lhooq

It may be one of the worst watch purchases you can make from an investment perspective. Bid what you'll be willing to pay to own it for the rest of your life.

I would recommend against buying complete watches from DW. The build quality is best described as "slapped together".

seafoam: The only things I wish I could change would be the position of the lugholes and the crispness of the edges. But it might be easier to cast a new case than fix those, so I'm OK with what I've got! K's a whiz with his dremel, and janeto72 had an amazingly steady hand on whatever dental device he used to go over those engravings. I place this caseback next to a DW stock unit, and it's breathtaking. Like so:

R: I'm good right now, but I appreciate the offer.

Off to be serviced. I'm going to miss this one!

Akira: Watch your mouth! panerai153: Thanks! Even though it took a few years to get my 7032 to this state, it still doesn't seem so long ago when I was admiring ubi's and lanikai's Tudors and wondering how the hell I was ever going to get something like them. With patience and cash, apparently! (And a whole lot of help from some very good people on this forum.) As for mountain climbing analogies, I leave those for F.

Oh... If only these GS crystals could be easily purchased from somewhere!

Jubilee!

Thanks, guys! F, yours has a fine pedigree (wish I'd had the cash to take red's Snowflake off his hands), and you managed to waterproof it. I wouldn't even think of walking by a sauna door with my 7032!

UPDATE 02/03/2013 So what's been happening to my 7032 since last summer? Unfortunately, it remained one of my most problematic projects, made worse by a movement swap last autumn. The Valjoux 7734 from siesta181 had been running well, but I discovered late in the day that it actually contained a 30-minute counter, not a 45-minute as advertised. It was sheer stupidity on my part for not detecting it earlier, but siesta was nice enough to agree to a full refund. In hindsight, I should have kept it. The search for a new movement led me to an incredibly shitty Dufonte, which was one of the ugliest watches I've ever strapped to my wrist. Thing is, the movement looked pretty good in the pictures, so I thought I'd be safe. Little did I know how many new headaches this dull brown chronograph would bring. Fast-forward to last month, and I finally decided to send my hapless 7032 off to The Zigmeister himiself. Skip ahead a few weeks, and let me quote a few highlights from his prognosis on the movement: the mainspring was found to be attached to the barrel by someone having drilled a hole in the spring, and then screwing the spring to the side of the barrel, with the screw sticking out significantly from the side of the barrel and jamming into the other coils during hand removal it was noted that the subdial hands were not broached to fit the posts properly as a result, the hands were hammered on, which has resulted in irreparable damage to the 4th wheel post (running seconds) during initial assembly and testing, there was excessive friction in the motion works, the wheels were jamming up, this was the cause of the poor amplitude of the balance wheel extensive troubleshooting finally revealed that the 4th wheel upper pivot was bent and this was the cause of the friction and loss of power only solution is either a new 4th wheel, or replacement of the pivot with a new manufactured one Yikes! But would you believe that I got an "Everything fixed!" email within a week? The guy is good, and so far the watch -timekeeping and chrono functions- has been running excellently. I will miss him terribly. Aside from the movement, this 7032 also underwent a few cosmetic changes last October, courtesy of fellow Canuck and all-around good guy, janeto72. The last few months have been so busy, that I never got the chance to note them back then. The first thing JT did was airbrush my chrono sweep (which was looking tatty in the earlier photos), and attach the subdial hands that a bunch of us have been sweating over. Looking good! Next, he eliminated the pinched mid-edge found on the left side of DW's mid-cases. It honestly never bothered me, but JT was adamant that it had to go. Here's a shot of that edge on an unmolested DW case (top) and my modded 7032 (bottom: The other part that JT modded was the outer tips of the crown guards. I had asked jmb to leave them flat, but JT correctly observed that there should be a slight convexity to them. So he went to work on subtly curving them: You can see the softer look of the CGs by comparing with the shots on the first page. As a bonus, JT also plucked the gob of solder off my 700 crown. Lastly, JT took a crack at deepening the engravings on the caseback. It was a fine enhancement of justasgood's work: I just checked to see that my first post on my first 7032 build was all the way back in October 2010. Wow! Sometimes these things take time. The 7032 has always been one of my most admired watches. It's definitely a looker. Maybe now I can also call it one of my most dependable. Big thanks to janeto72, The Zigmeister, and all the behind-the-scenes guys who have been sourcing and negotiating for 7032 parts.

Today, the Tudor:

I love it when a good watch passes from one good guy to another.

Back from the master.

The UnProfessional for Friday:

Mine's the one in the middle:

During an auction, have you ever changed your mind on the most you were willing to pay for an item? More importantly, do you think any of the other bidders have changed their minds during the auction? Do "You have been outbid!" notices cause you to reassess your maximum bid? Also, to be clear: I didn't mean 'timidity' as a knock against you. That's just the thought that runs through my head after I lose an auction to, say, a Junghans J88 that I'll never see on eBay for another two years or so...

Thanks! I've been excited about the Pelagos since it was first announced, and finally had the chance to try it on a couple of weeks ago. Very, very nice. Now, if Tudor would come out with a Pelagos in blue, I may not be able to resist a purchase!

The article's from July 2011!

I disagree. If someone pays more than you are willing to pay, then they paid more than you are willing to pay. Doesn't mean that they didn't snag the deal of the year, or that you won't regret your timidity for months to come.

His user ID is the same on VRM as it is here, so there shouldn't be much of a mystery! This was a really rare find, and if J really wanted to cash out immediately, all he would have to do is drop the price by a couple hundred dollars. I'm pretty sure he'll get the asking price before too long. It sounds crazy, but I believe they're valued correctly. You just don't see Mk 2 pushers in blister packs, and single, used pushers have sold for over $1000 in the past.

You do know who the seller is, don't you?

Blech... The Ingy Carbon looks like it should be on sale at WatchEden! A bit disappointing this year, IWC.

Trying a friend's new camera on an older Carrera: