babola

Lot of good work and prep went into creating this one... Great result. More photos please...

Not necessarily, however there's always a 'good' measure ;-) I've 'fixed' couple of crystals on my Pam reps, where the crystal was originally mounted flush with the bezel edge. Removed them and re-installed again, this time with beveled xtal edge a hair above the bezel line. cheers, b

Over $400 for that rep? Sorry mate, you got fleeced, quite a bit actually I remember the time when the cartel boys were trying to pass Pam reps with that particular mov't in them as Swiss ETA. We (The Zigmeister actually) took it apart after few people had issues with pallet fork catching the hairspring, dissected it and came to conclusion it's a 'hybrid' mov't at best. Years later, this mov't was nicknamed as 'Swasian' and/or 'Chiss'. I also asked Davidsen to take mine apart completely, he confirmed it's basically Asian mov't built on top of the Swiss ETA ebauche (baseplate and drive train only, no bridges escapement and regulator). Basically the watch shouldn't cost more than $200 these days, IMO. cheers, b

Awesome result, mate. So are the numerals and markers still recessed even after lume was applied? I've got a 201/A FGD dial incoming, still mulling over what to do with respect to aged T-lume. cheers! b

You'll at least need new hands, those on the rep look out of whack to a great degree. Also a subdial is closer to the middle of the dial on a gen simply because Minerva and 6497 mov'ts have different subdial and second hand gear location. The decorated rehaut is all very nice and all, but not very accurate to the gen article. ;-)

Yup, DSNs are good to go. Not cheap but closer to gen's and better than Jackson's/Getat's. The latter are slightly mistier than cartel/DSN sapphire, and I agree with w0lf on that point. BTW, xtal position in reference to the top of the bezel is achieved with xtal press during the install. I prefer the one with screw top (I sold my traditional lever xtal press as soon as I bought this one) which adds much better glass height control during the install.

DSN non-AR ones are very good. He now makes both types, the ones that fit his original 04/05 cases as well as the one to fit standard cartel case bezel diameter.

Now I remember seeing this one before! Absolutely crazy result, Panerai should make one of these PVD Chrono Daylights one day :-) Awesome, D...keeper for sure

Arghhh, will fix it straight away! cheers

Hey Swdivad, please don't take this the wrong way but the case isn't that great fit altogether, IMO. It's cool that it comes with pre-V lug screw setup, but the shape of the lugs isn't good Also, all the sharp edges are rounded. The CG is the one made for normal and destro, it's very thin and flat on both sides (which is wrong) so that you can easily flip it if you want to make a destro. Pre-V CGs came much thicker and with rounded top side that flares upwards from the case out. If you really like this case and would like to use it for your pre-V project, I'd suggest first thing to swap the CG with one of those Toro pre-V CGs he currently has for 45Eur...not a big expenditure and it may just work. Drop me a PM if you wish, I may have another suggestion for you. cheers, b

Hey no probs at all...BTW just checked my spare parts box and realized I have the 000 Base Logo dial from the same DSN series as your 005

One of the 005G dials by DSN from '09. Not bad compared to his other 005 dials as well as cartel ones, but the logo size, thickness and position gives it away a little too much, IMO.

Nothing wrong with the watch. It's an infamous PAM237 AKA "The Ghost". Made in 2005 in 400 pieces only. Not a LE per se, rather limited production. The current price is ridiculously low, regardless of scratches/dings/dirt. In collectors circles it's worth at least 4 times that much.

Hard to tell really, especially without side profile photo or two. Xtal seems fine, good bevel, but IMO sits a bit too high inside the bezel. The crown neck on the first pic (where it meets the crown tube) looks a bit weird...could be just the photo angle, though. I'm guessing that's just plain mineral glass, no?

Great result, mate! Some time ago Enzo (from RWI) and I tried drilling the lugs on the 44mm case to make it pre-V equivalent, by hand. Oh what a nightmare that was...drilling steel, even just widening the existing holes proved to be a major effort. I applaud you for managing this in 15 minutes, it definitely took us lot longer than that I agree with you, top-bench drill press is definitely way to go for this kind of work, in my case even if only for one case

Not bad, but not the best one out there. As Wolf mentioned above, this is a cartel rep CG, thin kind to fit A - F series. However it will have to be re-polished to be made little more 'fitting' for the correct series. I wouldn't use it on anything G-series onwards, but that's I guess up to you to decide The cartel 'thin' rep CGs came in two versions, good polished one with narrower lever to fit nicely inside the CG lever groove (older one from '05-'07 period), and the newer slightly oversized one (but still thin kind) rep factories used for 111/112H series reps instead of the correct thick 'flared' one. Your seems to have the latter, however it appears that it uses the lever from the former one, judging by the unsightly side-profile cavity inside the CG around the lever when closed . Either that or they over-zealously drilled the CG lever-cavity on this one, at the factory.

If you exclude some minor differences it should be OK for A-F series. G-series onwards introduced slightly more beveled case corners and lugs, as well as thinner lug side-profile. So not a great fit for H-series, I'd say, but that shouldn't stop you from doing so. At least there aren't those unsightly cutouts between the lugs rep cases of late are famous for. Comparison with a case from DSN isn't a best thing to do, as his cases vary and differ quite a bit from the genuine as well as majority of rep cases in general.

Thanks Val, yup the dial you show is the now so called "2nd version" 001/004/040 T-dial from DSN. Good, but not his best work. The newest one would definitely be a slight upgrade in respect to dial txt, but the 1st series (if you could find one) would be the best fit, IMO...providing you get it relumed, milled to the right diameter and "-" removed between the T and Swiss. cheers!

Agree, the 1st gen dial appears to be the best out of the "bad" bunch, all issues taken into consideration

Yup, Valerian's definitely looks more like 2nd gen than 1st. The dial font gives it away. Quest's is indeed the same dial as the one you show on MilesD pictures. It still has some irregularities when compared to the genuine, but at least it's the right size for people who would like to simply drop it in the standard case. I may need to get that one as well, at least for comparison sake cheers!

Wow - great piece BTW, I don't believe they re-did the serial on the replacement caseback, this will be the first as this never happened in the past on re-casing requests by service centres. They probably just replaced the case, but kept the original caseback

LOL! Just checked my spare parts box and realized I have both types of DSN 001/004/040A+B series dials we're talking about here - both Valerian's old type from '06 as well as Quest's new type from 2009. How weird is that! I bought the old one in '06. The new one DSN sent me some 6 months ago out of blue as a token of appreciation for some stuff we did together in the past. Not being in the "game" back then I put it in the box and completely forgot about it He also sent me 2 other dials, his 'new' 002A T-dial and Zero Base (000). Thanks D, didn't even know what I had lying idle in my box Pics below: As you can see, when positioned one next to the other the difference in dial txt font & thickness, numerals and markers style (less and more deeper cutouts and grooves around the markers), and the T Swiss T font under 6 o'clock - are all striking. Couple more photos: Another thing you might have or haven't noticed from the first photo is the difference in diameter of both dial. Old DSN dial is about 1mm wider, to fit the older style DSN cases with larger rehaut and dial cavity. This was the case with ALL DSN dials in the past until late 2008 when his dial maker started making dials of standard width to fit cartel rep cases. One thing is also synonymous with DSN dials in general - they're slightly thinner than standard rep and gen dials. He originally made them like that to alleviate the short cannon pin issue. It worked OK for base dials with hour/minute hand only, for Marinas, the tolerances between the hour and mall second hand were extremely low, almost nonexistent...forcing the installer sometimes to bend the hour and minute hands upwards a little. Not a great look but it was OK at the time high cannon pinion sets weren't available ;-) As I mentioned above the difference is about 1mm. The wider dial will fit old DSN cases and some of the old-school EL/River cases without modifications (read: grinding off the diameter for about 0.5mm) cheers!

If it hasn't got the "-" between the T and Swiss, than Id' say with almost 100% certainty someone's already dealt to this little "problem". The "-" on these 001/004/040A-B DSN dials used to be mostly removed by The Zigmeister in the past, as part of his re-lume service. Can you provide a macro of the dial please? The removal marks should still be slightly visible. cheers!

Thanks bud, I haven't gone anywhere (not yet..LOL!) just had a few ups and downs as they say cheers!