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Still wearing my Dad’s watch gifted to me upon his passing 3 weeks ago.

The JKF- JK Factory- makes a decent 1680- it is a cartel watch, but it can be a base to start from. It comes with a 2836 clone or a dg2813. With the 2836 clone, switching to a 2846 is easy but even the 2846s are hard to find these days. Case shaping is needed- esp. at the crown guards. But to do cgs, I have to pull the case tube which means I've trashed it out getting it out of there. Tap the hole, install a 7030 tube and a 703/704 crown. I use the WSO990 case tubes and have found a nice 704 rep crown on ali express for around $20. 702 assemblies are around- Athaya has them, but not sure how good they are. Drilling lugholes always helps. Bracelet is a 93150 rep, but it's decent. Haven't tried the fat 2mm spring bars, but the 1.8mm old style DJ bars work fine w/o having to enlarge the holes in the bracelet. Crystal is glued on, but it's a decent top hat so I've left it alone. Bezel insert has a decent all acrylic pearl so I'm happy with it. The JK comes in red or white, so take your pick. You could swap out the dial if you want- decent rep dials are around. DWOs, date wheel overlays, are also around- I just haven't found one lately. JKs run from $145 to maybe $245, so the price is reasonable. I've been buying from Marvellous lately. Next step up is a Viet case from someone like Ruby, but that will put you over $1K pretty quickly by the time you get a movement- not sure what will fit- a dial, and a bracelet. 93150s are tough to find these days, btw.

Condolences on your dad's passing. He had great taste in watches (I have the same model).

Building a 1680 is tougher these days- gen parts are few and far between. They're also very expensive and there's a bunch of fakes out there parading as gens. I've built a few frankens with gen movements back in the day, but wouldn't do it these days. Servicing 1500 movements is getting tougher- 1530, 1520, 1560 and 1570-5. If you have a decent watchmaker you'll probably be ok, but obviously you can't go to Rolex. My recent 1680 was an old MBW which I was lucky to pick up. I put in an eta 2846-2, and a few gen parts and did some case reshaping. Your 1500 is going to be worth more than any franken you build. Phong is still around, Rubyswatch.com has cases and dials, MQvintagewatches.com is in Vietnam. Mochacha.com has dials.