freddy333

How accurate? It depends on how much you know about vintage Rolex & how critical the viewer is. The problem with rare, vintage Rolex watches is that relatively few people today know anything about them (beyond being a Rolex, because the name is stamped on the dial). Those who do know anything about the 5517 military Sub will likely also know what the real thing looks like & none of the vintage Rolex rep offerings (including this 5517) from any seller will fool these types of people. That said, the watch pictured does get the basic idea correct. If you reshape the crown guards (CGs), replace the crown/tube, hands, dial, bracelet & bezel insert with gens (or search out more accurate aftermarket parts), you could put together a watch that would fool all but the most knowledgeable collector. Welcome to the wonderful world of vintage Rolex.

Very pretty watch.

The answer was posed at the beginning of the thread you just read (click here for the answer)

Nanuq is right. Unless you get the angle & light just right, a gen silver datewheel tends to look white. But when the stars fall into place, you get

From what I understand, Rolex does not save any parts removed during service & they have no plans to remanufacture vintage parts. This question comes up every 10 or so years & their answer has always been the same - silence.

Funny, I was having a conversation on the subject with a friend about my bike a couple of weeks ago. He has been on me to chuck the bike's oem points ignition in favor of electronic ignition (which provides a host of benefits). But, aside from the benefits of being stock, my pitch was that if/when the nightmare scenario occurs (a 'crowd-pleaser, as the military affectionatly refers to an above-ground nuclear detonation, is set off in a major Western city), my bike will be about the only thing left on the road running under its own steam.

Not sure (I have never built a Zenith Daytona), but I would think it would have to be the setting lever (Rolex part 4030-220).

In the case of tubes, there really is a tangible performance difference (if you prefer the sound of tubes). But, in the case of mechanical watches, the differences are all historic & aesthetic. Unlike tubes (where 1 can make the case that tubes DO sound better than transistors - after all, electrons travel faster through a vacuum than they do through a semi-conductor), Rolex watches have no performance edge over quartz. Their worth lies solely in their perceived value as rare collectibles (& perceptions can change). Yes, there are finite supplies of vintage watches, but there are also finite supplies of big/blingy watches & look what has happened to that market. In fact, when I got into watch collecting, 25 years ago, The IT Watch was the Rolex Prince. How many of you would consider spending the time/effort/money buying/building Princes today? Not many, I would wager. Imagine what would happen to the vintage Rolex market if James Dowling, John Mayer & a handful of the top collectors on VRF suddenly pronounced the complete liquidation of their collections in favor of, say, mid-century furniture, comic books or vintage tennis rackets. The market, as much as I hate to say it, could dry up overnight.

Once unscrewed (into the winding position), there is 1 stop in the stem (to set the hands) on all Daytonas.

As I was working on my next project, I began wondering what I would do if the bottom were to suddenly & irreparably fall out of the vintage Rolex market? What I had in mind is not a temporary or even long-term drop in values, but, instead, a complete collapse of the market for vintage Rolex watches, turning rare, valuable & highly sought-after collectibles into pieces of valueless old crap. Such a predicament is not without precedent (although this example is sometimes referenced in the context of economic bubbles, I think it merits specific consideration here). In 1593, tulips were brought from Turkey and introduced to the Dutch. The novelty of the new flower made it widely sought after and therefore fairly pricey. After a time, the tulips contracted a non-fatal virus known as mosaic, which, instead of killing off the tulip population, altered the flowers causing "flames" of color to appear upon the petals. The color patterns came in a wide variety, increasing the rarity of an already unique flower. Thus, tulips, which were already selling at a premium, began to rise in price according to how their virus alterations were valued, or desired. Everyone began to deal in bulbs, essentially speculating on the tulip market, which was believed to have no limits. The true bulb buyers (the garden centers of the past) began to fill up inventories for the growing season, depleting the supply further and increasing scarcity and demand. Soon, prices were rising so fast and high that people were trading their land, life savings, and anything else they could liquidate to get more tulip bulbs. Many Dutch persisted in believing they would sell their hoard to hapless and unenlightened foreigners, thereby reaping enormous profits. Somehow, the originally overpriced tulips enjoyed a twenty-fold increase in value - in one month! Needless to say, the prices were not an accurate reflection of the value of a tulip bulb. As it happens in many speculative bubbles, some prudent people decided to sell and crystallize their profits. A domino effect of progressively lower and lower prices took place as everyone tried to sell while not many were buying. The price began to dive, causing people to panic and sell regardless of losses. Now, when we consider that a Rolex watch is, at best, a crude proximate device, incapable of equaling the accuracy & reliability of even the cheapest, Asian-made quartz, 1 cannot ignore the bubble inherent in the vintage Rolex market. The real question, as I see it, is whether Rolex's aesthetic & historical qualities are sufficient to keep the bubble from popping? (Of course, with all of this in mind, work continues, unabated, on my next project. )

I took my beater off for a few minutes & he made a new friend. I guess WISes come in all forms

The fuzzy pic gives the impression that the seller is trying to hide something. And, indeed, as best as I can tell, these are all new/aftermarket parts.

Been wearing this all day But going to din-din wearing this (& I thought, because I do not wear yellow gold, it would spend all of its time in a case )

Alcohol should be fine. Stay away from ammonia-based products like Windex. All of my sunglasses have AR & I have been washing them with liquid dish washing soap & warm water for years without any degradation of the AR coatings.

I think that just about says it all.

Looks perfect (for a used/vintage Rolex). You can test the internal spring/tube assembly simply by compressing the crown between your thumb & index finger. The components should compress (all the way) & release with little or no (serious) binding. Typically, the inner tube will 'hang' during release, which is why people complain that their crown does not pop-out when they unscrew it. The 'hanging' is due either to a worn spring inside the crown's inner tube (in some crowns that I have rebuilt, the spring had literally disintegrated over time) or because the tube is out-of-round. Either case generally requires that you rebuild (if you have another good Twinlock, you can transplant its inner tube onto the Brevet) or replace the crown.

Do you mean the gen 3135 date disk is a drop-in replacement (same size/diameter/thickness & works with ETA date change components) for the ETA date disk?

You have guts buying an all 'gold' rep ('gold' plating on reps is notorious for having a relatively abbreviated lifespan). I can tell you that, according to the timer's output, it looks like the movement's running well (+10 - +20 on the timer usually translates to good wrist time).

Thanks for the info. Never knew you had it.

Looks like it. Touche! Care to provide any background/details?

Ending the work week still wearing my dependably accurate (running -4 secs after 1 month of combined winder & daily wear) beater

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