Leaderboard

I've have a cartel '1655' for a few years and it always struck me as being very well made with an interior case clamp groove, brass spacer, good bezel numbers, oem spec crystal neck and case tube threads, good lug hole centering, rounded case back bulge etc. It came with a DG 3804 and above average dial and average foldoyster bracelet. I drilled the lug holes out and that was as far as it went until a while back. Also have a Phong '1655' case and to be honest, there is not a whole lot of difference when comparing the two except the high $$ case has much better case back and lug letters/numbers...but not $1000+ better. Where is this going? I still have the rlx 1575 with a 'shortcut' GMT modification that is outlined in the sticky above this section. I was going to put the shortcut GMT movement in the Phong case but on a whim I decided to try the shortcut GMT movement and oem spec dial in the cartel case. How did it go? The movement fits perfectly with the oem spec dial, everything lines up except for one thing...the genspec dial is a hair too small in diameter. I laid a dummy no foot 1655 'cartel spec' OD .4mm thick dial on the movement and tried it in the case. Perfecto! The stem centers in the case tube and everything fits precisely, no spacer needed. What's next? Probably cut the dial feet off the cartel dial, put it on the shortcut GMT movement, and put the watch together. I'll save the Phong case for the complete in-spec 1575 GMT movement that took me 7+ years to find all the nos oem GMT parts...the dial spacer is the only used GMT part. Then I'll have one for Go! and one for Show! Ha! The cartel case number is 3838448 but it probably does not matter because the next one off the line might have been different. This might be what it is. The key word being might. https://www.pfclones.com/0-00rlex00102-vintage-explorer-ii-1655-ss-ss-blk-asian-2813.html Or this one, it has the same case back etc: https://trustytime.io/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_4&products_id=6588