alligoat

A good price for a 16000 series Datejust with the 3035 quickset date would be $1200 and up. You also could keep an eye out for a 15000 Date at about the same price. Movement alone would be about the same price range. A 16200 series Datejust w/ the 3135 is probably going to run in the $1500 range. Same for the Date and movt only. For vintage Franken fans, the best deal out there is to pick up the 1500 Date for $900-1000. It has the 1575 movt in it- great for building DRSD's and Red Subs- but the datewheel will be white and may or may not have the open 6's and 9's and flat top 3's. One of Rolexes little idiosyncrasies.

Maybe a set of gold Submariner hands from www.jewelryandwatch.com/ for $25. Don't know how vintage they will be. Clarks and some of the watch supply places have aftermarket hands to fit the Rolex 1500 series movts, for a little less. If you have to "vintagize" them yourself, a cheap set may be the place to start until you perfect your technique!

Yes, and I'm interested in a 5513 dial at the moment, although a better red sub dial in my WM is also a possibility. When will the spending stop?

Can't you just pay the duty (tax) on it?

LOL, interesting find Oli, and here's your chance Chris.

Damn, Chris, And Saabin built his watch two years ago. You're basically back to square one. Buy a case from Jewelry and Watch for $1450.00, dial at $250, set of hands for $99.00 and add a movement for say a grand and you've got $2800.00. But when you consider that a true 1665 red would run 10K and up- one sold on ebay this year for $24,000- what else can you do? If you're serious, you have to budget $3K for a project like this. http://www.jewelryandwatch.com/ Your only other viable options are to buy an MBW case and add all of the other parts and install your own HE valve, or.... go to Viet Nam and source your own 1665 parts.

There is no one way to do this. Inserts are different, pearls are different. You never know til you get in there and do it yourself. Like By-Tor says, try popping the pearl out and glueing the new one in. If that doesn't work, you may have to pop the insert off and put the pearl in and reglue the insert onto the bezel. Hell, I could even see having to make the pearl hole a little bigger- either w/ a knife or a small drill bit. Worst case scenario would be screwing it up and having to buy a whole new insert, but then you might have to file the back side of it down to get it to fit in the bezel correctly. Good luck.

Here's a link to a chocolate dial from NDT: http://cgi.ebay.com/Dial-Rolex-Ref-1680-Re...oQQcmdZViewItem They have some beautiful dials, but very pricey. Just like Jensen "Phong" Dinh over at www.jewelryand watch.com/ Would sure love to see more of the "Vietnamese Connection" BTW, Great looking watch Pete!

You gotta love Paypal (sometimes), but I hope I managed to stumble thru it- looks like they've changed their format again- just when you get used to the old way.

Back from vacation today, emailed for link, got link, but internet says link is down.

Yep, I can't see the pics either- and I know it's not due to Neil's photo talents!

Looks like a gen dial to me, crown guards are nicely shaped, nice crystal- domed, gen crown and tube, would like to see a pic w/ the crown screwed down. Very nice.

Lift the bezel insert off of the bezel (the metal part) with an x-acto knife or similar sharp object and then pop the pearl off from the back. Pop the pearl out of the watchmaterial insert and glue it into the noobmariner insert. Then you clean the glue off of the bezel and insert and reglue. You can use 5 minute epoxy, GS hypo-cement, not superglue. Or, You might be able to just pop the noob pearl off and the glue the watchmaterial pearl in the hole. Just use the glue sparingly so you don't glue the bezel in place! Trial and error is the key here!

Shortcomings on the noobmariner are: 1. Rehaut is only 1.8mm vs 2.0mm on a gen- can't do anything about that 2. Pearl is too small- a www.watchmaterial.com/ pearl (PN315-16800) would help that 3. Crown is too big- a gen with a gen case tube or an aftermarket case tube would cure that 4. Trimming the inside edges of the crown guards and making them more vertical like a gen would be the last thing bklm said the date mag was a little too small, but it doesn't bother me. A lot of people think it's the best out of the box w/o mods.

The easiest way to contact River is to go to RWI and click on his link there and get his email and away you go http://www.replica-watch.info/forum/

River still had this model when I checked w/ him a couple of months ago. I bought the Noob w/ the CN eta copy instead- it was quite a bit cheaper.

Thanks for the link, freddy. And it looks like a great way to brush up on your Italian at the same time! I'm going to give it a go. BTW, I got w/ DW this week on a 6239 case, since I couldn't really come to grips w/ Jensen's high prices on the 6238. This hobby is kinda like a money pit! Cheers.

freddy, I just wanted to let you know that this is becoming a great tutorial on how to build a 6239/41 and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I was browsing thru Skeet and Urul this morning and I did notice that the first 6239's came out w/ the 300 units bezel and then Rolex changed to the 200 units after that. Right or wrong, that's the tidbit for the day from S&U. It's funny how some people say S&U is full of errors, but it is a great reference source for the vintage sport models.

It's another Chinese movement. I would figure we can rule out Seagull and PTS Resources (w/ the WO symbol under the balance as seen in the DG2813). I would say it's not even a Miyota copy, it has a left handed balance bridge instead of the RH one on the Miyota copies. Any identifying marks on it? One of my early reps said ABC Watch Co., China!

Nice write-up BT. I managed to pick up the same watch about 6 months ago, thinking I'd build a 16800. But so far I haven't been able to get past those poorly positioned lug holes. I'm still trying to figure out how to drill some off-center holes to get them more cemtered in the middle of the lugs.

I've had my Noob for about a year. Gave it to my nephew six months ago and got it back a couple of weeks ago- dead. Took it to the watchmaker and he serviced it for $40 and it's going again. Now I just have to find a pearl to put in the bezel insert. Nice pics Stephane. And the pearl in the 2007 noob looks better than the original pearls. Talk about sick, I've got a noob, a begin (gave to the nephew), Paul's so called perfect and Rivers noob w/ the CN eta copy movt. They really are a damn nice subs right out of the box.

A couple of years ago I got the DRSD from Paul. Surprisingly, it has a genuine working HE valve in it. In fact, it looks like an exact copy of the original Rolex HE valve, like in freddy's Rolex patent drawing. This case is 37.5mm, not 40 as stated in the description, decent plastic crystal, so-so bezel insert. Whether or not you'd be able to fit a 1575 movt in there, I don't know. All I've done with the watch is trim the cg's, drill the lug holes and grease the o-rings. I don't particularly like the yellow markers on the dial- just a little too yellow for me. And a good pearl would help. http://www.pam111.com/product_info.php?cPa...;products_id=44

freddy, if you're looking for a 1575 for a 1665, you need to look for a 1500 Date or a 1600 Datejust perhaps. These are the least expensive of the 1575 movts around. Or keep an eye out for the movt only, but they run around $900-1000. I would doubt that a 1570 (no date) is going to have the extra stuff for a date movt. But hey, I'm not a watchmaker. I looked at a 1575 datewheel at my watchmakers and he wanted $85 for it alone. Add a plate or gear or two and you'd be better off just buying an old watch with the correct movt. And don't forget to allow a couple of hundred for servicing- these movts are 30-40 years old!

Have you checked with riverwindmds? He is in Italy and that sure beats China or the US for cutting out customs!

Yep, I agree with you Pug about removing the tube. Although on the last two noobs, I did not remove the tube or the bezel, and just masked w/ tape. Stingray, I'm only removing material from the dial side of the crown guards and typically only at the two bottom inside corners. I have removed material from the case at the 3 o'clock edge, but only to straighten up the bottom line- too much, and you end up w/ too much of a gap between the crown and the case. But a little gap on the vintage subs is ok. Removing material from the outside edges of the crown guards isn't something I've gotten into yet. But in the case of the 1680 like Pug's it certainly is a worthwhile undertaking. One of the problems with vintage MBW/WM cg's is that they are too fat when compared to gen cg's from the 70's. If I had to guess, I'd say the first gen pic of Pugs is from a 70's sub case, and the second is maybe an example of 60's square cg's.