alligoat

A while back there was a discussion about watch winders, and someone posted an Orbita watch winder chart and it showed that a v7750 should go in a clockwise direction (other ETA's like 2824 and 2836 can go either direction), but my Swiss 7750's and asian 7750's are doing fine on my winder going in either direction. As for 800 revolutions per day, that's 33.33 revs/hr, which isn't a whole lot. Your wrist doesn't go in one direction, why should your watch have to? And w/ a rotor, you can't overwind a v7750, it has a clutch mechanism to avoid that situation. I did have a watch winder that did not spin enough to keep my watches going. After 3-4 days, they'd play out and stop. My wife sent it back to the company she got it from, but they went out of business and the winder came back. I may pass it on to one of the nephews and let them decide what to do w/ it- maybe they can soup it up and make it work! Winders are an interesting subject, some people like them and some don't. I look at them as a convenience, where I can take a watch out, maybe adjust it a few minutes and slap it on and go about my business. It also makes it easy to see which watches are keeping good time after a couple of weeks. And when you own a Grande Complication (v7751) you really appreciate a winder, cause who wants to set the day, the date, the month and the time every time you wear it? Let alone remember which way to turn the crown to change the day or the date.

A genuine crystal means the right case size, to boot. BTW, who is Gino Bori?

I've got a few of Andrew's vintage watches. I guess I'm going to have to take the back off again and look for the Seagull mark. One does OK and the other is 5 minutes slow per day. Thanks for pointing out the Seagull mark.

Well, I like the crown and I like the date mag, I can't ever tell about bezels, but it looks OK to me. If it's a rep, I'd say it's a good one, and if it's a gen, better yet!

Instead of typing in ROLEX into the ebay search box, I guess it's time to start typing in TUDOR! There are still some deals to be had w/ Tudors, but the chrono is going run $1,200 and up depending on condition, etc. Retail for a good chrono is $2,500. Here's an interesting Tudor/5513 that I've been watching: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A%3AIT&rd=1 More reps, ultimately I guess it's not percieved as that big a seller.

A watchmaker could polish it for you, maybe $15-25 max, I would think. Or, you could do it yourself with some polish and afterwards, you might have to brush it a little, maybe w/ a scotchbrite or 280 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Look around here, there's lot of stuff about polishing, search, search.

Regulating your watch is a 5-10 minute deal. My watchmaker has regulated two of my watches while I looked on, and he didn't charge me either time. One of them was the V72, and his comment about servicing it was, "See how it does, it's expensive to service them." So far it's been right on (he did clean the mainspring at the same time- another 2-3 minutes). It's definitely cheaper just to regulate it- maybe $20-30. And of course, servicing an asian 7750 could be tough- some people don't like to work on them, and if something goes wrong, you could be SOL. The question is do you spend $200+ to service an asian 7750 or do you bite the bullet and get an ETA 7750 and spend $500 swapping it out? Sometimes the answers aren't easy. But if you only spent $300 on the watch in the first place, give or take, you better like it alot to spend another $500 on it putting a Swiss 7750 in it. And a second per hour is only 24 seconds per day, it's not a killer. five minutes a day starts bothering me!

Ah yes, looks like the TWG 5513, judging by the yellow hue. Replacing the bezel is a good start and then aging the dial would go a long way towards making it a better rep. I plan on doing the same to mine! Ironically, the crown guards aren't bad, I don't plan on doing anything to mine.

I guess with an MBW or a WM you could build a Tudor Sub fairly easily. Add a bezel insert, genuine crown and tube, 127 cyclops and a dial and away you go. Old style hands and a Tudor rotor would be icing on the cake. And drill out the springbar holes in the lugs, and trim the cg's, of course. But I guess Ubiquitous has already done that!

The 2836 has a day/date and the 2824 is strictly date, the 2824 being 4.6 lignes thick versus say 5.2 for the 2836. Ironically, reps use the 2836 more often than the 2824, but they don't make use of the day feature, as in your Yachtmaster, which is only a date watch. Otherwise, the movements are almost identical. The 2834 is a third variation, with the day/date, day at 12 o'clock, like the Rolex day-date watch. I believe it's bigger (maybe 13.5 lignes vs 11.5 for the other two). All good movements, 25 jewels, automatic. You can go to www.eta.ch/ for more info, look under Mecaline, or www.ofrei.com/ or www.julesborel.com/ under movements for more info

it's www.redfingerprint.com/ and their prices aren't the cheapest. Try authenticwatches.com/ and then check out who's selling on ebay, cause that's where the cheapest prices start. Also, alanfurman.com/ has pretty good deals. I was looking at the Tag Heuer Carrera chronos- nice watches if you have $1600-1800 to drop! I'd love to see a good rep of the classic Carrera chrono, but you know it would have an asian 7750 in it!

Wow! That dial looks pretty cherry to me. Dial feet at 6 and 11:30- it would fit a 1575GMT movement perfectly. But I don't see Singer or Beyeler on the back- is it a newer old stock replacement dial?

I think your old colleague is full of [censored]. There can't be that much difference in weight between a gen and your rep, if any. And he can tell the difference just by holding it? I don't think so, Tim. As was stated earlier, the original folded link bracelets were so light weight (w/ narrow clasps, too) it isn't funny. I took mine off of a vintage Rollie and put a nicer rep bracelet on instead. Besides, that way I don't tear up the original bracelet. I do agree w/ eye.surgeon though. I don't see anything wrong w/ wearing a PN rep, the originals are so outta sight pricewise, that it only makes sense to wear a rep. Keep your original in a safe. In fact, that could be your line- "Yeh, I have the original at a secret location in a safe!" I wear a 6238 Pre-Daytona quite a bit and if I ever do get called down on it, my response is going to be, "Yeh, it's my $20,000 Rolex! Of course, I got it for a lot less, but that's what they go for these days." And keep it light and if they persist, "Yep, it's a rep, I can't afford (or don't want to pay for) an original."

I wear a bunch of my watches to the gym to workout, and I do sweat alot, what's the point of going if you're not gonna work! My $60 CN Datejust does fine, or my WM sub. I have a few knock-off subs I don't hesitate to wear (or swim w/ for that matter), and some other swiss gens that I don't mind wearing. I do wear my vintage 1500 Date from time to time since it's been pressure tested, but not the gen 1680 since it hasn't. I don't wear the vintage chronos, rep chronos, any of my "dress" watches, any suspect reps or the reps I don't want to risk.

Your ladies Datejust looks pretty good. My wife has had one for about 8 months. It came from Paul, and I think it's a very good rep. This week she went out and bought a real Datejust on ebay. When you compare the two watches side by side, the date mag on the rep is greater than the mag on the gen. Other than that, you can't tell the difference between the two watches. You can't tell it's a rep w/o opening the case!

All in all, I'd have to say it's a very good rep, and yes, we are an obsessive lot! Has anyone given any thought to a 12 step program for repoholics?

My watchmaker's comment yesterday when he was looking at a TWG TT Datejust was, "That looks awfully good, they're getting pretty good at this." And that's on a $100 rep. And he's working on Rolexes day in and day out. He looked at my WM 1680 Sub (mods by RBJ) and thought it was real, until I pointed out the white date wheel and explained the shortcomings of the datewheels in the vintage Rolexes.

Some of the early Subs came w/ the black or dark brown leather straps. And of course, our hero, James Bond (Sean Connery) was pictured in one of the early movies w/ a sub on a black strap (leather, I presume). And Silix has the old early Subs w/ the brown (crocodile?) straps. It's a great change of pace and a great "vintage" touch. Le piece de resistance would be a leather strap w/ the Rolex logo on the buckle- I've seen them somewhere around on ebay....

Just got back from visiting my watchmaker. I took him my TWG TT DJ w/ the Asian movt to see if he could regulate it. It was running 5 minutes a day slow. He took the back case off and moved the smaller of the two little levers on the balance wheel and got it closer to correct. He had it on the vibrograph as he was adjusting it and said, "That ought to be pretty close. If that doesn't work, there's not much more that I can do." So far it's doing alot better, but I guess you can't expect perfection from these Asian 21's. I'm getting ready to build a gold datejust, so I guess I'll use the ETA that I have. I had hoped to just move the Asian 21, dial and crown into the gold case, but I'm not sure it's worth it. Of course, now I have to find a dial, or just use the dial from the TT DJ and shitcan the rest of the watch!

Yep, I've got some of the asian 21j movts in watches- like my $60 datejust, keeps good time, it's sweatproof and date mag is only 2x at best. Otherwise, it's a good rep and for $60, what do you want. I've also got a Silix sub- the 6835- keeps good time, the only thing I don't like is the printing on the dial is a little too yellow. Guess I need to get around to taking it apart and try to do something to age the luminescence, tone down the yellow. There's nothing wrong w/ buying the asian 21j movement, just realize that if it craps out, there might not be much to do but put another movement in there- a Miyota or an ETA, or go out and buy another rep altogether. But it's not like you've lost your life savings or anything and if you have some fun w/ it and learn something about watches it's worth it.

I believe it will work, but there are a few things to be aware of. The Asian 7750 has a few gears and maybe an extra bridge to move the twelve o'clock subdial to the three o'clock position. The 7753 is a 3,6,9 set-up to begin w/. Maybe the thickness of the movts is different. But subdials should be in the same place. Ziggy is the guy to go to on questions like this but he's out of pocket till this fall, I believe. BTW, the 7753 is a wee bit pricey at around $500 from ofrei- ouch.

Putting the 6263 on a black strap looks cool. It would be even more convincing w/ the Rolex logo on the clasp. It gives the watch a different feel or look, should we say- more vintage maybe. I have the same watch and I think I'm going to have the hand on the six o'clock subdial immobilized. That way it won't bother me as much. Of course, my real "to-it" project (who knows when I'll get to it) is a DW V72 kit so I can put my V72 movement in it and get as close as possible to the real thing.

My advice is to keep looking around and asking people. It took me a while to find a guy here in Houston. I was using a small independent guy and he was ok, but he really wasn't excited about reps. Then I ran across a guy who really loves watches and has a wholesale repair business. He loves to talk about them and is excited that I'm interested in them also. He works on everything from Rolexes and Pateks on down. You might also talk to other watch collectors in your area, this is how I found my guy. Working on an ETA isn't a big deal, but remember that you can swap out a movement sometimes for less than the cost of repairs.

@ sydneysider, if you look at the ofrei movement link posted by ridnwind, you'll see that the v7751 is a day date moonphase movt and it's cheaper than a 7753. Kinda ironic. I have a watch w/ the 7751 in it- day, month, date(w/ a pointer going around the perimeter), 24 hr hand and chronos- a Jean Marcel Grand Complication that cost $1500 (slightly used) and I thought it was a good deal, But you're not going to find a rep w/ that movt in it- way too complicated. I'd love to find a better deal on the swiss 7753- it would make for a kick ass swap in my 6238 when the asian 7750 gives out!

Or you could have something in the movement itself that is keeping it from running. Last month my GMT 2836 quit running. I noticed that the movement wasn't tight against the top of the case and so I opened the case back and saw that one of the tabs that holds the movement in place had broke and the part was lost in the movement apparently. My watchmaker took out two screws and removed the rotor and the part of the tab was stuck in between two gears. He took it out and voila, the movement started running again. He put the rotor back on, put in a new tab and I was ready to go. It took him less than two minutes to fix it! More than likely it's not a big problem, but it sure helps to have a watchmaker who will work on it! Good luck.