I did buy gray (and saved over $60k in the process). no regrets at all. What this situation has shown is that regardless of where you buy the watch, just Ensure it is under Warranty and Patek\HSWA will take good care of you. The AD is merely a conduit to Patek and HSWA doesn’t discriminate against Those who buy gray vs. from an AD, just whether it’s under warranty or not. If I need to ship the watch myself at my own expense and be reimbursed by Patek later on because my local AD has never shipped a high value watch to Patek before, that’s okay. Even if I was to buy from an AD, it wouldn’t be my local AD (they ship every in-demand watch to Hong Kong as soon as they come in). My local AD has been on the fringe for losing their dealership license for a while now, Patek put them on notice about a year ago. I bought a few other pieces from them like my 5296G and some others, but would never do any serious business with them like a 5270.