charmquark

I've just got my first rep from Narikaa - I've no complaints and he's in the UK (which I consider part of the EU even if they don't).

Maybe I used the wrong term - something inside the case between the case walls and the movement, positioning it centrally?

Sorry you've lost me - that's a good thing isn't it?

Just arrived today and it is very shiny! So shiny that my photos of it lying flat didn't come out. First impressions: It's larger than I expected, feels like a big watch. Here it is in comparison with some others; An Alpha Explorer I - I guess this is the size I was expecting from photos/memory A Helenarou 47mm 1936 Homage A couple of old (2001) Uhr-Kraft, the Radiomir Homage is 47mm, the other maybe 44mm and the Glashutte feels similar. Round the back, the movement has a decorated plate mostly covering it It looks good, no idea what's underneath. It's nothing like the gen but I bought this for itself, not to fool anyone. The case marking says ST.STEEL not Rose Gold, I guess they standardised on one. It's kept almost perfect time, running maybe 5 seconds fast over the first hour but I'll let it bed in. It's certainly good enough for a dress watch. Problems: There's a sort of tide mark/smear on the inside of the crystal in the bottom right quadrant roughly on a line between the 3 and the 7. It doesn't show in the photos and is nothing compared to my greasy fingerprints on the outside of the casing. I'm not going to worry about it. If I had to guess, maybe they tried an AR coating and it ran or it actually was someone's greasy fingerprint assembling it. I may swop the strap for a Black Croc one. It's a little too beige right now. I might get another in SS with White Dial and RG markers in the future.

I've ordered a low end vintage sub replica (because it's got the dial markings I want) and I'd like to upgrade the movement to a high beat. People talk a lot about movement swops, especially in the vintage fora. I know the movement has to fit inside the case but it also fits into some form of movement holder, either plastic or metal. When you do a swop, where do you get your movement holder? Are there standard models, can you make one, can you move from plastic to metal, do the come with the movements? As you can see I know little, so please feel free to lecture me.

Looking around at some Rolex GEN forums, I found someone doing the exact opposite: Restoring a Gen 1680 or did you post the same photos there in reverse order?