alligoat

Hey laz, Did you buy that dial- somebody in Germany- rolex 1665- bought it? Was that you? 16800 matte dials are getting hard to find! They're the new vintage.

I haven't seen a rep of that watch. Look for the 6234 and 6238 reps- they're from the 50's and 60's and about as close as you'll get.

If you happen to have a gen pearl lying around and you want to use it, OK. I wouldn't take one out of a perfectly good gen insert, I'd save the gen insert for later and buy a Watchmaterial insert (315-16800-01) and use the pearl from it. You have to enlarge the hole of the noob bezel to put the WM pearl in there. bklm1234 has a good tutorial on this, you might try searching for it (here or over at RWI). Basically, you remove the insert carefully from the bezel, enlarge the hole and glue in the new pearl. While your at it, it's a good idea to file down the backside of the noob insert so that it sits lower in the bezel, more closely resembling the gen sub.

I asked bklm1234 the same question this week- and no a gen bezel won't fit on the noob case. With the noob insert, it is also slightly smaller than a gen or the aftermarket ones, so you'd have to file or sand down a gen/aftermarket insert to fit in the noob bezel. It's alot of work to say the least.

I'm not surprised. I think this is going to continue happening and I don't know what you can do about it. I'm not sure there is even much the dealers can do unless they check each watch and even that may not be enough as you indicated- looks good from the case back side, but.... As true Swiss ETAs become harder to source and more expensive, it might not be a bad idea to pick up a few of the surplus ETAs from someone like Jules Borel while they are cheap ($70+). That way, if you really like a watch, you can swap movements. You're lucky your watchmaker serviced your asian ETA- I've read it can be tricky and sort of hit or miss when it comes to adjusting the timing.

I bought Omega's noob case with drilled holes- it's very nice. And the shallow rehaut will work well for for my 16800 project. But Omega is still on vacation, AFAIK.

The width of the bezel is too narrow and the teeth are cut too close to the insert. Depth of cut is basically OK. Rehaut looks WOKKY!

We're all pulling for a speedy recovery. Take care, Rob.

Very nice, stilty! And the date wheel- we'd all love to hear where it comes from. Now that the Cubic-Works DW's have closed 6's and 9's, the old style ones are hard to find. That dial also looks very nice. This one has the 2836, and an old DJ dial- 'aged silver', with the old Cubic-works DW. I prefer the oyster band, but yours might look better with the jubilee- I'm just not a big fan of the jubilees.

From the picture, the pearl appears to protrude too much to be a WM pearl. You can go to BK's Watch Garage and look at the JewelryOutlet insert/WM pearl for reference.

Ruby would be the other person to check with- DJ's made to order is her slogan.

It's a $5 Chinese movement, so stems aren't available. You'd best leave it alone, cause if you break it you are SOL.

Don't know about the dial, but maybe Omega could drill the lugholes for you. Then an MBW 93150 with a set of gen 501B's...

http://www.silix-prime.com/product.asp?id=1504 This is the silix TT bracelet for $30 plus maybe $19 shipping. It's not as good as a noob bracelet- the gold on the center of the end pieces doesn't return down the sides like on a noob or one of the better TT bracelets. Read ByTor's review from Randy's post above- click on noob sub, maybe BT goes over that fine point/flaw on TT bracelets. If Josh says the TT bracelet is $120, I'd be tempted to send him all the pieces and ask him for a new one- he's definitely full of caca.

I agree with Hike. You could look around here in the states and maybe find an unmarked TT band for $50- Watch Prince comes to mind. Or you could order an unmarked TT band from China for $15-20. I bought a TT band for a sub from Silix- with slow shipping it cost around $45 as I recall. So I'd try Josh first, too. Tell him it doesn't have to be the expensive EMS airmail, just registered. That way it'll only cost him $10-15 total- those bracelets are cheap in China!

Sometimes you gotta ask yourself, "Wouldn't it maybe be easier just buying a Noob GMT?" By the time you track down the correct datewheel and assuming you get it installed w/o screwing it up, and you apparently already have access to a noob case and dial, but.... what's it going to cost and how much time are you going to spend chasing parts, etc. and if it doesn't work... Is it really worth it? For a little over $100 you could just buy a noob GMT and be done with it.

The BeginYachty has the asian 21j movement-a little over $100. Andrew's probably has the ETA and is a little over $200- I didn't go looking for it, just my educated guess. Some people have good luck with the asian 21j movements, some pay the extra and go for the ETA. It's really your choice. Keep reading around here and you'll learn more about the differences between the two movts.

Amen. And the nice thing about being a collector is being able to rotate your watches. Pander to your varied interests- why limit yourself?

I do like those open 6's on 660ft- are we seeing those on rep dials yet? I guess if you figure it as a redial and only spend say a couple hundred dollars, you can't get hurt too badly.

WM is Watchmaster. He used to be on Replica Collector from time to time, before it shut down. Pricing would be comparable to an MBW/MBK.

Gens, frankens and reps. It just depends. If I don't want to risk being called out, I wear a gen. Need a beater- how about the noob- it did pretty well this weekend pushing the boat off an oyster reef- under water more than once. Want an inconspicous watch- I like the Sinn 303 Silber, the Heuer Carrera 1964 Re-Edition, or even the Rolex 6238 rep. I do wear a lot of Subs, but once again, if people do notice, they don't say anything. I'd figure over 95% of the people don't even pay attention to what you're wearing. I probably wear 5 different watches every week. But like everyone else, some get more wrist time than others.

For a recase and a refinished dial, and say it should be a 1080M, that's a lot of money for a Franken. The bracelet looked OK to me! But it's only worth $500-1000.

One quick clarification- "Saabin used a non-MBW 1680 from ebay". Actually it was a 1680 from aBay- which was Paul's old company from 3-4 years ago. Of course, I don't know if he still sells the same 1680 or not- stuff has changed a lot in 4 years-heck, you can hardly find a case with lug holes these days. And of course, grinding off the cg's isn't for the faint hearted either.

I used an Air King with a 1520 movement for my NDT 5508. And even though a 5508 should have a 1530 movt, I used the 1520 (it is essentially the same movement, but later). And if I wanted to resurrect the Air King, it would be easy to do- no parts were destroyed in building the 5508. I did have the movement serviced in the building process. I think building a 5517 or a 5513 is the perfect use for a 1520 movement. It's just a shame the NDT parts are so expensive and going up all the time.

Last nite a gen 1675 dial from shear-time on the bay sold for $175 plus or minus. Then you'd have to find a case to fit it in. The later transitional GMT Master (is it 16710?) would be another option- by then I believe it said Date on the dial, but the case had a sapphire crystal, old style matte dial and markers. 3055 movement.They're becoming the next vintage watches like the 16800 and the SD 16660. Take a vintage dial and put it in the newer case, but still w/ lugholes. Just thinking out loud.