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My favorite watch (prettier than the grey version I find) is getting some wrist time today ...odd thing that a watch I like this much remains mostly protected in the winder . Its a keeper

Hi Everyone, I just couldn't wait any longer, I put together all the spare parts I had lying around and had to put this thing together. Unfortunately I did not have all the parts to match the case so you will notice the dial is a little large for the case and I had to trim down the hands so they wouldn't hit the bezel. However I just needed to see how this thing was going to look assembled. The movement bridge is one of my test bridges so it too is not perfect, but since I got bit by the vintage bug I have loved the look of the 3646 Brevettato, so I just could no longer contain myself. Here are all the pictures, though not perfect it looks great. This watch was my inspiration..... It's a modem burner, so here we go..... Made my own front and back crystals from some of the old Molly pocket watches I had. They were so old and weathered I couldn't pass them up. I trimmed them down and vuala, nothing more vintage than vintage.. Here are some close ups of the dial I made with rodium burns at 3:41 to simulate where the hands were sitting for a very long time while the watch sat undiscovered for years. You'll notice the hour hand left a stronger imprint because it sits closer to the dial. Too bad the "ROLEX" engraving came out so bad, the rest of the engravings were pretty good.. Finally, the vintage lume seen thru the cracked indices [ Thanks for looking.......

Everyone is showing their new 372's off and I just wanted to be a part of the crowd. Here is my 372 I ordered from Andrew . Now that the shock has worn off, I should start by saying that there was nothing wrong with the watch. I took it completely apart because I wanted to fix a few things with the cg and also wanted to check out the movement. My concern was that they disabled the running seconds like they did on my 390 (snipping the off long pivot). I found a few interesting things that I thought others would also find interesting. The first was the thickness of the dial. The dial is extremely thick, which allowed the fourth wheel pivot to be left long. There is a small cutout on the back of the dial for the long pivot. Because the dial is so thick, they had to add a cap onto the canon pinion. It is a very interesting solution. Because there is a cap on the canon pinion, the hour hand had to have a long tube. Haven't really seen one quite this long before. This allows the hour hand to fit over the cap and grab onto the canon pinion. The last thing I noticed on my watch was that there was a ton of adhesive on the faux plates. It looks like they used double sided tape or dial strips to hold them on. There was no way my plates were coming off without a lot of help. Now it's time to get her back together. Thanks for reading!!!!

There's a guy that drinks in my local who knows everything about everything. You all know the type. Basically, he regards himself as a watch collector because he buys one every time he goes on holiday. A while back he said, "I must have over a hundred watches, but I don't have any Rolexes, although I do have a few expensive ones that cost me about £200." You get the picture. Quite often he'll comment on the watch I'm wearing and ask what it is. He hasn't heard of Panerai, Ebel or Chopard, but, "Patek Philippe, yeah I've heard of them, they're French aren't they!" Anyway, he was in the local last night and asked me what the time was. I saw he was wearing one of his extensive collection, so I asked if his watch had stopped. "No, it's a self-winding one and it loses about 5 minutes every hour, because I don't move my arm about very much. I'm going to go and get the next bus and just wanted to check what the correct time was." I told him what the time was.

I was called out once, a few years back. But not exactly wearing a rep, but a franken. I own an Oysterquartz, about 50% gen (but the movement) and this guy says I was wearing rep since the second hand jumped and did not swept. I told him that it was a franken OQ, the only quartz watch ever made by Rolex. He did not believe me as - he said- Rolex would never make a a cheap quartz watch. I told him he was wrong, because Rolex produced the OQ for decades. So he argued that it was unfair that I was making up this story, to cover my "unathic" practice. What can you do if he was half right ? I hope he later realized I was being "honest" to some degree in my explanation. Here is a pic of the frankenstein Oysterquartz, which I wear as I write this post.

Been called out by a fake watch dealer. He tried to sell me a canal street cheapo for $1000 and when I laughed at his price and pointed out inaccuracies that anyone with a fleeting knowledge of panerai would know, he said : "this is a good fake, not cheap fake like yours." I was wearing a gen...

now also added a close up of the gen pearl in my previous post And some more pics from our sister forum

Rainy Saturday

First of all, nothing beats a gen. A 1675 is still reasonable, you might find one for $3K-4K. The 5508/5510 and 1665 are going to run $8K and up. So a 1675 is going to be your best bet, costwise. A franken is always a franken, it's not a gen. The value of a franken is in the parts that were used to build the watch and the watch may have to be disassembled and the parts sold off individually to realize that value. And parts are getting harder to find. Gen owners and franken builders are competing for the same small pool of parts. Rolex no longer makes any of these parts and hasn't for say 20 years. A franken isn't really an investment, it's a love and there's no real money in love! The most expensive part of a franken is generally the movement- a 1530, 1520 or a 1575 are typical. But since Rolex no longer services these movements, and parts are getting harder to find, you have to wonder if it's really worth it to use an old movement. You have to figure a service also when using an old movement, $200-300, and there's always the possibility of getting a dud. No one ever sees the movement unless you remove the caseback. The frankens I like the most these days are the ones that typically run $500-1000 to build. Some of them aren't even frankens, they're just fine reps!

FC for me today

Seawolf with a Panatime panerai strap.

Ok what I have read so far on the different forums. The BP is a great out of the box rep. - superlumed - great pearl - good case - good dial - great insert - ok bracelet and clasp - 1:1 construction, largely interchangeable with gen parts The noob V2 - superlumed - great pearl - great dial - good insert, BP seems to be better because of "deeper" engravings - perfect bracelet and clasp, guys who already have one say it really feels 1:1 with gen. Top quality - it claims to be 1:1 made like BP but we will have to wait until someone tries that. So to sum it up, both reps seem to be of a very high level, I dare to say super rep, a combination of both seems to be perfect. But we need a full tear down of the Noob V2 for further details and to see if it is really 1:1 build.

Its so freaking confusing! 1 watch, from multiple factories, and then there are different versions among the TD's...

The cases I buy from a number of sources, this particular one cam from a chap in the USSR and measures 48mm to house a 43/44mm movement (size 16 in pocket watch terms). Did you see the one I posted in the Wrist Check section yesterday? I also have a conservative black strap Labrador (Omega) under Gen for sale. AJ

What a guy! Me and Deckard should pop over and we could all have a wee GTC with this guy. Could be a hilarious afternoon.

Hi guys, ok after much time spent with the printer gettting the numbers lined up we finally have the finished datewheel. They will still be in the silver finish as it was impossible to do them in white this way because of the thickness issue. But with the way these are etched i think its possible to make white ones from these, i will try once i received the finished order They are now in the process of being made which will take 10 days I'm posting more pics to show you and will start processing orders now so i can be organized right when they arrive. Price will be 30usd each (sorry slight increase from estimate) plus 15usd P+P with EMS tracking. Sorry postage is expensive out of China using EMS but i've had stuff go missing using local China post and its not worth the hassle to me. With this you get tracking and delivery anywhere in 5 days. If you want to risk local post its 5 usd. Please let me know when you order. Please PM me with how many you need and your postal address, i will then send you my Paypal details in the PM Pics Cheers P.

PROS ABOUT BP: Correct AR on cyclops Gen like construction Super luminova Thick font on DWO VERY nice pearl Tight rotating bezel case has a nice shape Great SEL CONS: Spacing between "officially certified" is not good Glide lock clasp is very poor tends to slip Is not water-tight out of the box Date seems to commonly misalign date mag too strong Crown guards are a little fat for noob factory sub: PROS: Great bracelet Dial is more correct Nice crown guards Water tight most of the time CONS: Cheap feel on bezel rotation Bezel is to thick date font is too thin date mag a little low poor SEL Luminova is not consistent and is a little purple Case shape is a little awkward stamped 18k?

I just believe they really ruined the "submariner" as I know it with the new ceramic sub. They way it sits on the wrist to the fat lugs just throw the whole thing off. I've owned both gen and rep and was never satisfied. I throw on my 16610 and the watch almost disappears and doesn't dig into my wrist. Plus when i throw on a nato on a 16610 it looks awesome but throwing a NATO on the ceramic sub gives it a really awkward appearance. Just my opinion though.

Same here. And $850000!! Bloody hell, how much did the RWG watch cost to develop? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk 2

I think it's because most people don't care for the new fat lugs Submariner. Gen or rep. Including me. The rep is pretty good but the watch model itself doesn't do anything for me. The green Sub is dreadful.

Meh dial is too busy, looks like something from 70's, for $5k I can think of a lot of other watches I would rather have. Hell you could have a Black Bay and a Pelagos! Sent from the dark side of the moon

Here you are :-)

Sigh... This whole logic of it is a Rolex and therefore must be fake is the stuff of myth if you ask me. A Genuine Rolex can be had for the price of fully loaded MacBook Pro. Quality Vintage Date/DateJusts for well under $2k. Where I live, and travel, the MAJORITY of Rolex's I see are Gen. Rolex makes on average 750,000 watches a year. That is 2885 per day or 360 per hour. DO THE MATH. Yup.