Reposted from another thread on another forum. You may find it useful.
Here we go ...
Once upon a time, there was a German bloke called Maria. He lived in Thailand and bought replica Rolexes (and other watches) from a stall in the MBK centre, Bangkok. Some of these Rolex replicas (mostly the vintage 1665 and 1680 models) attained legendary status when people realised they were made the same way as the genuines, meaning the bezel construction was a 1:1 copy of the genuine version. What this meant was that people could fit genuine Rolex acrylic crystals and bezel inserts.
From this, a myth about their superior quality came about, with people believing they were 100% accurate replicas, when this wasn't actually the case. The steel they're made of is superior to that of other replicas, but the log holes are the wrong size, the crown guards are completely and utterly wrong and the dials on the red-print versions is basically not very good.
When Maria sold these watches, he did so under the name of Maria's Best Watch, which itself took on a mythical quality as he was a bit of a belligerent fellow, not wanting to deal with some people, adding a rarity to the whole proceedings. When he stopped selling the watches on the forums, he had a friend called Luckyyy who sold them in his place under the MBW banner. Luckyyy later ran off with a few members' money and disappeared.
Once more, MBW watches were impossible to get unless you knew a mysterious George, who was based in Greece and only dealt with people that he trusted, for one reason or another. He never openly advertised and people passed the password to his Photobucket around like the key to Pandora's Box, veiled in mystery and myth once more.
At this point, $450+, and a lot of legwork, would have got you one of these mythical 1680/1665 replicas until some upstart called Leonado posted the location of the mysterious stall in the MBK shopping centre and invited members to go blow the lid off the whole thing. He promised at one point that he would in fact become a dealer in MBWs.
(You may note at this point that Maria no longer has anything to do with proceedings and therefore the name MBW should no longer be used, but as mythical a name as that doesn't go away easily.)
I got the address and sent my brother, a Bangkok resident, a request to pick me up a couple of watches. I mentioned this and when I refused to set up shop, Leonado went on a witch hunt for reasons never adequately explained, but the upshot was that I was not willing to organise a group buy through my brother as he likes his residence/work visa and selling contraband, with the little experience he had, was simply not worth the risk.
In steps, at this point, the saviour of the rephound, TTK.
TTK sees that there is serious demand and decides that he will do a group buy, offering the hitherto unheard of price of $350 a watch. It was a great success and since then TTK has offered MBWs (even though they no longer should carry the name) as part of his regular range.
Any details about individual watches are mentioned in various threads throughout the forums. Enjoy your reading.
My not-from-Maria MBWs follow. Mods by yours truly.
Pre-mods 1665 and 1680 with the standard ETA 2836 movements.
Lightly Modded 1665:
Heavily Modded 1680:
Here we go ...
Once upon a time, there was a German bloke called Maria. He lived in Thailand and bought replica Rolexes (and other watches) from a stall in the MBK centre, Bangkok. Some of these Rolex replicas (mostly the vintage 1665 and 1680 models) attained legendary status when people realised they were made the same way as the genuines, meaning the bezel construction was a 1:1 copy of the genuine version. What this meant was that people could fit genuine Rolex acrylic crystals and bezel inserts.
From this, a myth about their superior quality came about, with people believing they were 100% accurate replicas, when this wasn't actually the case. The steel they're made of is superior to that of other replicas, but the log holes are the wrong size, the crown guards are completely and utterly wrong and the dials on the red-print versions is basically not very good.
When Maria sold these watches, he did so under the name of Maria's Best Watch, which itself took on a mythical quality as he was a bit of a belligerent fellow, not wanting to deal with some people, adding a rarity to the whole proceedings. When he stopped selling the watches on the forums, he had a friend called Luckyyy who sold them in his place under the MBW banner. Luckyyy later ran off with a few members' money and disappeared.
Once more, MBW watches were impossible to get unless you knew a mysterious George, who was based in Greece and only dealt with people that he trusted, for one reason or another. He never openly advertised and people passed the password to his Photobucket around like the key to Pandora's Box, veiled in mystery and myth once more.
At this point, $450+, and a lot of legwork, would have got you one of these mythical 1680/1665 replicas until some upstart called Leonado posted the location of the mysterious stall in the MBK shopping centre and invited members to go blow the lid off the whole thing. He promised at one point that he would in fact become a dealer in MBWs.
(You may note at this point that Maria no longer has anything to do with proceedings and therefore the name MBW should no longer be used, but as mythical a name as that doesn't go away easily.)
I got the address and sent my brother, a Bangkok resident, a request to pick me up a couple of watches. I mentioned this and when I refused to set up shop, Leonado went on a witch hunt for reasons never adequately explained, but the upshot was that I was not willing to organise a group buy through my brother as he likes his residence/work visa and selling contraband, with the little experience he had, was simply not worth the risk.
In steps, at this point, the saviour of the rephound, TTK.
TTK sees that there is serious demand and decides that he will do a group buy, offering the hitherto unheard of price of $350 a watch. It was a great success and since then TTK has offered MBWs (even though they no longer should carry the name) as part of his regular range.
Any details about individual watches are mentioned in various threads throughout the forums. Enjoy your reading.
My not-from-Maria MBWs follow. Mods by yours truly.
Pre-mods 1665 and 1680 with the standard ETA 2836 movements.
Lightly Modded 1665:
Heavily Modded 1680:
