freddy333

Sadly, no.

Bob Frei received a water-damaged & case-less GMT dial, handset & movement. I phoned the office on a day that Bob happened to be out of town, but was told it was still available & was quoted a fixed price. I agreed to the price & paid for it with my credit card (which, because I am a regular customer, they have on file). Then, just to be sure, I phoned them back 20 minutes later & gave them an additional credit card (to eliminate any chance of a hold-up due to bank foul-ups). I was told 'Don't worry, it's yours & your credit card already went through & we processed the paperwork. The order will be shipped to you as soon as Bob returns in 1 week.' So, 1 week later, I phoned Bob just to make sure the order got shipped & was told that there had been a mix-up & that Bob, being unaware that I had already purchased the movement, sold (& immediately shipped out) the movement to someone else 2 days after I paid for it. Bob was (understandably) apologetic, even going as far as phoning the other party & asking if they would be willing to return it since they had screwed up & the movement should have gone to me. Of course, not a chance. So that was that. Good question. What is a long Mercedes hand & how does it differ from a Mercedes hand?

The iconic Newmans do instigate the occasional 'Wow, is that what I think it is?' inquiry, but, surprisingly, this VC always attracts the most (unsolicited) compliments & questions from strangers And, in 2nd place, the Mystery is notable as it rarely fails to draw eyeballs & hushed whispers in restaurants

Any rep fitted with 1 or more gen parts is, by definition, a frankenwatch.

Thanks for the detailed lists (for simplicity, I have removed all of the extraneous background info that is not directly relevant to the conversion). Have you actually done this before? I ask because I do not know you or your qualifications. So, if I gather the 17 parts (& screws) listed in the quoted 2nd section (right above this), they can be installed onto a standard 1030 movement & the resulting movement will be functioning 1036 GMT with the same dimensions?

I took the 6542 out for her maiden test flight in a Spitfire

It must be that Dorset water.........

Can you convert a Rolex 1030 calibre into a 1035 GMT (by simply installing the missing date & GMT parts)? If you can, what are the specific parts & steps required to do so? I need a 1035 GMT movement to complete my 6542 project watch (which is currently powered by a modded 2846) However, after a seller's screw-up caused me to lose a once-in-a-lifetime deal on a complete (although partially unassembled) 6542 movement, I am finding that locating another complete 1035 GMT movement will be both difficult & costly (possibly, prohibitively so). Therefore, I would like to know how feasible it is to buy a more common (& reasonably priced) 1030 & add the date & GMT functions to convert it into a 1035 GMT?

My Rose felt cheated, because I took the JlC out to dinner Saturday night

Daytonas are 1 of the most sought after reps, so it is not for lack of popularity that they have not been updated or improved. But I would expect to see some new versions for (or just after) Xmas. There are staking tools (which are part of many staking sets) designed to crimp a tube, which is what you use. You can also use smooth-jawed needle-nose plyers, finger nail clippers (with very dull blades or anything similar that allows you to pinpoint a squeezing action while maintaining good control over operation. This is a very delicate & dangerous procedure & the likelihood of damaging a hand is high. So if you choose to give this a try, I would recommend practicing (until you are competent in your abilities) before attempting to resize gen hands.

I am assuming you are talking about Josh's black dial 11650x. All current Daytonas are now fitted with the 'fat' hands. Unfortunately, I have not seen any reps with fat hands. But if you can find 1, you should be able to transplant them onto whichever rep you are considering. However, the gen hands will probably not fit. At least not all 6 of them & those that do will require a good deal of broaching (hole enlarging) & staking (hole reducing). I was able to fit 4 gen chrono hands to my 116520, but the 'fat' hour & minute hands were too small to fit the A7750's pinions (Gen 'fat' minute hand at left, original 'narrow' rep hand at right)

Since I 1st saw pics of it on TZ, I thought this is the perfect jeans & tshirt watch. And the new (better) pics only confirm that. Thanks for posting By-Tor.

Based on the fuzzy pics (themselves, usually more than sufficient cause to look upon the seller with an extremely jaundiced eye), mismatched hands (hand lume does not match dial lume), questionable story & 0 previous sales (that I could find) of high end (or any) watches, most likely a franken, at best. I would pass based on the available info, or await Dowling's conclusions. On the other hand, I would not be at all surprised to see this auction close before its posted end date.

Tudor today

That sounds correct. So, do you think the crown (& tube) is gen? Still, the relief looks different (check my comparison pics here) & I would also say that the Tudor crown lacks the spring tension (relating to the internal spring inside the crown) that I normally feel with a gen Triplock. It 'springs' like an aftermarket crown.

I could be wrong, but the Triplocks without external tube gaskets were the earlier 24-700 to 24-702 series, which I believe all lack the 3 dots below the coronet Still, the thing that initially raised my suspicions is the shape of the coronet relief. The Tudor's looks slightly narrower with a wider spread at the top & there is less material between the top of the opening at the bottom of the coronet & where the spikes begin. If you look closely & compare to a known gen, the Tudor looks different. But, again, it is the best Triplock copy I have ever seen.

Ah, the old 'How can I spend that much for an ETA-powered watch?' dilemma.......... I think you just have to come to terms with the fact that we (watch collectors) are like hedge fund managers - value is based on perception, not reality. If you concentrate on appearance & ignore the facts, you can spend without guilt.........well, without too much guilt. And the Doxa really IS a nice watch. The case on the left is my trusty old beater

You may want to keep it as is for awhile. I have a feeling we are about to see a resurgence of interest (now that the era of big watches are officially behind us) in gentlemen's pocketwatches. In a couple of years, your new find could be the new 'black', as they say in the fashion biz.

Between the fact that the tube lacks an external gasket (I have not removed the stem yet) & the relief on the face of the crown looks slightly different than the coronet on any of my gen Triplocks, I am pretty sure the crowns are aftermarket parts. But, on the other hand, this is the 1st aftermarket Triplock that almost had me fooled (gen on left, aftermarket on right)

Ok, so just when I became convinced that these dials (with 'SWISS -T <25' at the bottom) were aftermarket, I find this (pics borrowed from a senior & reliable TZ member) The watch described in the Rolex service invoice indicates a 9315/0 bracelet with 380 end links, which are obviously not attached to the watch as it appears in the picture. I emailed the owner for clarification & will update as further info becomes available. So what in the hell are these things?????????????? ______________ UPDATE - I just received word that the 7016/0 in the picture was sent in to Rolex with its original (damaged) bracelet because the owner felt that Rolex may retain the aftermarket strap. So it would appear that the marking below 6 o'clock on our watches may in fact not be a reliable indicator of illegitimacy. I also noticed a difference in the spacing of the lower 4 lines of text between my watch & the gen So, between these 2 discoveries, as well as Justasgood's findings about his watch, I am just not sure what these things are?

Glad to hear your Tudor is functioning well (after the clean up) & while your movement is different (& appears to be newer) than mine............ ...............I would not be too quick to write-off those differences as conclusive evidence of fakery or even as a bad thing. Of course, either is possible when you are dealing with a watch that lacks a reliable provenance. But I believe these Rolex modded 2483 movements were being made up until about 2000 or so & have been used in a number of different Tudors (including some recent models), so I would expect to see some variation in a movement that has been in use for 20+ years. I also think, based on what we have seen so far, that all (or many) of the movements were 'pulls' from other (less popular) Tudor watches. Because of that, I really do not think they are newly made Asian copies. But, as was the case when questions began to arise about potential Asian ETA copies, unless you take the movement apart & compare the individual components to a known gen, you cannot be sure.

Yes, exactly as described by the OP'r.

Just hanging around today (Friday)

Diesel - Congratulations on the project. In case you run into a problem with the new hands, just strip & repaint the existing hands the opposite color. Actually, that is what I would have done anyway since you already know they fit the movement. High - DW is a reliable & honest collector who is known for his premium vintage Daytona case kits & A7750-powered reps (with appropriately asymmetrical pusher layouts). (The dials & cases you see here are DWs, but note that the watches have been modified with numerous gen parts (purchased separately))

click me Unfortunately, the reps I referenced came from sites which have since changed their names and/or URLs. The site referenced in Step 1 is Josh's & the site referenced in Step 2 was idolreplicas.com (idolreplicas used to be known as watch-ebay & continues to change names, but the content (& my caveats about them) remains the same).