alligoat

Thanks for the review, b16a2. I'm getting hooked on this watch- I like the gold case/white dial/dark brown croc strap the most. Even if you spend a few hundred dollars servicing it, it's still cheaper than the gen by a long shot, and if I bought another gen, there woould be hell to pay from my wife!

It's like comparing apples and oranges. I prefer the 16610 for its ruggedness and classic good looks, plus WR on the gens is 300m- heck, I ain't going down 40 meters. Right now I'm wearing a 16800 gen which has become my daily beater- basically the same as the 16610. The 6263 is a classic. It's a vintage watch with the plastic crystal, some WR, but it's definitely not a beater. And the V72 movement in there is a daily wind affair. But you have the chrono if you need it. Gens are worth 5-6 times more than a 16610. They're both beautiful watches, I love them both.

Actually, a Euromariner has the noob dial, so the lume is only so-so. But the watch looks very nice, hope you enjoy it.

Well, Bruce, that is an interesting find on the 'equal' mark between 1000ft and 300m. Will have to check my two dials and I guess I'll have to look at the 16800 gloss dial just for grins.

I've become interested in Seiko Dive watches in the last few months and the SKX007K is certainly a great one. I also ran across this one- the SKX031K2 from a seller over in Singapore http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=270303393230 It looks like a great beater for a fantastic price. I have a hard time passing up a watch for $122.00! I don't anything know about rep Seikos, though and this seller says nothing about the warranty- of course my watchmaker would be fixing it anyway, or I'd buy another one.

The dial on my gen 1680 says Beyler- it's c. 1978. I don't recall what the 16800 dial on my franken says on the back, but I guarantee it wasn't Singer- it may have #'s like you mentioned. Your dial is fine J, the crown is tall and correct, just like Chief's pic and both of my matte dials, print is fine, markers look good. If it's changing colors- fading to brown, so be it, it's not unheard of- it is 27+ years old. Sorry for the bad pic- gen left, franken right with relumed gen dial. BTW, I'm not aware of any fake 16800 matte dials out there. It may happen this year, but don't hold your breath. That only leaves relumed dials- but if yours doesn't glow, you can rule that out also.

Thanks for the link to the watchuseek discussion on the comparison between the Seagull, Hangzhou and ETA, AJ. That was a pretty thorough disection and very informative. Picking up a Seagull or Hangzhou would be cool- those will be the new 'spares' for our watches in the future.

Jdavis hit it exactly- the gray metal surrounds on the luminous hour markers should be black. You could install a gen dial, but you'd need an earlier Explorer II case, because the gen dial won't fit in the recent cases. Now the early Explorer II's from the 80's had the gray metal surrounds- you could always say it's old- but you'd need the lugholes to go with it- the modern cases don't have the lugholes.... Like jd says, search and read.

That is one fantastic DRSD, Freddy! You have built a beautiful watch using a great combination of real and rep parts- exactly what this hobby is all about. To take an MBW case and put a working HE valve in there, and a Rolex 1575 movement is quite an accomplishment. I also like your creativity- using rep parts like the bezel insert and pearl and a relumed dial and hands to make it just the way you wanted it. I, for one, sometimes cringe when I see that all too yellow lume- it just screams FAKE, or REP too often. And I guess as Ubiquitous says, "I built it from parts" says it all- you built this watch yourself- you didn't have to go out and pay some ungodly sum for a great watch. Congratulations!

Obviously the movement isn't correct, the balance is all wrong. So, we can deduce that the guy didn't actually go to Rolex- esp. Geneva. Just another scammer as Freddy says. But to bid this thing up to $8200 indicates that there are some people out there that have no clue what they are doing- fools. They could buy a better looking franken from Phong for less money.

Milgauss 6541 case (MBW) with a 5512 dial. Sure don't know where you go from here, though.

Nice datewheel Stephane! JJ, I've found that the links from a noob bracelet will fit both a gen or rep 93150. Also, for end links, you can use 580's (early) or 585's (later). The 580's were used on the 1680 for sure, maybe 5513's and 5512's, as well as the early 1665's so they are more plentiful.

Snap-in works on gen inserts and gen bezels. The rest of the time gluing is probably the best option. As Toad says, if you have a noob sub, you have your work cut out for you. You have to file down the outside circumference and it's a good idea to file down the backside so the insert sits lower in the bezel. I also use a clamp and a die from the crystal press and let it sit overnight after gluing. Just don't get glue down in the bezel assembly or it won't turn. If you need any help, PM me, I'll be back after this weekend.

I did manage to get a genuine bezel insert to snap into the Euro bezel. It's not the nice recess of the gen assembly, but it was a positive snap in with no glue. Then I sanded down the top of the Euro retaining ring- it was very easy to do- just put a piece of 320 wet dry down on a flat surface and kept sanding the top down- moving in a circular motion and varying my hand position to keep everything even- no more than 3-4 minutes- sanded to the point that there was hardly anything left of the thin top part of the retaining ring. After that I assembled everything and it worked fine. Pressed the retaining ring on, installed the click spring and flat washer and pressed the bezel on with the insert already in it. Worked fine. The next time I was at the watchmakers, I had him pressure test it- put the watch in the tester, pumped up the pressure, waited for a couple of minutes, relieved the pressure and right as he was about to lower the watch in the water, the crystal popped off! Luckily he didn't dunk the watch in the water! So it failed the water/pressure test for the time being. As Tribal says, and Stilty's pics show, the Euro is 'like' the gen assembly. But it is not a 1:1 copy and you can't necessarily swap out various parts. But it still looks good, IMO, especially with the gen insert.

I notice a couple of things- one, it looks like a plastic crystal to me- which wouldn't be right for a late model GMTII, (but I don't know my models that well in GMT). Secondly, crown position on the 3185 may be lower and hence it works in the noob case, it's got the extra GMT hand which could put the stem lower. For 650 euros, you're only paying for the movement at this point- it's got to be worth over 800 euros to a 1000.

Thank you, Stephane. The great thing about this place is we're all learning and sharing that knowledge is what makes this place fun. I've learned a lot here from cool people like you, Tribal, Omega, BKLM and scores other too numerous to mention. I enjoy collecting the gens, but I also get just as much pleasure out of modding the reps and trying to get as close as possible to gen-like. You were the one that showed me how to build a 16800 using the noob case. These 16800's have kinda become my grail watch. Left is my gen and right is the franken w/ relumed matte dial and drilled case holes by Omega- still one of my favorite 'beaters'.

Essentially the most correct font for the 1665 is open 6's and 9's, flat top 3's and a closed 6 on 26. All of this on a silver background. Later DW's had the same fonts on a white background. And you typically won't find this on a rep datewheel. So all you can do is get close- like a silver DW with the open 6's and 9's and round top 3's or the same fonts on a white background. But realize this- there are variations even in genuine Rolexes, so the rules aren't always hard and fast. I've seen closed 6's and 9's and round top 3's on a 1665- rare, but still OK. Back then Rolex wasn't so picky about everything being perfect- but that was 40 years ago. And since then most of these watches have been serviced, so parts are replaced and they may not match the original parts. But you might check out stilty's latest post- he's working on a new DW- could be pretty cool.

Excellent! Another Grade AAAA replica. But seriously, it's a very nice job, great cg's, nice pearl, great rehaut. Enjoy!

The sapphire crystal was first introduced on the Submariner 16800 in the late 70's, early 80's. Earliest examples I've seen are 6 million SN. This was also the intro of the quickset 3035 movement. Datejusts continued to sport the plastic crystals until the intro of the 16200 models in the late 80's. This 16800 from Robert Maron apparently sports a plastic crystal: http://cgi.ebay.com/ROLEX-TRANSITIONAL-SUB...%3A1%7C294%3A50 It's certainly a very unusual watch- I'm not sure if it's correct or not. Depth rating changed also with the 16800- going to 1000ft/300m from the 200m/660ft of the 1680. The 1665 Sea-Dweller was produced for a few more years in the early 80's and replaced by the 16660 which also sported a sapphire crystal and increased depth ratings. The 5513 was around until '89 or '90- maybe into the R or L- SN's. Same plastic crystal, 1520 movement and an updated dial with the WG surrounds. Cyclops mag on the 1680 is still 2.5x, but the cyclops is further from the date window due to the height of the plastic crystal, hence the greater magnification. You can also see this on the 1675 GMT. Tritium bezel inserts do seem to age faster than the tritium dial markers. You may be right about more exposure to air and water and salt water. Bezel inserts are commonly changed, explaining why some watches appear to have better inserts. Rolex changes out any aged parts these days. I have a 16800- 8.1m SN which has a recent Tritium dial (I figure c. 1998-99) that still glows in the dark very nicely- the matte dial was replaced around 10 years ago in servicing.

Great job guys! Very informative and I agree w/ trailboss, this will make a great tutorial, and POTY.

How was Everest Watch Works service, i.e. turnaround time? The lume looks great- it certainly improves the watch 100%.

The best time to try to source a part or two is when you're buying a watch at the same time. It's worked well for me in the past!

Just another little Rolex idiosyncrasy. Learn something new around here everyday!

That Presista looks like a nice watch Andy. Around $500 US, it's a little more expensive than a rep, but with a good 2824-2 and WR to 200 meters, it wouldn't be a 50 yard dash in the rain, so to speak. Very nice.

A number of people around here have built Frankenjusts, but usually with the 16000 series of cases or the 16200 series. Roling on ebay used to sell very nice cases for around $200. Stilty's tutorial is for a 16000 case- 16013- which is the two tone DJ. You can also build that watch with the 2836-2 w/o the spacer he talks about. Or maybe contact him and see if he has anymore spacers for sale. As for using the 1601 case, maybe a 2836-2 will work, but I can't recall anyone doing it here. So you're kinda going it alone. This is a 16014 with the 2836-2 movement and a plastic spacer ring to center the movement in the case. Gen dial glued to the eta movement ring, datewheel overlay and a set of Tudor hands from Clark Watch Supply. It cost around $500 to build. Just a little nicer than a rep- because it has so many gen parts.