I hope you still have enough time to take care of your
I’ve gone ahead with a root beer from ctime. Hope it was a good choices they seem pretty legit and got a fair price for a clean modelTo be fair all the TD's will be offering the same watches made by all the factories such as GMF, VSF, Clean etc..... The only differences will the prices on offer and how well you "gel" with them as far as comms go, ask them a few questions if you need to and see how they respond, most are all very helpful and one you commit to your first purchase you may want to stick with the same TD as you already have formed a realtionship, that is still no guarantee of smooth future transactions but a much higher chance as a repeat customer, they are not like store fronts they are middle men (sorry peops for the Wokies!) so they will try their best to facilitate your order, very few make a suggestion on which model to purchase they leave that choice up to you, so you need to scour the pages and pic a model that makes you most comfortable and that has the least amount of flaws in comparison to the gen version, this will take time to understand the little subtle differences (as the day of the ticking hand as a tell are long gone). Get a few browser tabs open and get some good pic maybe from Ebay up of the gen model you like then check out the TD sites and if they have QC pics try an view them side by side! You will learn a fair bit on which reps are closest, They are reps though so dont expect too much and the stainless models are often the better option as there is less to be picky about such as the gold colour or the mid links being plated on the sides as if they are solid gold like a gen.
TD's have to earn that title and as this is a good source of custom will not want to loose that status but they can be busy so be patient, once you pay they will make and order with a factory unless they happen to keep some inventory, so they will be reliant on the factory to provide the watch and often the QC pics, many will not offer QC on the internals as this can then break the factory guarantee on water resistance as many will be built and pressure tested long before the QC pic are created. Some factories will take longer to get hold of a model depending on how busy and popular the model is.
Also remeber if you decide to buy and get it and it not what you want you can always flip it on here through the sales section.
QC pics are also not the time to pic up on te rep's shortcomings as far as how good the clone is, its more for how good the build is of the watch and how many seconds it might loose or gain per day COSC tolerance is + or - 6 seconds per day I think dont quote me on that so anything inside that is good!
Its also worth looking in the sale section on here for second hand ones if you just wanna try one out if you are not sure too.
The Root Beer is a great model by the way.