Regrets, I've had a few!

[jonnybaws]

Been on a Pam buying splurge of late and therefore in regular contact with my TD.
Having gone through the various threads here I realised that I've made a few mistakes in my Noob past when buying reps and even more mistakes when it came to selling them.
The two obvious mistakes for me were selling the Pam 187 and Pam 243.

So, as you do, you ask the odd cheeky question to the TD, "Can you get the Pam XXX?" in my case I asked if there were any 243s laying around, if he had any New Old Stock, but no!

However he did mention that he's had many many MANY requests for the Pam 243.
Which got me thinking, maybe naïve, but, if we got enough people interested, do you think we could petition VSF via the TD to remake the 243?

If that takes off and the TD gets a positive response from the factories maybe we could ask for a remake of the 187 in the next round (assuming the first round ever gets up and running..)

I'll start..
JonnyBaws - First choice 243, Second choice 187

 

[preppyr6]

Hmm, wasnt aware of the 243. Is it just the 087 (which I have) with black dial?

 

[rcom440]

This will never happen unless you get at least 500 people and send money to the factory before they release it - good luck with that.

 

[tripdog]

More like 1000 customers with funds paid up front - non returnable.

 

[jonnybaws]

This will never happen unless you get at least 500 people and send money to the factory before they release it - good luck with that.

I agree, but one can dream.. no? ????

 

[nalomb]

Its tough to look backwards in the rep game -- there are so many models that appeal to your tastes later in life that you can permanently damage your foot from kicking your own ass in regrets haha. I suppose its good as it creates a sense of urgency when new models come out but it can also lead to a debilitating addiction to the member sales section of the forum ...

The silver lining is that patience pays off, gen Panerai watches in particular depreciate quickly and there's always something new to feed the habit.

 

[KOT1917]

Hmm, wasnt aware of the 243. Is it just the 087 (which I have) with black dial?

No, rather pam024 but in the case of 1950 44mm. In general, it is so difficult to compare, this is a rather unique model, and a very high-quality rep, regardless of the factory.

 

[mskwatch]

I don’t wanna rain on your parade, but here we’re just a small part of the rep clients world, so if something is popular on rwi that doesn’t mean the whole rep world is on it

 

[jonnybaws]

I knew it was an 1/1000000000 shot to start with, but why not dream that impossible dream!

 

[mysterio]

I knew it was an 1/1000000000 shot to start with, but why not dream that impossible dream!

Short answer; it's complicated.

Long answer

To accomplish this, you would need 3 things, listing from easiest to most difficult.
1. A TD who would act as the intermediary between the buyers and the factory, as we can't hold the factory responsible. I put this as the easiest although it's not really easy. Many a TD has been burned before for arranging special orders (I don't remember a single transaction that went smoothly). They presumed they could probably sell the uncommitted number quickly but it did not turn out that way and the TDs were left holding the expensive bag of unsold reps (they eventually sold everything but it took some time).
2. 1000 interested buyers. Might be lower but it would depend on the TD and factory if the margins were good enough. It probably will go hand in hand with finding a TD to act as a go-between. But getting 1000 members who are interested AND willing to pay money upfront for a rep that might take some time to produce, given some considerations I will discuss in #3, is also not that easy.
3. A factory that would be willing to do this. This would partly depend on the number of orders, which was discussed in #2. Although one might think this is a foregone conclusion, we have to be reminded that previous custom builds were based on at the time currently produced models with some variations (for example the AP Montauk Highway or the PAM113/114). The PAM243 is not a currently produced submersible design, nor is the PAM187. The factory does not make parts, they have parts factories for that and unless you can get Noob to make it (presuming the current owners still have that part factory information), it would add another source of delay on the part (pun intended) of any other factory that tackles this.

Given these factors and the difficulties associated with them, you would probably have better luck waiting for one to pop up on M2M. But hey, if you can manage to get all 3 lined up, good on you.