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BP realeses 2006 version of Explorer II

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Reaps

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Like with all BP

Good for the price, no care for details

From that picture that bowtie posted, the mag is completely out of wack, the date is very over magnified

No need to talk about bezel, typical affair, basically markings are bad (look at arrows, they're too far from the crystal compared to gen).

Case has flaws, aggressive chamfer, crown guard shape, etc, won't hammer that out too much, crown wrong, etc

And the flaw I can also see is that the 3-6-9-12 markers have different lume to the dot markers

Minor differences in printing such as the Rolex crown on the dial is different to gen but I'm not familiar with the 16570 variants so I won't say it's anything

Basically, it looks like unchanged from their 2836 attempt and at some points even worse.

However, a $300 true GMT is a steal at any price point and I'll probably pick one for fun. And the other compromise is dropping $1.5k on a superfranken Vietnam case.
 
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Karbon74

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Reaps said:
Like with all BP

Good for the price, no care for details

From that picture that bowtie posted, the mag is completely out of wack, the date is very over magnified

No need to talk about bezel, typical affair, basically markings are bad (look at arrows, they're too far from the crystal compared to gen).

Case has flaws, aggressive chamfer, crown guard shape, etc, won't hammer that out too much, crown wrong, etc

And the flaw I can also see is that the 3-6-9-12 markers have different lume to the dot markers

Minor differences in printing such as the Rolex crown on the dial is different to gen but I'm not familiar with the 16570 variants so I won't say it's anything

Basically, it looks like unchanged from their 2836 attempt and at some points even worse.

However, a $300 true GMT is a steal at any price point and I'll probably pick one for fun. And the other compromise is dropping $1.5k on a superfranken Vietnam case.
Click to expand...
Ok based on this, I will pass
 
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LUWE

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Even if the crownguards are off no one in the outside world will notice. That is flaw which only we "freaks" notice. And to be honest, I can live which such flaws. In my near surroundings, no one has a gen, to compare. And all the other people don´t even know that it is a rep.

And modding and frankanize a watch is for now nothing for me. When someone else did the works, and it is nice and price is ok, than maybe. For now I am happy with the "out of the box stuff"
 
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Reaps

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LUWE said:
Even if the crownguards are off no one in the outside world will notice. That is flaw which only we "freaks" notice. And to be honest, I can live which such flaws. In my near surroundings, no one has a gen, to compare. And all the other people don´t even know that it is a rep.

And modding and frankanize a watch is for now nothing for me. When someone else did the works, and it is nice and price is ok, than maybe. For now I am happy with the "out of the box stuff"
Click to expand...
Just pointing out for others. Like I said I'll still buy one. $300 is fine for this BP rep.
 
LUWE

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Sure, all good! Everyone has a different pov on the things! And even if it are reps, I think we should openly discuss the flaws. Pretty sure the factories have their "moles" here, so they are pretty sure aware what to improve. What is important to us.. or say, I hope they read here..
 
Karbon74

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Reaps said:
Just pointing out for others. Like I said I'll still buy one. $300 is fine for this BP rep.
Click to expand...

Actually, I am not bothered with some minor flaws. It’s just that I will want to fix them and this one would drive me crazy 🤪
I would start to throw stupid money at this
 
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dpd3672

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I seem to have evolved in my enjoyment of reps, I'm wondering if we all do.

At first, I only bought stuff from the NWBIG list, whether I really liked it or not, just because it was "the best." I don't really ever wear most of them, just knew that availability is often temporary, and didn't want to miss the chance to have one of each. I think I have pretty much the entire list now, other than some of the PAMs (I do like Panerai, but if I'm honest, they really only make 3 watches...Luminor, Radiomir, and Submersible...everything else is just variations in dials and case sizes) and nothing by Richard Mille...I just never fell in love with the design, and quite frankly, it's not something that most of us could pull off. $100k+ watches are not in the realm of possibilites for most of us.

Then it was modding vintage watches, trying to achieve (near) perfection, and building reps that didn't really exist on the market.
While I still enjoy building and trying to blaze new territory in modding, I'm also finding I like "project" watches quite a bit. Give me something that needs some TLC at a decent discount, and I can't say, "no."

But the last couple purchases I've made from dealers are watches like this...not perfect to fine scrutiny, but a decent quality rep that does the job. I picked up a BP 16610 because I couldn't justify the cost of paying more for the ARF (which is admittedly better) and the gen parts to make it better. I could have a near perfect franken ARF 16610, or for a few $grand more, I could just go gen, which I have my eye out to do. After I get the gen, I'll keep the BP for beating on, and wear the gen on special occasions. The BP 16610 may not look exactly like a gen 16610, but it looks exactly like a "Submariner from 20-40 years ago" if that makes any sense, in layman's terms.

I like this one for the same reasons. It's not a 1:1 copy, there are flaws, but it does look enough like an early generation Explorer 2 and the price is right. If it takes gen parts, I may swap a few in (I've got some bezels and gen crystals in the stash), and be done with it.
 
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Karbon74

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dpd3672 said:
I like this one for the same reasons. It's not a 1:1 copy, there are flaws, but it does look enough like a second/third generation GMT and the price is right. If it takes gen parts, I may swap a few in (I've got some bezel inserts and gen crystals in the stash), and be done with it.
Click to expand...

And now this makes me change my mind again
 
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Yellowsubmarine

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@dpd3672 exactly this.
I swapped in a gen bezel and crystal and stopped there. Gen dial and hands would have been a bit overkill for the budget.

For anything more you’re probably better off with a viet case build..
 
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Yellowsubmarine said:
@dpd3672 exactly this.
I swapped in a gen bezel and crystal and stopped there. Gen dial and hands would have been a bit overkill for the budget.

For anything more you’re probably better off with a viet case build..
Click to expand...

I did Viet for my initial builds. I’m just going to test out the case to see if it’s more of an economical option for builds.

Because I want mine to be accurate I’ll likely end up doing Viet cases in the end.
 
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