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Found this strap while going through some parts; forgot I even had it! Think it matches the insert quite nicely...

My old Tudor 7016 from 1969

BFF

Gilt Sub Hands... Most people put effort into their case, then the dial, the movement and the hands become an after thought. I have always thought that the dial and Mercedes hands are KEY elements and key "tells" on any vintage build budget or high end. There are so many myths surrounding what is correct, good, accepted in this world and I find learning this stuff as frustrating as everyone else, I have had to learn this stuff through trial and error (and error, and error). I get asked the question all the time when I post builds about what hands were used and read all the time "what hands are best" etc. etc. and finding a definitive answer is near on impossible because everyone says something different. I thought it was time to dispel some myths and help a whole mass of people out by showing these hands side by side. So here we go... Every hand set that I have, laid out next to each other, and all photographed to the same scale, next to a gen reference set (not my photo)... It should be noted that some of these have been aged and/or damaged, some are as delivered. Gen Hands I tried to make some general points about the gen hands, some rules that we want to get close to Points *1 - The second hand should have a tapered end The lollipop should have the same size of the base of the hour hand and be roughly twice the width of the minute hand *2 The walls of the hour hand shaft should be almost half the thickness of the lume plot The height of the shaft should be slightly SHORTER than the diameter of the Mercedes sign *3 - The diam of the Mercedes sign should be roughly a third bigger than the base *4 - The size of the Mercedes lume plot should be as big as the diameter of the hole (however the hole sizes differ, gen is 0.8 and ETA is 0.95mm) *5 - The length of the "point" should be more than half the diameter of the Mercedes sign and a third of the width at the base *6 - The distance from the hole to the start of the lume plot on the minute hand should be short *7 - As with the hour hand the walls of the minute hand shaft should be almost half the thickness of the lume plot *8 - The distance from the end of the lume plot to the start of the point should be small, approx 2x the width of the side wall There are more observations that can be made but these are the main ones. All Together The comparison candidates - Left to Right 1. Gen reference. It is important to say that this is a reference image and is not my photo. I have scaled this to an approximate same size as the other based on knowing the size of the hour hand hole (. compared to the other ETA (.95) 2. HR New - 2015 these are the replacement hands that HR currently have, the minute hand is not long for their oversized dial. However the hour hand is better than the older ones. 3. HR OLD - circa 2014. The minute hand is long for the HR oversized dial and the dimensions to a gen minute hand are almost perfect. A MUST for an oversized dial. (HR is apparently getting these back in stock but this is unconfirmed at time of writing) 3. Clarks Tudor Sub hands for ETA 2015 - These new hands are excellent and in fact probably the best of all for a very reasonable price $20 USD inc shipping 4. Tiger Concept (OnlineStoreHK). These are the clear looser, terrible in fact. Only buy these for the lollipop second hand if MY is out of stock. 5. Michael Young (Classic Watch Repair CWR) - An excellent set of hands that comes with 2 lollipop second hands, a gilt one and a white one. These hands have an excellent finish but the edges are not sharp and the lume job is terrible and hanging over the edge of the hands. At $65 + $28 Shipping these are the most expensive hands here and I would say, from a shape perspective, only slightly better than the $20 Clarks hands. It should also be noted that the hands shown are for a gen movement, not ETA. But MY used to stock these for ETA but he was out of stock when I asked. 6. Clarks Vintage Sub hands for 157x - I am including these because i have them, I struggled to broach these and ended up bending them. A good shape but now superseded by his Tudor Sub hands for ETA builds. Hour Hands Minute Hands Conclusion I hope it is clear to see that many of these hands are "wrong" not close to vintage sub hands AT ALL. The Tiger concept hands are in last place, however, these come with a lollipop second hand. The winners are Clarks and Michael Young if you don't want a lillipop second hand Clarks is the hands down winner. But it must be noted that by the time you buy a set of Clarks Tudor Sub hands and a set of Tiger's to get a lollipop second hand, you are basically at the same price as the MY hands (if he has them in ETA) An additional note must be made for HR "oversized" dials, for this dial there really is only 1 minute hand, the old HR hand as it will correctly reach the chapter ring on the dial as it should. PLEASE NOTE, I am talking solely about vintage early sub GILT hands here. By the time we get into 5513s particularly the silver hands and most definitely the later ones, the design of the hands has changed very slightly. Many of the gilt hands from the 5512 and early 5513 appear to be the same as the "6538" or "50-60s" era hands I am comparing, maybe these were old stock at the time?. But as the years move forward it is easy to see changes in particular the side walls of the hands get thicker, so if you are doing those builds this reference will not hold up. I hope this helps and means you don't have to buy all of the damned hands that I have bought Kime

In the 1970s maybe...　 STAINLESS ROLEX SUBMARINER DATE USA retail prices: 1973 $385 1975 $470 1977 $585 1978 $875 1980 $950 1982 $1175 1984 $1325 1986 $1575 1988 $1975 1989 $2500 1992 $2850 1996 $3350 2004 $4250 2005 $4525 2006 $5175 2008 $5850 2009 $6000 2010 $7250 2010 $7375 2012 $8500 8.3% AVG INCREASE PER YEAR Submariner Price as % of average income... 1973 $7,580......$385 5.08% 1975 $8,631......$470 5.45% 1977 $9,779......$585 5.98% 1978 $10,556....$875 8.29% 1980 $12,513...$950 7.59% 1982 $14,531...$1,175 8.09% 1984 $16,135...$1,325 8.21% 1986 $17,322...$1575 9.09% 1988 $19,334...$1,975 10.22% 1989 $20,100...$2,500 12.44% 1992 $22,935...$2,850 12.43% 1996 $25,914...$3,350 12.93% 2003 $34,065...$4,250 12.48% 2005 $36,953...$4,525 12.25% 2006 $38,651...$5,175 13.39% 2008 $41,335...$5,850 14.15% 2009 $40,712...$6,000 14.74% Price projections based on 8.3% annual increase... 2015 $10987 2020 $16369 2025 $24388 2030 $36335 I found all this somewhere on the 'net a while back.

Well guys the chief has been very busy redoing the place and we are almost 100% with the sales section coming back . ( never seen the chat box so active) LOL! During this trying period for the RWG addicted I have not been idle and have cooked up another blow out raffle for you. Off to an overnight at the hospital shortly but will leave you with teaser or two . Well on to my funky pics, these are firmly in the surreal lighting mode! A2836 stated will double check with the source. And next a real nice Gen: Great case profile here guys all Ti running on a Swiss 7750, box and papers included! Titanium case with a titanium bracelet. Fixed titanium bezel with tachymeter. Black carbon fiber dial with luminous hands and Arabic numerals hour markers. Minute markers on the outer rim. Luminescent hands and markers. Date display at the 6 o'clock position. Chronograph - three sub-dials displaying: 60 seconds, 30 minutes and 12 hours. Automatic movement. Scratch resistant sapphire crystal. Quick lock crown. Screw down skeleton case back. Case diameter: 42.5 mm. Case thickness: 12 mm. Deployment clasp. Water resistant at 100 meters / 330 feet. Functions: centre hands for hours, minutes and chronograph 1/4 seconds, 3 subsidiary dials for continuous seconds, 30 minutes and 12 hours counter, date window, date corrector, fine timing device and stop-second. In addition we will have a Tag bullhead rep , yes never see this one. Omega vintage sea master, a modded 6538 big crown running on an ETA with gen crystal and many many more! So put a few bucks aside as soon as I recover from my all nighter I will get this up! Non surreal!!! LOL

Congrats on the new look

the other day, i was searching for some things and i kept seeing links to this forum. the whole time i was thinking "damn.. is there yet ANOTHER RWG???" love the new look

Seems so hard to tell just got up!

Our next raffle!

Isn't the last post the one that declares the winner? So the winner will be Admin!! This is fixed!! I demand VIPs for everyone.

I plan on doing a 1016 build - I have the vintage case-back stickers on their way from Germany! First piece!

The first "gilt" built and first pic on the "new" forum

3717 looks great on 6.75" wrist

Some of you know that I already build some Franken 5002. Some still own former versions. It was time for a new build - A build nobody else has done yet. This time it was supposed to be perfect. With the help of the very talented watchmaker and friend Zocker4711 a long journey came to an end. Domi also helped and made a custom movement holder and thinned the case. Thanks a lot guys! For this build I visited Zocker4711 with all parts and we worked on the Franken the entire day. People that know Zocker or me know how hard we are looking for perfection. No mistake was acceptable. The setup: The perfect custom movement holder done by Domi: The case back was thinned by Domi so that the new movement fits: The watch case. Prepared by Zocker with the perfect installed GEN tube: The GEN crown: I was lucky to score two brand new old bufallo straps. The brown is the rare old one with the nice texture. And the black is even more rare and not available at all. GEN dial, movement and date disc: And GEN hands installed. Zocker did an awesome job. Not one scratch on the hands. Beautiful: There we go: Wristshots: 4 days power reserve: 5 days power reserve: Fully charged: I cant thank Zocker4711 enough. Finding and collecting the parts over years was one thing and my passion. But putting them together is the other story and Zocker4711 did an hell of a job here. I appreciate that he is at least as much a perfectionist like I am. The specs so far: BP Factory IWC 5002 Big Pilot IWC cal 51112 movement IWC 5002 dial IWC hour and minute hand IWC second hand IWC power reserve hand IWC date disc IWC crown IWC tube IWC crystal IWC brown buffalo strap IWC black buffalo strap And trust me. The movement is unbelievable. You can leave it on your desk for 5 days and it is still timed 100% correct. Not a second to fast or to slow. Cheers