Apologies for length.
For me, I was spending WAY too much money on gens... for years, I wanted a Tag, and then I got one... then two, then three... I wanted a Breitling... I got one... then I "had to have a Sub..." That turned into one, then two, then add an Explorer II... then "No, it needs to be a PVD Explorer II"... then an Anonimo, then THREE Anonimos... then a Speedmaster, then a Seamaster, then a U-Boat, then a Sinn U1, then a Marathon CSAR, Doxa 750T...
It snowballed out of control, and I was flipping watches sometimes a week after I got them... I lost so much money on depreciation...
So I feel like I have "earned" the right to get reps now because at the height of my watch-crack habit, I had around 25K-30K in gens... and then I saw a photo on TRF of a guy who has this Halliburton suitcase with like 20 gen T Submariners... and I was buying watches from a guy who, I swear to God, just had a LIST of the watches he had... HUNDREDS... he had no idea what he had, he just HAD them.
I realized, "I don't want to become those guys."
So I sold them all, paid off my car... and now I can safely get high quality reps, flip them at will, and I won't be wasting money in depreciation... the reps are so good now that even after all of the time I have spent on here, it is hard for me to tell without pulling up a close-up photo on eBay and staring at it for 10 minutes... this will never happen in real life.
It lets me have the watches I want without the depreciation and buyer's remorse... and even better, the rep market is, financially, FAR superior to the gen market.
For instance, you can put a CONUS rep on the board here and it can sell within an hour at basically THE PRICE YOU PAID FOR IT. The depreciation on my gens was often 50% - 50%!!!!!! Not including service costs which, incredibly, people factor into costs on this board when they sell and PEOPLE PAY! This would never happen in gen land, unless it was a restored rare Rolex...
And I have used this example a few times on here, but since I buy all of my watches online, I once bought a U-Boat 55mm Flightdeck, brand new...
I put it on, hated it... not only that, but the movement - it was a "plain Jane" 7750, and even the engraving looked sloppy, like a cheap rep (trust me, it was definitely gen)... I sold it on eBay a week later (it still had the clear sticker on the front and rear crystal) and I lost maybe $1,500 on the deal...
The other reason... again, I've said it before on here:
I scratched the crystal on my Rolex Sub 5513... that was $400. I had my Breitling Chronomat serviced... $800. And so on.
Even worse, I had a PVD Explorer II - ROLEX WOULDN'T TOUCH IT. I basically had to bribe the service guy to do it "off the clock and under the table." Same thing on the Rolex 5513 because I wanted him to put a top hat on it instead of the appropriate service crystal. How's that for "the gen experience?"
I bought a Seamaster Speedy... came with missing hand and broken movement... that was the last straw... USPS wouldn't pay... lost over $1,000 on that one, sold it as parts.
Never again. Now I can enjoy the same crack-rock therapy without epic financial losses.
The only gens I would get now are ones that are poorly repped or anything with gold. More than likely, if I ever get a gen Rolex again, it will be to build a vintage one out of parts.
Even this week, I started again cracking out on gens... and then I talked to my friend in Berlin, and he was like, "You know, you could have ANOTHER watch... or, instead, you could come to Berlin for a week, stay at Hotel Adelon, look out of your hotel window at the Brandenburg Gate, and you will never forget it. I'd rather have that than a Rolex." And he is right.
