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Ostrich on the new Daytona:

Well, it's no pressure test, but I just did laps for an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't get started until the sun had gone down, so poolside photo are off the menu. I can report, however, that the TC Sub was able to withstand the water, the harsh chlorine, and the immense pressures placed upon it by my powerful strokes. (I'm like Mark Spitz minus the mustache, don'cha know?) So you'll have to make do with this thrilling action shot:

Thanks, all! Incredibly, I've already received three compliments from people who never usually say anything about my watches--and I'm certain they've seen me wearing the old DW 6263/7750 before. Is it the red "Daytona"? The solid bracelet and tight endlink fit? Or is the gen dial that much more effective at grabbing their attention? Right now, I'm guessing "all of the above", because the overall package has a presence and clarity that my old 6263 couldn't match.

“Conan, why do you build Daytona frankens with Valjoux 72 movements?” “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. But mostly so you can use a genuine dial.” I’m loath to call any watch a "Grail". One of my pet peeves is how the term gets thrown around to describe any flavor of the month or passing fancy. A Grail, per the late Chuck Maddox, is supposed to be the goal at the end of a quest both long and difficult. In Chuck's case, it was a Speedmaster Automatic with a Lemania 5100. In my universe of reps and frankens, I think this build qualifies (at least, until I can figure out how to assemble a CK2915 Speedy out of spare parts). So here, then, is my Grail Daytona. I still don't like the way that sounds. I've had my share of vintage Daytona reps over the years, but my first love was the 6263 with the standard silver dial, featuring "Daytona" in red script. In other words, "Big Red". In my early days on RWG, I was inspired by the Daytonas of guys like like Freddy, avitt, Eunomians, and several others. But the one post that I remember most clearly -and is actuallys till bookmarked- is vlaletom's comprehensively photographed DW 6263 with Roamer Stingray movement. It was a beautiful build, and it staggered me to consider the effort needed to gather those parts and put the thing together. The dial was a wonderfully detailed, aftermarket Big Red--the best dial that DW ever produced, in my opinion. The panda 6263 was the configuration I chose when I placed my first order with DW in 2009. Unfortunately, the dial I got was a bit on the crap side, and it was replaced after a few months by a Daytona-less ROC. That first 6263 was joined by a DW 6239/7750 the following year. Then in 2011, I finally joined the V72 club with my FAP 6239. But it was always my plan to return to the 6263--with a vengeance! More recent inspirations include ubiquitous's pristine 6265 with service dial, and wiesn089's 6265 with an original black Sigma dial. I had the opportunity to buy both of these watches and save a bit of cash, but, well... Putting one together is just too much fun, isn't it? As nice as DW's old "Big Red" was, I resolved to snag a genuine dial if one showed up at a reasonable price. I'm not sure what was the exact catalyst for this build. It may have been the 571 endlinks that I got for a great price at the start of the year. (I'm serious: A pair of endlinks might have started this.) I also had a couple of 6263/V72 cases from DW's "Retirement Sale"--right before my dealings with him turned sour. Then in February, I started talking to vlydog about possible movements for his 6263 build, and I think that's when I seriously thought about getting on with my own project. I braced my wallet for future financial shocks, and begin my search for a movement. Movement My first candidate was a Valjoux 72 from a Gallet. As it turned out, I couldn't bring myself to tear apart such a handsome watch, so its movement stayed where it was. Good thing I had spotted a Valjoux 726 less than 24 hours after winning the Gallet. Better still, the 726 was inside a frankly hideous Jules Jurgensen from the late 1970s. The Valjoux 726, for those that don't know, is one of the final evolutions of the Valjoux 72: 21600bph instead of the older movement's 18000bph, and it served as the base movement for the Rolex 727. Perfect for a 6263. Those are brown subdials in a gold dial, ringed with a huge fluted bezel that made the watch look like a metal sunflower. (Gut it! Gut it!) Here's the relocated V726. On the right, note the phony service marks, courtesy of Phong: Big thanks to alligoat for helping me secure this donor watch on short notice. Case The original plan was to start with a final-generation DW 6263 case, and have it extensively modified. However, valty's case comparison weighed heavily on my mind--particularly the thinness of the Phong case versus the DW. The thick midsection was something I noticed when I had placed my old DW 6263 next to a genuine. Was the improvement over DW worth the 400-500% increase in price? Honestly, no, but rationality doesn't figure into most of this build. This was the first time I had ordered anything from Phong, so I should note that he was very easy to deal with. He also gave me a choice: Did I want an unblemished, new-look 6263 case, or one that had undergone the "vintage" treatment? I didn't know precisely what he meant by that so I asked for pictures. He sent me a series of comparison shots, and I was intrigued. I went for vintage. On the left is "vintage" Phong; on the right is a never-used DW 6263 case. Note the reflections. Not only were the sharp edges dulled, but the polished surfaces of the steel had taken on a cloudy sheen. It wasn't a satin finish; you could still see your own reflection, albeit through a soft-focus lens. The metal didn't appear to be scuffed-up, but looked naturally worn: Now let's take a closer look at the surface of the "vintage" case: Interesting… Is it an effect caused by chemicals, or several layers of of scuff/polish? It's a very nice case, though not quite a spitting image of the gen. As on the DW, it would be nice if the crown protruded less, and was more tightly tucked beneath the bezel lip. It would be nice if the upper portion of the pusher cutouts intersected with the upper edge of the lugs. And it would also be nice if the lugholes were positioned more accurately, eliminating the need to modify the 571 endlinks for a proper fit. I'm also sure that the shape of the genuine lugs is composed of more compound curves. However, all of these would only be noticed in a direct side-by-side, and maybe only in macro shots. Move your eyes back a few inches and this Phong case is very convincing. Note the serial number. Not only is this a faux-birth-year watch for me, but the last six digits make it a birthday watch, too. I stole that idea from ubiquitous! Dial & Hands This was the big one. I had managed to find an old DW dial for the Valjoux 72 from another member. It looked terrific--far better than any DW dial I'd previously owned, but I only ever planned to use it in a worst-case scenario. Soon after, a service dial showed up on eBay. Unfortunately, I lost the bidding war to our very own vlydog (but we're still on good terms!), and had to look again. Eventually, I was able to find a genuine service dial (stamped "Singer") from a seller in Italy. It was a huge relief when I finally opened that small, plastic box containing the dial. That was three weeks ago, in upstate New York. It's a beautiful dial, and it's great not having to worry about how well or how poorly the smallest detail has been replicated. I can spot a bit of wear on the areas immediately surrounding the subdials, but otherwise the condition is excellent. Everything is wonderfully crisp, and the base color takes on a coppery hue when viewed under certain lights and at acute angles. Unfortunately, I missed out on a genuine handset. Instead, I used DW hands for everything except the chronograph sweep, which came from Phong. Bezel I recently reviewed three 6263 bezels, which you can read about here. I thought the New York bezel was the best of the bunch, and close enough in appearance to a genuine hoop. Gen bezel prices have exploded in the past year, and it's become difficult for me to justify the cost versus the marginal improvement in accuracy. And I didn't want to ruin the overall look of this watch by buying a cheaper-but-damaged bezel. Incidentally, the crystal is a genuine Tropic 21. Crown & Pushers I briefly considered genuine Mk 1 pushers and reconfiguring the watch as an early-70s 6263, but decided to minimize costs and headches. Besides, I can’t tell the difference between Ofrei pushers and the later gen units, so I ordered from Otto. The crown is an early 703 with the tall coronet. It came to me courtesy of vlydog, a most hospitable gentleman. On the right photo, note the shallow cutouts for the pushers. This is another flaw of the Phong case, as the gen has more pronounced indentations. DW replicated those details more accurately. Bracelet & Endlinks As I mentioned above, I was able to snag a pair of 571s for a great price. Unfortunately, it took a lot of trimming and reshaping by my watchsmith to get them to fit the Phong case properly. They were so changed, in fact, that I wondered whether I should have used and modified the 557s that came with the bracelet, and sold the 571s for a quick gain on VRM. Well, what’s done is done, and at least I get to see those '571' stampings from behind. wiesn089 helped me find and verify a genuine 78350 that was legitimate, in good condition, and priced well. If you haven’t read it yet, his comparison of a gen bracelet versus aftermarket 78350s is an invaluable resource. The springbars are from Ofrei. Alternatively, I still love a Daytona on Tropic rubber: I’m still not sure about calling this 6263 a Grail. I’ve had longer projects (like my Omega Seamaster 300 and Tudor 7032 V2), and this build went more smoothly and swiftly than others. But this is definitely the most expensive frankensteiner I’ve ever put together, and I have wanted a Big Red since 2009. So… Grail. Sure. But don’t mistake my indifference to the term with my feelings toward Big Red. I absolutely love it. So kiss a little longer, stay close a little longer Hold tight a little longer, longer with Big Red! That Big Red freshness lasts right through it Your fresh breath goes on and on, while you chew it! Say goodbye a little longer, make it last a little longer Give your breath long-lasting freshness, with Big Red!!!

All these questions about the water-resistance! I haven't tested it yet, but... ...I can toss it into the pool tomorrow. If something untoward happens, I will lay the mother of all guilt trips on you, E!

Clown-Master

Feel like a big man while playing Summer Games on a Commodore 64.

Hold tight a little longer, longer with Big Red:

Just remember that wearing one while standing on an official podium is a bannable offence.

Thanks, all! PeteM: The lume is kaput. I have a couple of older watches that still give off a faint glow, but not this one. The strap is a period-correct Tropic, but yeah, I might swap a black Tropic onto this one. The silver rubber give the Longines a futuristic appearance, if your idea of the future is Logan's Run. It's a mess!

Last month I bid on, and won, this watch: A 1969 Longines Ultra-Chron Super Compressor. Winning that auction wasn't the culmination of a long and difficult search. This was no "Grail"; to the contrary, I was only vaguely aware that it even existed prior to finding that auction's listing. However, this Ultra-Chron represented an intersection of interests that, in the middle of June, meant that I had to have it. In the past, I've sought out specific watches to add to the collection. Pieces like my Longines Legend Diver or my Heuer Carrera would grab a hold of my imagination and drive me to find them. This is the first time I've acquired a watch on the basis of broad themes—of boxes that I wanted to mentally check-off. And I find that a bit weird. Don't get me wrong: This is a remarkable watch that I like a lot, but the path that led me to owning it was new and surprising. So what were those themes that led to this Longines? Let's examine my meandering thought processes: 1. High-Beat Since around February of this year, I've been on a high-beat kick, and wanted a watch with a 36,000 bph movement. A 1969 Zenith El Primero is one of my dream watches, but I don't have that sort of cash lying around. I started looking into Seikos—specifically, vintage Grand Seikos, King Seikos, and Lord Marvels of the 1960s and 1970s. I learned a lot about Seiko's history during that time, but was unable to find a specific GS or KS that called to me. From there, I moved onto the Longines Ultra-Chron. Not this dive watch, but the more common dress watches from the mid-1960s. These Ultra-Chrons popularized high-frequency movements, and I hoped to snag a good one for a few hundred bucks. But my auction luck was poor. After several losses, I finally found –and won!– a mid-70s Ultra-Chron with a handsome blue dial. As soon as I got the watch, I gave the crown a few turns, set the time… and saw the familiar strobing of a 28,800 bph sweep hand. The most celebrated Ultra-Chron movement was the 36,000 bph Cal.431, but many other Ultra-Chrons came with the slower-beating Cal.6651. Nuts! By May, I had lost interest in the Ultra-Chrons, and was set on winning an El Primero. No, I still didn't have the funds for a Zenith. I was after the more modest prize of a 3019 PHC-powered Movado Datron HS360. And here's where my eBay luck turned ugly: First, I forgot to bid on an early-70s Datron that ended up going for just over a thousand bucks. From that point on, it was one loss after another, until the only vintage Datrons left were in gold, or were massively overpriced. That state of affairs is unchanged as of today, so Movado remains off the table. 2. Longines I've been a fan of Longines ever since it released the Legend Diver, a model that encouraged me to study the brand's history in greater depth. After my first discouraging experience with Ultra-Chrons, I nevertheless started to become more interested in other old Longines pieces—high-beat or not. Yet more losses, as I failed to win a Conquest, an Admiral, and two separate "Munich Olympics" monopusher chronographs. 3. Super Compressors I love Super Compressor dive watches. So much, in fact, that I search for them on a regular basis. After not winning all those Movados, I checked to see what Super Compressors were available. The usual Hamiltons and Fortises showed up, but so did this Longines Ultra-Chron diver. And there was that confluence of ideas I talked about at the top of the page. It felt as if the stars had aligned, and that all of my eBay losses had been for the greater purpose of winning this Longines. Apparently, that's what losing a bunch of auctions does to my mind! Onto the actual watch, then? The 44mm case is big for its time, but this Ultra-Chron actually wears smaller than the 42mm Legend Diver, due to the latter's long lugs. Twin crowns? Check. Internal bezel? Check. But lots of non-Compressor watches had these features. How do we know that this is really an EPSA Super Compressor case? Oh, it says "SUPER COMPRESSOR" right there on the caseback. Also note the "4-69" engraving at the bottom. I'm not sure if the "4" refers to April or to the fourth quarter of 1969. For a mass-produced movement, the Cal.431 is a very pretty one. The strap is a 22mm Swiss Tropic in silver, from my big collection of old rubber. There's a peculiar symmetry between the shape of the caseback and the shape of the bezel. Fourteen sides make a tetradecagon, incidentally. (I had to look that up.) Longines buckles old and new and NOS. My Longines trio. Not quite a Symphonette. Ten ticks per second and a smooth sweep. That's what high beat is all about. Don’t worry: I haven’t turned into a gen-only snob, and will resume writing about reps and franken builds shortly. Stay tuned!

Today it's the alligoat 6238/9, soon to be reunited with its owner:

Many weird details, but the position of the lugholes looks correct to me. In fact, this is a quirk that none of the aftermarket manufacturers has gotten right.

V3 bracelet, maybe, but I've already got a gen pearl on a gen 16610 insert! E: Out-of-the-box, other than that insert.

Well, there was THAT thread...

You just devalued both watches by taking an iPad shot of them! Beautiful! May you and your father enjoy them for a long time.

Thanks, M, and thanks for that first insert. I got there in the end! If you see a ceramic Sub on my wrist, it's probably safe to blame bath salts!

Thanks for the kind words, all! I noticed the bulgy insert, too, but it seems to be seated evenly right now. However, I'm feeling a tiny amount of play on the insert, and turning the bezel takes some effort on some quadrants. I'm still finding them too bulky, though I loved miquel's MBW 1665 when I saw it in Calgary. The most likely next step in Sub World is a Snowflake. I've wanted a Snowflake even before becoming interested in Rolex Subs!

I've mentioned before how I never used to understand the appeal of the Rolex Submariner. I would read about guys obsessing over the inner surfaces of crown guards, or pulling out micrometers to measure crown-to-bezel distances on WM9s. I'd read the comparisons and the extensive, expensive mods, but... nothing. The Submariner had a common and familiar shape that failed to excite anything in my brain. Then, exactly a year ago, I got my first Sub: a gilt MBW 5512 that ChiMan12 put together. Now, the 5512 is one of my favorites, and the it led me back through familiar territory that I'd ignored the first time round. So why the TC Sub, and why now? As stated above, it was partly because I hadn't been turned onto the Submariner prior to that 5512. But my buying one was largely because of the excellent photos and terse descriptions that TC produced to sell the watches. TC let his photography do the talking, and the quality of the pieces was obvious. Also, in the months before buying the TC Sub, I'd made a couple of big orders that didn't go through: First, I missed out on the first batch of Noob PAM127s, and didn't want to wait 3+ months for the next production run. Later, I'd gone as far as sending funds for an MBW AP Royal Oak Jumbo, only for the seller to nix the deal at the last minute. I got my money back on both occasions, but I was starting to feel like Gregory Peck with that million-pound note. (Why is it sometimes so hard to spend?) And that's when I started to notice a whole lot of chatter on the forums about yet another high-end Sub... There's not a whole lot to say about the build, as this watch is nearly an out-of-the-boxer. It's a stock V-Series, sent without an insert. I was lucky that the only one TC had in stock was a watch that had already had its rehaut obliterated. I've never liked the RER, so a watch with an untrimmed rehaut would have definitely gone to Texas for a shave. alligoat kindly provided me with a genuine Luminova insert, so I thought I was all set. And then this happened: AUUGH! Commenting in my tragic thread, sneed12 said he would fit a new insert onto the watch for free, and he wasn't kidding. I was so upset that I immediately ordered a new insert and sent it, and my poor Sub, to sneed. He worked quickly. A few days after receiving both packages, the installation was complete and sneed sent me a photo of the finished watch. It would be several more weeks until I got it back on my wrist (via vlydog), and I've been loving it ever since. Note that, genuine insert aside, this is an unmodded Sub. It has the older datewheel overlay and the V2 (?) bracelet, both of which I'm pleased with. For now. So here's my first modern Submariner--assuming "modern" applies to a design that was introduced in the the tail end of the 1980s. Onto the rest of the pictures: Quick review: I like it a lot!

Out of curiosity, cc33, does either dial have a sunken minute track like the gen does?

"Huh... So it's one of those fake watches, eh?"