rolex001

Phong's casebacks are bad - the teeth for the opener are too high and not machined properly - the opener tends to slip. MBW casebacks are far superior. Only better thing of Phong's casebacks is that they have engraved fonts on the inside and that you can have your personal number engraved. Outside engaving is flawed too!

The 904L Steel was not used in the early days. There was a huge batch of advertisments when Rolex started to intorduce the new Steel. All older models use 316L Steel. Even though - some people tell the stories that 904L is a secret Rolex only develoment - not at all - it is just a modern Steel used for surgery and heavy duty application - it contains only little carbon but lots of Nickel and Copper - Nickel for a high shine and Copper for acid resistance (it is so well formulated that even Hydrochloric and Sulphuric acid and atomaric Chlorine attacks are withstood). To bust a few mysteries, 904L is not really expensive and not really that hard to machine. Rolex discusses the hardness and toughness of 904L in their videos with this particular grade being extremely hard to machine and being extremely scratch resistant. Rockwell hardness of 316L is a bit higher actually based on standards. Some people also claim that the new 904L is much heavier. Not true, the both grades do have identical density.

Wow, it looks great! Here is mine - not quite a Snowflake, but a vintage Tudor anyway - I used a Vietnamese case and a Tudor ETA 24XX movement, a genuine bezel with Tritium insert, 1:1 caseback with all correct markings, genuine 703 crown and tube. Hands are supposed to be genuine, but I am not 100% sure, it's difficult to determine these days. The dial is a redial from Phong.

Wow, that is indeed interesting. Thaks for the info. Still, it looks like the GMT hand is below the hour hand though thus disqualifying as a 3185 substitute.

What Omega calibre are you talking about that works like a Rolex 3185? I know none... IMHO - the shock assembly in the questioned movement is the rather new Incabloc Novodiac spring - also seen in 6497's...

Case definitely is genuine.

Just once more shows the ridiculous politics of the dealers. They don't really think about anything when it comes to pricing - just "the higher the better". This thing probably costs 20 cents whole sale buy in.

That's not even a Rail dial. Comex dials are always Rail dials and were thus always produced by Stern company (now belonging to Patek Philippe). The aging effect is nice though - great work Takashi. A gen Comex 1665 dial would probably cost 30K or more.

I know a court case of a European scientific laboratory that imported a quantitiy of old damaged rifle scopes from Russia back some time to extract the Tritium from the Night Vision. They got rewarded with a heavy prison fine. And no, there was neither a big quantity nor a large amount of scopes over a short period.

Great project. To help you with your question. The Tudor casebacks are usually a bit smaller thread wise, so a Tudor caseback might not fit a 5513 case. Furthermore, getting it engraved is not really an option, as the Tudor casebacks incoroprate the No. 5 die - not the biggest Rolex 29,5mm die as all Rolex sport models do. And the profile for the opener is sunk in the caseback, on the 5513 it is domed out in the back.

40$. Wow. Please, don't use these, these are worth a fortune.

Honestly I would never even think of importing quantities or shipping quantities of Tritium into God's own country America. I doubt that the lovely Homeland Security would find that funny and would rather get you arrested. It's a highly controlled substance and dangerous, and as Pugwash correctly stated, it is possible to make a dirty bomb from it - in these days - nobody would believe you that you would want to get watches done.

IMHO the purpose of a Viet caseis only to get a 1575GMT installed. Drop in a nice redial or a gen dial and a gen hands set. You will be able to source a genuine modern RSC replacement bezel for your watch at 200-300$. The NDT has the correct serials with correct technique, stamped caseback and correct crown position. It also has the scew cutout for the 1575GMT. If you have the cash, go for it. If you don't, or can't justify it, stick wiht MBK/Trusty style stuff. We are talking about a several K$ difference here. As when you have a good base, why would you install bad secondary parts. Would you put some Steel Rims on your Ferrari?

Everything works and fits as it should. Gotta chop the feet off tho'.

It is correct that the value of the good has to be made believeable with "sufficient proofs". That's how it is written. Such proofs can be pictures, oral discussions or even bills. The bill doesn't have to be the real thing, how would they proof it anyway. The ebst thing is to find a picture of your (gen) watch and discuss with the postal services on how the value of these is on eBay, they know eBay and use it for the refunding calcs. "Fair value" - to get to the point.

I will trade your (gen?) 7928 with the cheap and crappy acrylic crystal for a gen Explorer 114270, it even has Sapphire and ticks much faster your cheap old Tudor.

Um, this report was as stupid and brainy farty as the rest of this "scientific documentation". Bad as hell. A few years ago they at least made a sort of scientific approach to interesting topics, but these days it's just about who can eat more than somebody else, cheap fake watches and mystical ppl being able to do overnatural things with ppl still claiming this is all true. I liked the first sentence of the report tho - "It started with buying a watch on the Internet and ended with a trial". The Noob in the report either was paid well to talk such stupid things, or god beware, indeed was stupid enough to do the eMail thingie etc... A gen Navitimer for 300 - I mean how screwed can one be? And probably just because he is stupid indeed, he now goes to court.

Sorry to hear this, really bad. But please, could you evaluate why there was no insurance? It is a valid and understandable point to insure expensive things. Carriers as global airmail do insure watches if sealed correctly. Customs is no problem at all, there is an easy and simple thing to keep in mind, mark the watch with appropriate value, declare as for repair and return, the receiver has to send his outgoing return receipt he receives at the postal counter to customs which is no problem at all, cheap and fast, and everybody is on the safe and secure side. With postal services more and more owned privately, what do you expect is what I ask you... especially overseas with parcels being x-rayed - do you really think nobody looks at the actual x-ray images? Bad people are everywhere, also in the postal system.

PM me if you want to get rid of your 700 tube.

Is this for real? I mean - MBW/MBk can be considered a brand. So - it would be the same if you would ask - How much worth is a Rolex dial with movement. Hm - a Datejust with movement would be worth around 1K - a DR with movement around 10K. So don't screw around on others for yourself not being able to pull off a precise question. Oh, and don't play your lil Noob game on me too - it might fail. And to finish with a "gentleman's" reply as you name and shame it... An ETA alone can be worth a lot like 150$ - depends on where you sell or where you buy and what exact condition it is in and if it comes with DD wheels or only D. The dial itself, well, consider it as a dust deflector.

Well, I wouldn't want to sell it, sorry - as i finally tracked down a crown for a not so astronomic price. Somebody should definitely get into repping these. $$$$

Um, a jewel pivot is in most cases oiled i nassembled state. The oil is held by capillary action, therefore a specified drop of a specified oil grade is applied to the spot where shaft and bearing jewel mate.

It is possible to oil a movement in assembled state. You can't clean it though in that state. Fora good clean it has to be disassembled. The pallet fork and everything bearing related is located on the movement that way, it can be lubed. Still, a barrel can not be lubed - it has to be disassembled and cleaned - then regreased with special grease allowing the mainspring to slip. So, your answer would be - yes, but only partially. And it's no good practice - best to always disassemble, clean, polsih pivots etc and then reoil.

The price is okay for a used new crown - notice the style of the coronet. It's the latest batch.

You are of course right, people invest great money in their genuine watches to get them back to originality. But people who do that are not so stupid and buy it on eBay for that kind of money. There are some mighty other sources that can get these parts still, some new, some used, for much less - but still too much IMHO. Vintage Rolex is just a topic on its own - it's been getting crazy.