I just received a very sad email from the Admistrators of The Replica Collector:

"It is with great sadness that I announce that as of this moment, no more posts will be made at TRC. As you might know, TRC has becoming slower and slower for a long time. Today, I am putting an end to a long journey and I am turning TRC into a read-only archive. The forum will still be online and all posts will stay here, but no new posts will be allowed and all services will be turned off.

I would like to thank all our members for an interesting ride so far. WE definitely broke ground here and went through a lot of growing pains that other boards learned from. At TRC, we saw the evolution…the transformation of a cheap canal street replica into something that we would have never thought would happen….a replica that is in some cases identical. WE actually influenced the dealers and manufacturers to their current state. WE helped weed out bad apples and most of the time, scams. WE banded together to get deals, repelled those who would defame TRC. WE pioneered many aspects of replica discussions. WE were the go to for other boards when they are in trouble. Today, WE can see every bit of TRC in other replica boards that have sprung. WE were version 1.1 (I still hold RWCC as 1.0 ;)). So you see, TRC is not gone, it just spread itself and will continue on in other boards. "

TRC is the Grand Daddy of all the splinter boards that have formed in the past few years.   It was always a place for civilized discussions and a more academic approach to replica watches.  I personally learned my chops there, and will sorely miss the camraderie amongst us older members.  But to be honest I hadn’t logged on there for quite some time, which is a good indication of why things turned out the way they did.  Good bye TRC!

I just posted a Squidoo Lens on replica watches: Top 10 Reasons Replica Watches Are Hot Sellers.  I’m testing out Squidoo to see how useful it actually is.  I’d appreciate people visiting the lens and giving me your opinion. :)  The reasons are in no particular order so I’d love help in sorting them.

The oldest surviving replica watch forum, The Replica Collector, is no longer accepting new members without an invitation.  The Admin of the board posted that in order to preserve the spirit and intention of the board that he was closing the doors to new walk-in members.  The Replica Collector (TRC) has been losing members steadily to the newer replica watch forums.  While not as dynamic as these newer sites TRC has always had a knowledable base of collectors.  It also has the largest body of knowledge on replica watches in its forum posts.

I appologize that on this site there are links to TRC that now do not work because of the closed-door policy.  I will try to police these links and move the content to local storage.

And no, I don’t have any invites to give for joining TRC.