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Quite possibly the two most expensive frankens in Singapore last weekend: Unfortunately, this photo fails to capture the deep, rich silver of siesta181's sigma dial.

Rolex 1675 GMT Master special edition for The UAE and the Sultanate of Oman This is a special build for a member who is a great gen and franken Rolex GMT collector. These watches came with a specific blue bezel insert reserved for the Peruvian and Italian Air Force and also UAE Air Force pilots. Some of UAE dials had white or red dial writings and came with blue or pepsi insets, I agreed with the customer option and advices, the pepsi insert was the best cosmetic choice for this watch, according with the armorial bearings on the dial. Specifications : Background watch / accessories : -1655 Explorer II case -Asian DG3804B - 21600bph true GMT movement -YukiWatch refinished UAE dial and hands -WSO GMT complete bezel assembly -Gen blue insert from my personal collection, used for pictures -Clark 25-116 cyclop -Gen Rolex springbars -Gen Rolex Jubilee bracelet / gen endlinks Next photo you can see the new case design after metal cuts, especially the CG area. The cartel 1/1 1655 case is complete out of specs but has enough material to be re-designed. The cartel called 1655 1/1 has nothing 1/1, except the fact you can stack a Rolex specs cristal and rotating bezel assembly. The case design has been cut using a common CNC machining program as this case is used for many other Rolex models. The case is to much thick, as lot of Rolex reps. If you compare gen Rolex watches you will notice gen vintage cases like Sub 5512, 5513, explo 1655, 16570 and GMT 1675 and 16750 have very slim cases. Anyway, this watch actually is the best background to be used to build a 1675/16750. Note : the 1655 and the 1675/16750 watches used the same case. The 1675 was a 1655 with a rotating bezel and a different dial. The lume : the customer specs were : old tritium, but I need to read during the night ! Here we have dead tritium and strontium aluminate powder mixed with an acrylic medium. Not really easy to apply and control, Strontium particles will give a new life to dead tritium. This mixture exposed to a strong light during 30 minutes is able to bright more than 20 hours, Classic Tritecs products contain a little strontium. This product is hard to get, it is used in aviation technologies for flight instruments and cockpit equipments and used with retro-lighting technics Thanks for your attention !

I was doing a bit of price checking on new Squale watches, and found this UK dealer with some extremely well priced NOS, but 1970 vintage watches. http://www.watchgecko.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=35 It appears that when the Squale (Italian company) were taken over by the Swiss, there were a stack of cases and dials from 1970's production. So they have been assembled with new ETA movements and straps/bracelets and offered with warranty in new boxes. Apparently the only issue is that the lume on some dials is a bit ordinary. A bit of history and eye candy here-http://www.gnomonwatches.com/Product-view.asp?id=59 So being the ferret that I am, I did some more checking, and found I could access supply of these NOS pieces at VERY good prices indeed! Unfortunately there is not a lot of stock left, and I am just now getting quantities and final pricing. But stay tuned because we may have a chance to do a one off group buy (Once I seek approval from the admin here) and have some wonderful old watches in NOS condition FS at prices we pay for much lesser products. I do wish to keep this pretty low key, so anyone with any questions please PM or email me. Offshore

I can put the green one back in I just wanted to try it out with a spare I had, I like experimenting.

There was a great white lurking around as well. 3 frankens total cost aroung the US10k mark.... We really have to get our priorities right....

Wow so much to read... So little time on my hands Hello all!

Have to disagree with my friend cougar here. IMHO the strap is well worth it. It's definitely the best oob strap I own. Extremely comfortable

I hate to admit that I did this, but here is what I did. I took the eta sweep second and put it on a junk movement and cut both ends off at the tub. Then I filed what was left just a little to smooth it out. Then I removed the post off the bottom of the sweep second on the gen, and then epoxyed it to the eta post. Let it harden and removed it from the old movement. Believe it or not it worked great, and from the top you could not tell. If you have a lathe you should be able to cut the hour and minute tower to fit. Good luck, and please don't tell anyone what I did. LOL