Where did all the experts go?

[dxbtousa]

As time passes; dynamics and trends change, people come and go as the world evolves.

Take the time to identify the threads and discussions you have interest in, and the ones that you don't just skip.

[travisb]

Originally Posted by HL65

OP only here for 2 years and last 2 years has been mostly bitching about shortages, grey dealers, nicknames, valuations etc. I remember when Forum was purely Rolex enthusiasts for most part. A lot of focus was in vintage as well so yes things do change. It would be nice to shift back and away from the same thread topics over and over again.

X 1,000
Well said Ken. Couldn’t agree more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HK_Expat]

Originally Posted by hl65

op only here for 2 years and last 2 years has been mostly bitching about shortages, grey dealers, nicknames, valuations etc. I remember when forum was purely rolex enthusiasts for most part. A lot of focus was in vintage as well so yes things do change. It would be nice to shift back and away from the same thread topics over and over again.

+1

[The Libertine]

Originally Posted by HL65

OP only here for 2 years and last 2 years has been mostly bitching about shortages, grey dealers, nicknames, valuations etc. I remember when Forum was purely Rolex enthusiasts for most part. A lot of focus was in vintage as well so yes things do change. It would be nice to shift back and away from the same thread topics over and over again.

Well said.

[YGRLX]

Brand changed and so did the buyers. I for one don’t care to hear about which specific lume is for a random model or for that matter the pretentiousness of most older members against the new ones

[Duke of Dulwich]

Originally Posted by padi56

Well a few are still around but myself lately have to drag myself on forum as now its little more than the stuff you get on Facebook mainly brain dead stuff.

Aegler made movements for Rolex.

The famous Techni-Quadron some information from Gruen web site ."Doctor's Watches" were so-called because the large seconds dial was handy for timing a patient's pulse. These however were not sold only to doctors. The watch was advertised as a timepiece for technicians and "radio and mechanical engineers"—anyone who needed to measure time in seconds. The 877 movement, manufactured by Aegler in Biel, was also used in the Rolex Prince; this unusual movement gives the watch its distinctive "dual dial" design. Hours and minutes are confined to the upper half of the dial, while the entire lower dial is dedicated to seconds. The Techni-Quadron provided a useful alternative to the tiny seconds hands on most watches from this era, which can be as little as 2mm , and are not practical to use for timing etc.


Aegler made movements for Rolex (which at this time had no own movement manufacturing capability)and has made Rolex movement ever since but now incorporated fully into the Rolex name.Gruen and Rolex were Aegler's biggest customers, and were both large shareholders as well. And the full company name at one time was, Aegler, Societe Anonyme, Fabrique des Montres Rolex & Gruen Guild A. Gruen and Rolex

Gruen sold their Aegler shares in the early 1930s,to Hans of Rolex after they moved all production to the Precision Factory(just another name to appear on a Rolex dial). About this time, Aegler became increasingly tied to Rolex through the sale of stock and shares.And Today, the main Rolex building in Biel is the old Aegler factory, and though it is now owned by Rolex, it is still run by the Aegler family.

A few mostly now forgotten names on Rolex dials.

Air Lion,Air-Tiger,Air-giant,Space-Dweller,SkyRocket,Speedking,Falcon,Orchid,Observat ory ,Tridor, Athlete,Commando,Turtle Timer,Canadian Empire, Oyster Lipton, Rolex Scientific,Rolex Everest,Tudor Advisor,Oyster Junior Sport, Oyster Raleigh, Oyster Commander, Oyster Recorda, Oyster Edison, Oyster Grenfell, Oyster Shipmate and Oyster Standard,and there are a quite a few more that I cannot remember now.

One of my favourite vintage Rolex the Prince doctor dial below.




Perpetual and not my AD Said This Or That or is it Safe.

In todays market perpetual its just Rolex speak for being automatic winding,but Perrelet invented the first self winding mechanism around 1770,later Breguet improved it and called his winding system perpetuelles.Now perhaps this is where Rolex got the idea to call there automatics Perpetual.But it was a guy called John Harwood from the Isle of Man UK,now he in 1923 took out a UK/World patent for the first truly automatic winding wrist watch.

Now he went on with backing to produce many thousands of these watches,but mainly owing to the very hard industrial depression in the mid 1920s to 1930s in the UK he went broke and out of business .Now old Hans Wilsdorf of Rolex being a very clever but very shrewd man bought and took up this auto-winding patent for the Rolex Watch Company,and in the very early 1930s incorporated it into the oyster design case.

This with the newly acquired waterproof screw down crown patent that he got from Perregaux and George Peret now they first took out a Swiss patent in 1925 for the very first twin lock crown system .This with the Oyster type case,screw down twinlock crown and the acquired patent auto wind mechanism the first Rolex Oyster was born. But in those very early oyster days it only wound around 300 degrees .Now Rolex did improved the design by the help of Hans brother in-law,who made it more efficient by winding a full 360 degrees,and a power reserve then of around 36 hours.After the auto watch and the oyster case later the oyster type bracelet, Rolex really took off the rest is just pure marketing genius by Hans Wilsdorf oF the RWC.


First Rolex Submarine.

Old Hans Wilsdorf was a clever man,and wanted to increase sales worldwide and especially in tropical climates.So he tried to make a watch that was waterproof,now the evolution of the first oyster case was started.His idea was very simple,he would fit a case inside a case,and he called it the Submarine watch.Now this worked,but had certain drawbacks you had to open the case to wind it,and the outer case had a threaded screw on bezel to protect the watch.This was not very user owner friendly and caused wear on the hinges and bezel threads.So he started to look for a new idea for a truly waterproof wrist watch.So we had to wait 30 odd years for the rebirth from Submarine,to the first Submariner as we know it today.I suppose now is the most plentiful mechanical watch in this world today with many millions of them made .


Fastbeat Vs Slowbeat mechanical Movements.

The high-beat vs low-beat argument has been running as long as I've taken an interest in movements around now 55 years (I am talking about watches here) and opinions are still divided.

One of the more highly regarded chronograph movements is still the Zenith "El Primero" running at 36000 bph. So highly regarded as we all know it was used by Rolex in the Daytona.Now the Zenith calibre 3019 was first introduced in 1969 and I'm pretty sure if there were any problems with hi-beat movements, 47 years is long enough for them to manifest themselves.

Ulysse Nardin marine chronometers have always been highly regarded but it is a little known fact that for years, they were fitted with a high-beat (36000bph) version of the ETA 2824-2, UN calibre NB11QU. Zodiac produced at least four high-beat movements from 1971-73, all with Albert/Shine ebauche, and fitted to the "SST" models. Longines experimented with calibres 430 to 433 from 1967 but when they introduced twin-barrel movements in 1975, chose to revert back to 28800 bph,and in these days Longines made some excellent in-house made movements to equal or better most.

Changing the subject slightly, the Longines twin-barrel movements were something I wish had survived in current production,a brilliant movement,but very expensive to make. Calibre 890, 892 & 893 had stacked twin barrels whereas calibres 990 to 994 had side-by-side barrels in a movement only 2.95mm thick. The power reserve of around 44-50 hours was respectable but not particularly impressive for a twin-barrel movement, although I'm sure that if R & D had continued on this movement this would have been substantially improved.And would have put many a modern movements to shame,from any manufacturer or brand even Rolex.

Now the main advantages of slower beat rates (18,000 , 19,800 and 21,600 ) are less immediate. Lower power needs allow for softer mainsprings, limiting stress and friction throughout the wheel train, winding train, and the escapement. Service intervals are longer and more flexible, and part wear replacements are negligible.But in general low beat movements will generally not perform as well as a fast-beat one, and while slow beat movements can perform very well it requires more skill and effort from the watchmaker to achieve and Rolex achieved that though the many years, through laborious positional adjustments and high quality movement parts . Now slow-beat is used primarily by manufactures of high-craft movements, most of whom consider today 21,600 BPH to the best.But most of these type of movements say Patek being quite delicate and can easily be put out of adjustment by the slightest Mal adjustment like say a small fall or big shocks.


Some of the advantages of fast-beat (28,800 v/h and 36,000 v/h) are obvious, better isochronism, and better performance in both vertical and horizontal positions even with minimal adjustment or no adjustment at all.This is one of the reasons fast-beat has been almost universally adopted by mass-producers.If you think of a how fast a quartz movement beats,while Mechanical watch usually have 28000 to 36000 beats per hour, which is 480 to 600 beats per minute (Hz), and therefore cannot compete with quartz watches that have around 4000 to 8000 beats per second (10 times faster).So in theory the mechanical High beat movement should be more accurate,with very little difference in over all power reserve, because they use a much stronger main spring.Now some say there is the possible extra wear factor in the Hi beat movement,but IMO as long as the recommend services are done,there is little or no difference,service is very important with any mechanical movement.

Now when Rolex's did the modification to the Zenith chronograph, where in addition to reducing the beat rate, they discarded the regulator and installed there own vastly larger Microstella balance wheel,and regulator.And when Zenith would not,or could not, supply the vast quantities Rolex needed, they was forced to design there first ever chrono movement the cal 4130 in 2000. Which although now quite old is still going strong today and basically unchanged.

This is short list of outstanding movements that should all easily achieve a daily consistency of five seconds or better on the wrist.All of the current Rolex calibers including the Cal 4130 this a outstanding chronograph movement with a excellent power reserve and one of the best around now. But there are many others in the same class accuracy wise but less power reserve.

The ETA 2892-A2, ETA 2824/2T chronometer grade, ETA Valjoux 7750,Unitas 6497/8,Omega 2500, JLC 889/2 , JLC 960, Longines 990 (Lemania 8815), PP 215, PP 240,now IMHO the Grand Seiko 430 is one of best movements ever made .Others like the Zenith 400,Zenith 670, GP 3100 all excellent movements, plus there are many more.Would not call any modern movement made today best,whats best in one persons eyes is better in another's.But most movements today even from Alpha to every day Seiko, Miyota and all the high end brands all have there place in today's horological world.

Thanks Peter! I found that really informative, particularly the names that have appeared on past references. I definitely hadn’t heard of a few of them. I have always thought that Rolex got it wrong calling the 116900 an ‘Air King’. Given the reference’s link to the Bloodhound and the land speed record attempt, they should’ve brought back the ‘Speed King’ and called the new reference that. That being said, I still absolutely love the reference.

[jvb.nc]

Originally Posted by Justingtr

You mean you dont come here for the is it safe to wear my watch at x city? Or is it safe to wear my DSSD in the bathtub?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

tbh this is so the truth. been lurking forever, actually joined in november. enjoy an occasionally interesting thread, but generally banging my head against my desk through a lot of the thread titles.

[Juantxo]

I believe growth brings change, and more so when the element of consumerism is involved. People with understanding and knowledge of horology and the brand generate interest in the brand and attract consumers and newcomers. Thus, the forum membership grows and the content changes. Also, “trusted” vendors are attracted to the forum and do their thing. The nature of the beast, so to speak.

Good OP. Thank you.

Pete Seeger: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

[Duke of Dulwich]

The ones that frustrate me the most are the “Is it safe to wear my Rolex in x city/country?”. Those really have me banging my head against a wall and sometimes I just can’t resist the urge to respond with something sarcastic. The rest I can usually ignore and not bother reading.

p.s. I do enjoy seeing the ‘Incoming’ posts, particularly when there’s a story to accompany it.

[123Blueface]

Originally Posted by peterpl

Its because every single thread is about only several things (actually 1 thing but over and over and over again).

* is this model going to be discontinued and hence increase in price
* is this model going to increase in price
* is this model hard and going to increase in price.
* is this model sort after and a good investment and increase in price.

Thats pretty much what TRF threads are these days.

......and “is it safe to wear a watch designed for diving deeper than I will ever dare dream to go in my life, safe in my bath tub?”

“Is it safe to wear it in xxxx city?”

“When I magnify my watch under Atomic force microscopy, I see imperfections”

“Do you use duct tape to protect your watch from scratches?”

“I scratched my watch, do I need a new case?”

[Duke of Dulwich]

:

Originally Posted by 123Blueface

......and “is it safe to wear a watch designed for diving deeper than I will ever dare dream to go in my life, safe in my bath tub?”

“Is it safe to wear it in xxxx city?”

“When I magnify my watch under Atomic force microscopy, I see imperfections”

“Do you use duct tape to protect your watch from scratches?”

“I scratched my watch, do I need a new case?”

You pretty much nailed them all!

[superstarmar]

Originally Posted by hl65

op only here for 2 years and last 2 years has been mostly bitching about shortages, grey dealers, nicknames, valuations etc. I remember when forum was purely rolex enthusiasts for most part. A lot of focus was in vintage as well so yes things do change. It would be nice to shift back and away from the same thread topics over and over again.

I also agree ... we’ll said Ken...

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by padi56

Well a few are still around but myself lately have to drag myself on forum as now its little more than the stuff you get on Facebook mainly brain dead stuff.

Aegler made movements for Rolex.

The famous Techni-Quadron some information from Gruen web site ."Doctor's Watches" were so-called because the large seconds dial was handy for timing a patient's pulse. These however were not sold only to doctors. The watch was advertised as a timepiece for technicians and "radio and mechanical engineers"—anyone who needed to measure time in seconds. The 877 movement, manufactured by Aegler in Biel, was also used in the Rolex Prince; this unusual movement gives the watch its distinctive "dual dial" design. Hours and minutes are confined to the upper half of the dial, while the entire lower dial is dedicated to seconds. The Techni-Quadron provided a useful alternative to the tiny seconds hands on most watches from this era, which can be as little as 2mm , and are not practical to use for timing etc.


Aegler made movements for Rolex (which at this time had no own movement manufacturing capability)and has made Rolex movement ever since but now incorporated fully into the Rolex name.Gruen and Rolex were Aegler's biggest customers, and were both large shareholders as well. And the full company name at one time was, Aegler, Societe Anonyme, Fabrique des Montres Rolex & Gruen Guild A. Gruen and Rolex

Gruen sold their Aegler shares in the early 1930s,to Hans of Rolex after they moved all production to the Precision Factory(just another name to appear on a Rolex dial). About this time, Aegler became increasingly tied to Rolex through the sale of stock and shares.And Today, the main Rolex building in Biel is the old Aegler factory, and though it is now owned by Rolex, it is still run by the Aegler family.

A few mostly now forgotten names on Rolex dials.

Air Lion,Air-Tiger,Air-giant,Space-Dweller,SkyRocket,Speedking,Falcon,Orchid,Observat ory ,Tridor, Athlete,Commando,Turtle Timer,Canadian Empire, Oyster Lipton, Rolex Scientific,Rolex Everest,Tudor Advisor,Oyster Junior Sport, Oyster Raleigh, Oyster Commander, Oyster Recorda, Oyster Edison, Oyster Grenfell, Oyster Shipmate and Oyster Standard,and there are a quite a few more that I cannot remember now.

One of my favourite vintage Rolex the Prince doctor dial below.




Perpetual and not my AD Said This Or That or is it Safe.

In todays market perpetual its just Rolex speak for being automatic winding,but Perrelet invented the first self winding mechanism around 1770,later Breguet improved it and called his winding system perpetuelles.Now perhaps this is where Rolex got the idea to call there automatics Perpetual.But it was a guy called John Harwood from the Isle of Man UK,now he in 1923 took out a UK/World patent for the first truly automatic winding wrist watch.

Now he went on with backing to produce many thousands of these watches,but mainly owing to the very hard industrial depression in the mid 1920s to 1930s in the UK he went broke and out of business .Now old Hans Wilsdorf of Rolex being a very clever but very shrewd man bought and took up this auto-winding patent for the Rolex Watch Company,and in the very early 1930s incorporated it into the oyster design case.

This with the newly acquired waterproof screw down crown patent that he got from Perregaux and George Peret now they first took out a Swiss patent in 1925 for the very first twin lock crown system .This with the Oyster type case,screw down twinlock crown and the acquired patent auto wind mechanism the first Rolex Oyster was born. But in those very early oyster days it only wound around 300 degrees .Now Rolex did improved the design by the help of Hans brother in-law,who made it more efficient by winding a full 360 degrees,and a power reserve then of around 36 hours.After the auto watch and the oyster case later the oyster type bracelet, Rolex really took off the rest is just pure marketing genius by Hans Wilsdorf oF the RWC.


First Rolex Submarine.

Old Hans Wilsdorf was a clever man,and wanted to increase sales worldwide and especially in tropical climates.So he tried to make a watch that was waterproof,now the evolution of the first oyster case was started.His idea was very simple,he would fit a case inside a case,and he called it the Submarine watch.Now this worked,but had certain drawbacks you had to open the case to wind it,and the outer case had a threaded screw on bezel to protect the watch.This was not very user owner friendly and caused wear on the hinges and bezel threads.So he started to look for a new idea for a truly waterproof wrist watch.So we had to wait 30 odd years for the rebirth from Submarine,to the first Submariner as we know it today.I suppose now is the most plentiful mechanical watch in this world today with many millions of them made .


Fastbeat Vs Slowbeat mechanical Movements.

The high-beat vs low-beat argument has been running as long as I've taken an interest in movements around now 55 years (I am talking about watches here) and opinions are still divided.

One of the more highly regarded chronograph movements is still the Zenith "El Primero" running at 36000 bph. So highly regarded as we all know it was used by Rolex in the Daytona.Now the Zenith calibre 3019 was first introduced in 1969 and I'm pretty sure if there were any problems with hi-beat movements, 47 years is long enough for them to manifest themselves.

Ulysse Nardin marine chronometers have always been highly regarded but it is a little known fact that for years, they were fitted with a high-beat (36000bph) version of the ETA 2824-2, UN calibre NB11QU. Zodiac produced at least four high-beat movements from 1971-73, all with Albert/Shine ebauche, and fitted to the "SST" models. Longines experimented with calibres 430 to 433 from 1967 but when they introduced twin-barrel movements in 1975, chose to revert back to 28800 bph,and in these days Longines made some excellent in-house made movements to equal or better most.

Changing the subject slightly, the Longines twin-barrel movements were something I wish had survived in current production,a brilliant movement,but very expensive to make. Calibre 890, 892 & 893 had stacked twin barrels whereas calibres 990 to 994 had side-by-side barrels in a movement only 2.95mm thick. The power reserve of around 44-50 hours was respectable but not particularly impressive for a twin-barrel movement, although I'm sure that if R & D had continued on this movement this would have been substantially improved.And would have put many a modern movements to shame,from any manufacturer or brand even Rolex.

Now the main advantages of slower beat rates (18,000 , 19,800 and 21,600 ) are less immediate. Lower power needs allow for softer mainsprings, limiting stress and friction throughout the wheel train, winding train, and the escapement. Service intervals are longer and more flexible, and part wear replacements are negligible.But in general low beat movements will generally not perform as well as a fast-beat one, and while slow beat movements can perform very well it requires more skill and effort from the watchmaker to achieve and Rolex achieved that though the many years, through laborious positional adjustments and high quality movement parts . Now slow-beat is used primarily by manufactures of high-craft movements, most of whom consider today 21,600 BPH to the best.But most of these type of movements say Patek being quite delicate and can easily be put out of adjustment by the slightest Mal adjustment like say a small fall or big shocks.


Some of the advantages of fast-beat (28,800 v/h and 36,000 v/h) are obvious, better isochronism, and better performance in both vertical and horizontal positions even with minimal adjustment or no adjustment at all.This is one of the reasons fast-beat has been almost universally adopted by mass-producers.If you think of a how fast a quartz movement beats,while Mechanical watch usually have 28000 to 36000 beats per hour, which is 480 to 600 beats per minute (Hz), and therefore cannot compete with quartz watches that have around 4000 to 8000 beats per second (10 times faster).So in theory the mechanical High beat movement should be more accurate,with very little difference in over all power reserve, because they use a much stronger main spring.Now some say there is the possible extra wear factor in the Hi beat movement,but IMO as long as the recommend services are done,there is little or no difference,service is very important with any mechanical movement.

Now when Rolex's did the modification to the Zenith chronograph, where in addition to reducing the beat rate, they discarded the regulator and installed there own vastly larger Microstella balance wheel,and regulator.And when Zenith would not,or could not, supply the vast quantities Rolex needed, they was forced to design there first ever chrono movement the cal 4130 in 2000. Which although now quite old is still going strong today and basically unchanged.

This is short list of outstanding movements that should all easily achieve a daily consistency of five seconds or better on the wrist.All of the current Rolex calibers including the Cal 4130 this a outstanding chronograph movement with a excellent power reserve and one of the best around now. But there are many others in the same class accuracy wise but less power reserve.

The ETA 2892-A2, ETA 2824/2T chronometer grade, ETA Valjoux 7750,Unitas 6497/8,Omega 2500, JLC 889/2 , JLC 960, Longines 990 (Lemania 8815), PP 215, PP 240,now IMHO the Grand Seiko 430 is one of best movements ever made .Others like the Zenith 400,Zenith 670, GP 3100 all excellent movements, plus there are many more.Would not call any modern movement made today best,whats best in one persons eyes is better in another's.But most movements today even from Alpha to every day Seiko, Miyota and all the high end brands all have there place in today's horological world.

[007_Omega]

Start a post about these things and get the discussion going. While the forum has definitely changed, it doesn't mean that all the old discussions are gone.

[billfredericks]

I’ve only been a member of this forum since March of this year; however, I’m really enjoying ALL of its high and low brow posts.

Need advice? You’ll usually get it.
Want to learn some history? You will.
Need a place to vent about your first world problems? Here it is!
Need to flex a new piece with other enthusiasts? Go.

And, yes, even though many of the posts have started to mimic the style and substance of other social media platforms, the forum (in general) actually serves as a repository of primary source documents. I like to see what questions people ask during certain time periods—a great way to understand the climate of a particular age.

So, thanks, from me, to everyone! Post what you’re thinking about; respond if you’re inclined.

[tkc324]

Try the vintage forum...

[Brew]

I need a Turtle Timer ( . . . for my morning run).

[Robtayham]

Being a new member, I don’t know what it was like years ago.

But I do know my first impressions: this forum is exactly what the architects, moderators and site administrators want it to be. The reason why the volume of ‘grey’s are evil’; ‘incoming, congrats, congrats....’; ‘my AD won’t sell to me’, and ‘this city is unsafe’ type of threads are so prevalent is because they let it be that way. For example, they could easily create sub-forums for each of those ‘topics’ and allow those threads to be sorted into their respective sub-forums.

They choose not to build that functionality and controls, so the forum is what it is.

I catch myself wishing there was sub-forums for each line of Rolex watch. I own a DD and a DJ. It would be nice for each of those to have it’s own sub-forum. Let the DD or DJ owners have a place to share knowledge without being swamped by SS sub threads.

I still like it, but it does force you to hunt for what you like. And I’m still learning the site, so maybe some of this already exists.

[sein und zeit]

IMO forums changed with the advent of IG and FB group pages. forums were always like a server for discussion and storing knowledge but IG/FB content is very different. today's social media-driven instant gratification interaction model differs from forum interaction of linear and protracted discussion over time. people on IG/FB don't want to drill down on obscure text alignment on dials so much as they just want an instant answer and a few likes so you get different people just posting the same questions over and over again week after week (similar thing has happened with car forums).

[Bizcut1]

Well, I've only been on the Forum these past five years so not a long-time member but I will say what I"ve learned here has been valuable and
extremely useful in the real world of Rolex collecting and owning.


...and the education continues!

Ben

[Jocke]

If I look at myself then I am not as frequent visitor to the Rolex discussion section as I was 5 years ago. The reason for this I probably
want to blame Rolex for with their policy of delivering new watches. When these were pulled down and the market became as it is now, my
interest in Rolex has cooled down considerably. This results in me now focusing on other brands even though I have my Rolex watches left
so I haven't bought a Rolex watch for many years.

[Juantxo]

Originally Posted by Brew

I need a Turtle Timer ( . . . for my morning run).

Good one.

[Dsmith1974]

Originally Posted by Robtayham

Being a new member, I don’t know what it was like years ago.



But I do know my first impressions: this forum is exactly what the architects, moderators and site administrators want it to be. The reason why the volume of ‘grey’s are evil’; ‘incoming, congrats, congrats....’; ‘my AD won’t sell to me’, and ‘this city is unsafe’ type of threads are so prevalent is because they let it be that way. For example, they could easily create sub-forums for each of those ‘topics’ and allow those threads to be sorted into their respective sub-forums.



They choose not to build that functionality and controls, so the forum is what it is.



I catch myself wishing there was sub-forums for each line of Rolex watch. I own a DD and a DJ. It would be nice for each of those to have it’s own sub-forum. Let the DD or DJ owners have a place to share knowledge without being swamped by SS sub threads.



I still like it, but it does force you to hunt for what you like. And I’m still learning the site, so maybe some of this already exists.

I think it would just take up too much time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pw92676]

Originally Posted by TswaneNguni

What I know about Rolex ,I was taught on TRF .

Yes!!

[2001jesper]

Think that everyone is tired of the "is it safe or wear? ... what is the best investment? ... or ... should i buy this watch that I don't really want?". The reality is that discussions on any forum will always be dictated by the current environment; The "shortage" is what affects the most amount of the people and as watches become more popular (which is a fantastic thing), it attracts a far broader and new audience - Hence diluting the old core.

The forum will return to the old ways once the marked at one point in the future cools off and interest fades. However that would also imply a negativ for the industry

[Rashid.bk]

Originally Posted by Dan Pierce

Shared wealth of knowledge and respectful conversation were always what separated TRF from every other watch forum. Sadly the trend is more about status pi$$ing contests, scarce availability, and which watch will assure me a profit.
dP

This is what has happened. No one cares about how many jewels a 3235 has or whether it uses the new parallax or kif shock system, or even whether a full balance bridge is better for timing and stability...those days are gone. It's mostly about profit and flexing your status of owning anything just because. In the past people actually had a relevant personal reason for choosing a watch, today, it's because it's available and will be "worth" more.

[SearChart]

Originally Posted by THC

As long as we have Bas, Jocke, and Paul, I am in for the long haul

Hey I dunked a sub dial in acetone today, I think I should be stripped of my title

[bestwatch101]

Originally Posted by chloebear

Well said. I completely agree.

I do too

[zengineer]

The place is crawling with experts, they just aren't right nearly as often these days.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[SpeakWithMichael]

I see the Trusted Sellers as a good source of untapped knowledge, even if their expertise is primarily on the business side of it. They've seen and handled tons of different watches, can have daily contact with their watchmakers, and some are probably phenomenal experts, but for the sake of time and not rubbing anyone the wrong way, they do not post their knowledge here. Which is a shame, but I understand it perfectly.

Personally, I love Rolex watches, and I like to help, and on top of that I'm a teacher by trade, so as I increase my knowledge over the years I'll be happy to add my two cents wherever I feel I wouldn't be wrong in what I'm stating, but I've got a long way to go before I come anywhere close to being as helpful or knowledgeable as some of the people here with decades of experience and a very long list of watches owned, enjoyed, tinkered with, etc. Some will become experts, other experts will join the fold, and some experts will leave. It's completely natural, I think.