alligoat

If you can open the caseback, that's what I would do. Or take it to a independent watchsmith who can. Going to a Rolex AD is a somewhat risky proposition, IMO. First off, they could easily want to charge you $25-50 just to look at the watch. And if it needs to be serviced, figure $500 minimum. A good independent watchsmith should open and close the case as a courtesy and certainly can service the watch for $200-250. BTW, E series means service history is important- it is a 20 year old watch. Mechanical watches should be serviced every 5-6 years. And the tritium is getting old- how does it glow? But it looks good to me w/o opening the caseback!

While not a great watch, it certainly presents an oppurtunity to practice or acquire modding skills. With a caseback opener, a set of screwdrivers, maybe a pair of tweezers, and some sandpaper, polish and maybe a small micro file, you could trim the crown guards. It's not that hard to do and is certainly one of the most worthwhile mods anyone can do. A $10 watchmaterial pearl would also be a good cheap repair. I personally hate seeing a bezel insert w/o a pearl in it. And that swiss 2836-2 could always be used in a better case. Maybe you buy an a21j noobmariner, trim the cg's, swap in a watchmaterial pearl and put in your 2836-2 (I'd swap in the dial, hands and movement altogether). Then you'd have a nicer beater, along the lines of what cht has. But if you really like the Submariner, it's probably best to just get in line w/ bklm1234 and get the TW Best sub that he's putting out these days. It'll run in the $400+ range, I would imagine, but is well worth it. BTW, the date mag on your watch is fine but the '8' is slightly low in the date window. The etched crown on the crystal at 6 o'clock is pretty noticeable, too.

Looks OK to me, but I can't really see the dial. Bezel insert is fine, crown and tube look good, cg's also. Bracelet is correct from what I can see (should be a 93150 w/ I believe 501B ends). Opening up the caseback is always a good idea, but if the seller is reputable it's really not a big deal. Service history is another question. When I buy a used Rolex, I always figure in a price of a service.

Great tutorial, Chi! Thanks for sharing.

I think it serves Rolex right. If they weren't such aholes in their own right, maybe Swatch would sell them parts. Of course Swatch has adopted the ahole policy themselves in the last 2-3 years.

+1 on jmb! I can enlarge existing holes, but for virgin holes, I turn to jmb.

+1 for nice job on a first build. I wonder if a very very light tea stain on the hands would get you closer to the ivory of you dial. Freddy has some good bracelet suggestions, but your existing bracelet looks close to a 78360 which would also be correct for the later model 1016's. These watches were produced up until around 1990- kind of like the 5513- those simple watches had good runs. So after 1976 or so, a 78360 would be a correct bracelet.

I'd figure $12,000 wholesale and $15,000 retail. Ebay is always a good place to check prices- they run $10K to $20K for unworn new. 2009 would be just about out of warranty.

The 6238 pictured in 'Rolex Daytona, a legend is born' is simply labeled Rolex. Below the 6 o'clock subdial it says -T Swiss T-. There is also no tachometer scale- just minute hash marks with 4 smaller marks between each minute marker. The text says, "The second and more rare series, with two toned dials and serial numbers up to approximately 950,000, forecasts what would become the more sporty Rolex COSMOGRAPH ref. 6239."

Or get a knife in there and separate them. If the tolerances are too tight, you may have do to some sanding afterwards. The snap fit is a very tough thing to gauge- but you don't want to over sand it.

Mil_sub just got a 2836-2 movement from that seller and put it in a frankenjust. It worked out fine AFAIK. The seller told him it was NOS, but it had recently been serviced.

There is a picture of a 6238 in 'Rolex Daytona', an early one, with a black dial and white/silver subdials. This would be in the 800,000+ SN range, around 1962-3. Around 1,000,000 (1964) on they were all silver or all black dials.

Don't forget to drill the lugholes so you can fit the 2mm springbars in there.

No three dots under the crown means 700. 702 and 703 have the 3 dots!

Sounds like it to me. George was around earlier on w/ earlier models of subs, but the rep guys like us didn't really start following him til BK took up selling his stuff, etc. I don't know if any of the sub reps had gen bezel construction until the WM9-V1.

The best current DW overlay is on the PT 1665 or PT 1680- the silver overlay with flat top 3's and open 6's and 9's. But I'm not aware of Angus, Puretime, selling spare parts.

The closest thing would be the A serial Euromariner from Chris at ETZ which came out 2-3 years ago. It's basically an MBW case, probably says Orig Polex Design between the lugs- I haven't looked lately and can't remember for sure. Once you get the kinks out, it is a nice watch- an earlier 16610.

Ah, the Mirage III, it's certainly one of my favorites. When I broke a pusher, I sent it back to Howard at West Coast Time. For a service of a 7750 here in the USA, I would figure $250-300, plus parts- any qalified watchmaker should be up to it.

$100 seems fair to me- it's a nice MBW dial- gilt, and certainly worth more than $50.

Up early, eh J! I'm starting out with the 16800 beater (gen), but may change shortly

Yuki's gold 5513 hands won't fit an eta movement- they're made for the 1500 series of Rolex movements, 1520, 1530, 1560 and 1570. You could buy a set of gilt eta (Tudor) hands from Clark's, but then you'd need to age them. The meatball seconds hand will be hard to find. Eta hand sizes are 90/150/25. Ubi is the only person that I know of who can take a set of silver (white) hands and turn them to satin gilt. It's like his own secret recipe! Gilt dials with silver hands are acceptable, but just not as nice as the gilt hands.

Get a hold of BK, the TW best has been out a while- don't know if he's too backed up with orders. But it would be a better deal than the PTv1.5 and will probably cost a few dollars more also.

I'm partial to the PT v1.5 because it's has the more gen construction features like the bezel, insert and crystal. It's a better case by far than the noobmariner (I've had 5 noobs, btw). With a gen insert, and gen/better crown and a little trimming of the cg's, you've got a great beater. If you're in conus, you could buy the PT V1.5 and send it to BK for the mods- it would still take a few months, but it would still be better than a noob, IMO. The noob was great in 2006, but it's really out dated these days, or should I say, it's been surpassed!

320 or 400 wet dry is good to start with. Then you follow up with 600 and 1000 and maybe some polish after that to finish. Micro files also work, especially if you're pulling the tube and putting a new one in there.

Nice job E! The cool thing about this watch is hardly anyone's going to know what it is! 6542, what is that? You could age the case and crystal a little to keep up with the dial and insert.