware he had sold an Offshore, which he bought at the Florida AP boutique about 2 years earlier, and that if he sold this new watch, AP wouldn't sell him another watch. He wasn't sure how it got back to them. He had sold that watch to a gray dealer.

General reply to everyone that chipped in on my "dilemma". Thank you, btw.

I went in and tried it on and made the purchase.

A few interesting things happened. They would not allow me to purchase over the phone. They insisted on removing all the plastic, protective film and tags from the watch. They insisted on sizing the bracelet to my wrist. I inquired if this was all in an effort to discourage an immediate flip to grey dealer and they acknowledged it was. Not sure that this really would discourage anyone to do so, but it is their policy.

We had a discussion about the current state of affairs with Rolex. The manager acknowledged the frustration that many first time buyers where experiencing and indicated that it is market reality not soon to abate (btw, their case was reasonably well stocked with with samples that could not be purchased - Batman, two tone Daytona, Sub). They did indicate that they do not play the quid pro quo game and would never "request" that a person make other purchases to get on a list. We talked about my specific case - although I have purchased from them in the past, I am no where near what they would consider a big fish. I was told that if that had been the criteria that I would not have passed (watches bring in the big fish, but jewelry is their bread and butter...I've never purchased any jewelry from them). They took into account:

• Loyalty/purchase history over time (I've purchased 4 watches from them since 2012....so not a tremendous pace)
• Proximity (they won't sell Rolex to out of towners or vacationers)
• Likelihood of keeping the watch (not sure how they assess this)
• Likelihood to promote the store to friends/colleagues in local community (not sure how they assess this either)

Not sure sure that these criteria are necessarily cogent, but it got me through the process. The general area is full of well heeled and loaded individuals, so it clearly was not determined by absolute amount of $$$ spend. The store manager was around for my last purchase last fall (Cartier Santos), but had no personal connection with me prior to our conversation.

In any event....

 

[9thsymph]

General reply to everyone that chipped in on my "dilemma". Thank you, btw.

I went in and tried it on and made the purchase.

A few interesting things happened. They would not allow me to purchase over the phone. They insisted on removing all the plastic, protective film and tags from the watch. They insisted on sizing the bracelet to my wrist. I inquired if this was all in an effort to discourage an immediate flip to grey dealer and they acknowledged it was. Not sure that this really would discourage anyone to do so, but it is their policy.

We had a discussion about the current state of affairs with Rolex. The manager acknowledged the frustration that many first time buyers where experiencing and indicated that it is market reality not soon to abate (btw, their case was reasonably well stocked with with samples that could not be purchased - Batman, two tone Daytona, Sub). They did indicate that they do not play the quid pro quo game and would never "request" that a person make other purchases to get on a list. We talked about my specific case - although I have purchased from them in the past, I am no where near what they would consider a big fish. I was told that if that had been the criteria that I would not have passed (watches bring in the big fish, but jewelry is their bread and butter...I've never purchased any jewelry from them). They took into account:

• Loyalty/purchase history over time (I've purchased 4 watches from them since 2012....so not a tremendous pace)
• Proximity (they won't sell Rolex to out of towners or vacationers)
• Likelihood of keeping the watch (not sure how they assess this)
• Likelihood to promote the store to friends/colleagues in local community (not sure how they assess this either)

Not sure sure that these criteria are necessarily cogent, but it got me through the process. The general area is full of well heeled and loaded individuals, so it clearly was not determined by absolute amount of $$$ spend. The store manager was around for my last purchase last fall (Cartier Santos), but had no personal connection with me prior to our conversation.

In any event.... View attachment 1795288

I was at my AD today just because I was in the hood and dropped in. I was wearing my GMT and all the SAs wanted to look at it because they were like “we just never really get to see them in the wild...that’s how few we get...”

Congrats, man!

 

[9thsymph]

This may be obvious, but Guinness is actually a very light beer. A black and tan is great evidence of that.

It’s obvious because, in tandem with common knowledge, I said as much two pages ago...read yo!

;-)

 

[9thsymph]

Guys, I'm having trouble finding a super expensive Nato strap that's better than a super cheap one! Please advise...

 

[Newcomer]

It’s obvious because, in tandem with common knowledge, I said as much two pages ago...read yo!

;-)

Feisty feisty! I’d show some respect to a Patek owner if I were you.

 

[9thsymph]

Feisty feisty! I’d show some respect to a Patek owner if I were you.

This is the best post I've ever read...

*bowing*

;-)