freddy333

I have purchased 2 of the Milano Oyster-style stainless steel bracelets from Watch Prince. These are very good quality (much better fit and finish than the bracelet that comes with most reps) but you will need to swap the Rolex clasp assembly from the rep bracelet with the blank clasp that comes on the Milano bracelet. The easiest way to do this is to remove the next to last link in each bracelet and then swap over the clasps with the links in place. The bracelet links are close enough so that they should match. The only serious problem with the Milano (and most other after-market bracelets -- if you are concerned with having a watch containing all the correct model numbers) is that they will not have the correct Rolex model numbers stamped on the end links (the curved metal ends that connect the bracelet to the watch case). Also, some of the Milano bracelets come with end pieces that fit the gen Rolex springbars, which are wider (2mm diameter) than the rep springbars (which are usually a smaller 1.5mm diameter), while some do not. Some people have been able to mod the rep end links (those that have the correct model numbers stamped on them) to fit the larger (2mm diameter) Rolex springbars, but I have never been able to widen or cut the loops that the springbars fit through without damaging the end piece.

Someone just asked me what the difference is between the two crowns in Ubi's pic, so I thought I would try to clarify this a bit more. It may be difficult to see, but the diameter of the shaft that runs up from the inside of each crown is slightly different (the shaft in the gen crown (on left) is a bit wider). Anyone who has ever tried to fit a gen Triplock crown onto a rep crown tube (the tube that comes fitted in a Rolex rep watch) knows that the inner shaft of the gen crown will not fit into the hole in the rep crown tube. And this is one of the reasons that modders need to replace the crown tube when fitting a gen crown to a rep watch. You can also very clearly see the difference in definition (sharpness) of the gen crown's 'teeth' compared to the rep's almost rounded edges (great photo, Ubi). A gen Triplock in new or mint condition can sometimes be almost painful to wind for any length of time. Also, the short, smaller diameter shaft that fits into the end of the shaft is spring-loaded (this is what gives the crown its springy resistance when you press and screw it into the case). The spring is a bit more robust in gen crowns.

That makes sense, Randy. The Daytonas I was referring to in my original post are the current 1165xx models, not the out of production 165xx versions, which would have had the earlier Triplock.

The Triplocks originally fitted to Subs and Sea Dwellers appear to be slightly different from those Rolex installs on recent Daytonas. As you can see in the pics of Daytona Triplocks (in my original post), the 3 dots appear to 'float' about half way between the bottom of the coronet and the edge of the crown face. But the dots on the Triplocks intended for Subs and Sea Dwellers are located closer to the coronet and spaced further apart from each other. Here is a scan from page 325 of 'The Best of Time: Rolex Wristwatches' (2nd Edition) by Dowling & Hess describing some of the differences Based on the information in the book and more online research, I selected this same version of the Triplock for my WM DRSD If you compare this crown with the Daytona crown from my original post, I think you will see the difference. Although this version of the Triplock with the closer (and wider spaced) dots is what Rolex fitted at the factory, I have seen many gens with the Daytona style Triplock. So I think Rolex may be fitting either version during servicing, depending on what they have in stock at the time. I want to add to what Ubi said about the profile of the gen Triplock being shorter. This is actually quite an important point because when the watch is viewed from the front, which is the way most watches are photographed, you can always tell a rep watch from a gen by the width of its Triplock crown (the rep crowns are too wide). Once you can spot the difference, the width of the crown becomes one of the first things you notice about a watch and this makes it easy to spot a rep (and harder to verify a gen if you are looking at a good rep with a gen Triplock).

I came across a few pics I took of one of my Daytona 1165xx's that show the difference between the rep Triplock crown that these (and many other Rolex rep) watches come with and the genuine Triplock crown (and tube, which you cannot see) I installed in its place. I thought others might be curious to see how both compare to the Triplock crown as fitted to the Daytona 116509 on Rolex.com. Hopefully this little review-let will be useful to anyone that may be wondering if a crown swap is worth the time, effort and expense (it is). What you cannot see from the pics is that the teeth on the gen crown are much sharper and more clearly defined than on the rep crown. So not only does the gen crown look more defined, but it feels more substantial between your thumb and finger when you turn it. And since the threads on the gen or (Swiss-made) after market crown tubes are also more substantial, the crown feels much smoother when you twist it and the threads should last alot longer too.

Yes, I would not do your testing on anything that you cannot bear to lose or replace. The Bergeon Luminous Paste has the added benefit that it comes as a paste, you only need to thin it a bit with water (or food color or paint, if you want to add some patina). It is alot easier than mixing the other stuff, but either should be fine for testing purposes.

I have not purchased any new crowns (only used), but that seems overpriced to me. As a gauge, last year I bought 10 Triplock crowns from a single seller on the 'bay for $120. Condition good to mint. It turned out that I received a mixture of different versions of the Triplocks (the location of the three dots below the coronet varies). I did a bit of crown research just before I replaced the crowns on my rep Daytona 1165xx's and found that the dots on the Triplock crowns used on most of the current Daytona 1165xx series are a bit further away from the coronet than they are on the Triplock crowns used on modern Subs. It is hard to explain, but if you look at the crown side of the Daytona 116509 on the Rolex website or at a local Rolex store, you will see what I am talking about. Anyway, 3 of the crowns I got turned out to be this type so that is what I used on the Daytonas. I have not checked recently, but there are usually alot of Triplock crowns, both new and used, for sale on the 'bay.

I would be interested in hearing your results with MicroMask masking. I do not know which watch you are testing with, but if it is a vintage model, the Bergeon Luminous Paste that Ofrei sells produces the most realistic looking glow for a vintage watch (with waning Tritium).

Beautiful watch, and the hand looks correct. All of my Rolex books show the watch with a silver hand with white tip. I agree with Ubi about the crown and crown tube. The gen parts are more defined and have a smoother and more solid feel when used. The threads inside the crown and on the case tube are also much stronger and should last alot longer than the rep parts. You should be able to pick up a good Triplock crown for $20-$30 and a new Swiss-made aftermarket case tube pack for about the same on the 'bay. Most watch parts houses (Ofrei, Cas-Ker, Jules Borel, etc.) also sell the case tubes (but not the crowns), if you want another option.

You could be right, but a knowledgeable inspection of the movement photo would help.

And look at the depth of the subdials and serifs on the '3' on this thing I have never seen this level of accuracy on any other non-put-it-together-yourself PN rep! And all for $300???!!! This could be the old bait-and-switch rep scam of using gen photos to sell rubbish. But I do not know. I would love to know what Ubi, the undisputed Daytona mod king, thinks about these. EDIT -- After more careful study of a few more of the PN's on the page, I have concluded the following -- 1. The movements may be bi-compax since in all of the photos (several) the hour subdial is always 'fixed' at 12. Now this could be because the chrono was just started (or has not yet run long enough to engage the chrono's hour clock) or it could be because the movement does not have a functional third subdial. Around the middle of the main index page, there is a red & black PN. About half way down the page for that model, there is a photo of the movement. I am viewing this on a laptop, so it is hard to see the details and I cannot tell which chrono movement this is (I do not see any text or branding but the movement does appear to have a small bit of decoration on the balance [censored] and an adjacent bridge, so I do not think it is a cheap Asian clone) I tried to PM Ziggy, but he apparently has his messages disabled. But, Rob, if you happen to read this, please have a look and let us know your opinion. 2. The cases appear to be the same (thicker) case like the one used for Joshua's manual PN's. Still not sure about the pusher positions. All of the watches on that site that have the correct dial, appear (in the photos) to have asymmetrical pushers. But there are also a bunch of watches on the main page that look like cheap junk. So it is hard to tell.

Here is another one and it also looks like it has asymmetrical pushers and no other blaring mistakes. Damn if these do not look like DWs But $300??????? HighDef -- How did you figure that price and can you translate the rest of the page?

HighDef -- Now that looks more like it. When I posted my previous response to Diesel I did not realize there was more than one version of the same watch on that page. The second version: has a different (and VERY accurate) dial and it does look like it could have asymmetrical pushers. But it could also be the angle of the photo. If they are asymmetric, in fact, even if they are not, it might be a good buy just for the dial and case. But I would rather get a page translation before plunking down any money. I tried running the page through google's beta Japanese to English translation, but it did not work. EDIT -- Difficult to tell from the photos, but that watch may even have the proper sized lug holes! So now I am very curious to find out details on these. This is not quite the PN I was looking for (I want the non-Oyster with black face/white subdials and non-screw button pushers), but if these do have asymmetric pushers and working chronos, then for $300 and that much accuracy, my check is virtually in the mail.

Diesel -- My Japanese? I have enough trouble with English (my native tongue). I assume you are concerned with the PNs (as am I). I do not see anything special there that is not available from dealers here (and for fewer yen). Since I do not read Japanese and the site does not have an obvious English page, it is hard to tell what type of movement those PNs have. But they look like they are from the same factory that Joshua gets his RLDV10001 (Venus/Lemania manual bi-compax movement PN watches from) from. These (and Joshua's) PN's are very good except for that slightly oblonged lower subdial that 'bleeds' into the dial surround (I wish I could figure out how to paint that spot without smudging the paint and killing the dial -- it is such a TINY spot, but it makes an otherwise excellent dial fairly easy to spot as a fake (if you know anything about the gen PNs). And of course these (and Joshua's) manual PN's do not have the asymmetrical pusher arrangement of the DWs and gens.

A few observations -- I have not followed the entire 'Cartel' thread (life is too short to beat dead horses after they have been beaten into glue), but both sides have their good points. Overall, however, I think TTK's very brief post earlier in this thread got it right. In addition, I think that if you do not like the tone of a thread, drop it and either start something more positive (a review or mod tutorial would be more useful I think) or re-read some of Ziggy's wonderfully instructive articles. After more than 20 years of collecting rep watches, I think I have seen it all. Crooked dealers who demanded all payment by Western Union or cash and then delivered either nothing or a watch that had little if anything to do with the descriptions and photos they provided. Honest dealers who sold crummy reps and vice versa. The 'Grade 1 Swiss' dealers that sold regular reps with $1,000 or more price tags and photos stolen from other rep dealers. You name it and I have probably seen it over the years. I was there (in the mid 80's) when the first wave of reps started hitting the market with solid crowns (it was quite an improvement not to have the coronet glued on to a generic crown), reliable Swiss (ETA) movements that could actually be serviced with off the shelf parts, and real stainless steel cases decorated with real gold plating (as opposed to gold paint over cheap pig metal). And now, for the first time, we are seeing reps (like some of the modern stainless steel 7750 Daytona models) that are so good -- visually and functionally -- that I have to make not one but three or more trips to a Rolex dealer to even begin to spot the inaccuracies. And, even then, the differences are so minute that the rep would fool all but the most knowledgeable watch hobbyist or watchmaker. And what is even more amazing is that the price some dealers here are charging for these remarkable Daytonas is the same as what I paid for the best reps available 20 years ago, and those things were laughable by today's standards of accuracy and function. So I do not understand how anyone can complain about reps being "so expensive"? I do not understand the basis for this complaint. And when you take into account the degree of customer service from dealers like TTK (who recently agreed to manage a group purchase of MBWs), Andrew and Joshua, well, I can only say that I wish some of the gen watch makers like Rolex treated (reasonable) customers half as well. Of course, when a dealer is drop-shipping products and the factories change the specs on them, mistakes (which may be seen by less knowledgeable newbies as purposeful rip-offs) can and do occur. But my experience has been that most of the dealers here are willing to check out the customer's claim and will usually try to do whatever they can to make the customer happy if he finds out that the watches being shipped do differ from his descriptions of them. At least that has been my experience with most dealers here. But, like anyone else, a dealer may be alot less willing to work with a customer who takes an aggressive stance from the beginning. It is just common sense. If you receive a defective or incorrect watch from a dealer, let the dealer know what the problem is (include a good, but brief explanation of the problem or difference (and a couple of moderately sized photos showing the difference or problem always help parse any possible language barriers) and then give the dealer a chance to provide a resolution. Return shipping charges, of course, are always an area of contention (personally, I feel that if a watch is defective or wrong upon delivery, the dealer should cover all return costs, but that is just me) and different dealers handle this differently. But I still think that most of the reps being sold here are priced reasonably, so I am willing to spend an extra $20 or so on an *occasional* return. It just goes with the territory of buying and selling contraband goods. I think that only when the dealer fails or refuses to make good on the deal, should a buyer make the problem public here. That just seems like common sense and simple decency to me. Mao was right when he said (I am paraphrasing), 'You can catch alot more flies with honey than you can with a flyswatter.' EDIT: I should mention (based on quick DNS checks I have done of dealers' domain names) that multiple dealers' websites may actually be operated by the same person or group. I will not mention names (since I have received consistently good service from them), but this might account for the apparent 'cartel' practices.

export -- Sorry to hear about your bad luck. You did not indicate which dealer you got the watches from, but, with a few select exceptions, reps are not made to the same quality standards that the major brands are. So you have to choose between a Seiko or Swatch for quality and longer life or a rep for status and ? life. Also keep in mind that mechanical watches require regular servicing every several years. I can say that I have collected dozens of reps over the past 20 or more years and have only had a few problems, and most of these were fixed or replaced by the dealer and without experiencing further problems. With the above in mind, you should check out the Dealer section here and try either Josh or Andrew. Both are good dealers and tend to stand behind the watches they sell.

Is the added thickness of the 7750 due to the addition of the self-winding rotor? If so, it is easy to remove and since the gen watch was manual anyway, that would be a good mod. I think most of the problems reported with the 7750 relate to the modified version, the one that has several additional gears tacked on to it to replicate the seconds at 6 function of the current Daytonas. The unmodified seconds at 9 movements (I have two watches with these movements) seem to be fairly reliable, at least in the time they have been available. But there is no question that the Venus/Lemania movement is made better. The trouble is that the 7750 is a tri-compax and the Venus/Lemania is bi-compax. So if you are limited to these two, you have to choose between a more accurate manual-wind movement that has better feel and a longer lifespan but also has a non-functional lower subdial, or an auto-wind movement of lower quality that has a questionable lifespan but offers a fully functional chronograph. Since most people rarely use the chronograph (and those that do probably will not keep it running long enough to engage the hour counter), I think it makes more sense to choose the better quality movement that is manual and has a lower profile like the gen movement.

The lower subdial on the genuine tri-compax (a movement with 3 working subdials) Daytona of that vintage was a 12 hour counter (the hand counts each passing hour while the chronograph (stopwatch) is running). Some of the better movements used in the rep versions of this watch are bi-compax types (they only have two working subdials -- one at 3 and the other at 9), the lower subdial (at 6) is either non-existent or works as a second hour hand so that it and the main hour hand always point to the same thing whether the chrono is in use or not. Since, when the chrono is in the OFF position, the lower subdial on the genuine Daytona always points to the 12, having the subdial hand (on some of these reps) pointing at something else is a clear indicator of a rep or fake. Although you cannot make a bi-compax chrono movement work like a tri-compax movement, there are various methods to 'freeze' the lower subdial hand so it at least looks like the gen in the OFF position (pointing to the twelve). If you look at some genuine vintage Daytonas, you will see that the large 'second hand' on the main dial and the subdials at 3 & 6 always point to the 12 when the chrono function is not in use (this is the OFF position for the chronograph). The idea is to make the rep watch with the bi-compax chrono movement look the same.

I think they sell a mixture of both Venus and Asian 7750 based watches, but the ones I am talking about are the pre-Daytona models that come with the Asian 7750 movement like this: http://www.ttwristwatch.com/index.php?main...c98e59d264cf070 The case is 37mm with 19mm lugs. If you view the watch from the crown & pushers side, you will see that the case (excepting that it lacks the asymmetrical pusher layout and comes with the wrong bezel for the PN) looks correct for PNs and similar early Daytona. I am basing this on the photos in the new Italian Daytona book. Unfortunately, Andrew's watch does not have the asymmetrical pushers, which is why I was thinking of it as the next best option (if the same DW model cannot be sourced and the correct black plastic-coated PN Daytona bezel can be swapped from another rep watch). It is a nice watch as it is (it comes with the Asian 7750), but I really prefer the manual Venus movement, which feels and sounds much nicer. The question I am asking is whether, assuming a similar DW cannot be found, you think the Venus would fit into this case? [EDIT -- If it helps, my venus is currently installed in a 39mm case with 20mm lugs and it has one of those plastic spacer rings around it.] It just occured to me that another option would be to remove the rotor on the Asian 7750 movement this watch comes with (to disable the auto-wind feature and make it function more similar to the gen manual-wind PN Daytona), swap the dial & bezel for the correct PN Daytona parts -- either gen or good quality rep-- and (with the exception of the non-asymmetrical pushers) you have a very accurate PN Daytona with fully working chrono in a proper sized case. OR -- With all the drilling and filing going on here, I wonder if we could take one of the datejust cases that are the same size as these pre-Daytona cases and drill our own asymmetrical pusher holes. Ofrei sells very similar pushers for just a few dollars (I have used Ofrei's pushers to replace the original pushers that came in my existing PN Daytona case). I do not know what you and others have been paying for the DW cases, but if this could be done, it might be a nice (and cheaper) alternative?

Did your DWs with MM come with the dummy 12 hour subdial or did you have to 'freeze' it yourself? I am just thinking out loud here, but with the exception of their not having the asymmetrical pusher layout, the pre-Daytona chronos from Andrew and Joshua seem to be the correct case size (19mm lugs, etc) for the PN and 6263 style of Daytonas. Does that sound right to you? As a backup plan, in case the DW Paul Newman is no longer available with MM or equivalent movement, I wonder if these cases from Andrew or Joshua would fit the Venus/Lemania movement that I and others love so much? I know the pusher placement would still be incorrect (a serious flaw in my opinion), but with a good dial, I think if fitted with a Venus/Lemania movement it might be a good working alternative. These non-Oyster watch cases look like they have reasonably close (in appearance) crowns and pushers. Do you have any experience with these watches and retrofitting them with Venus/Lemania movements?

Randy -- It sounds like the DW V72 is what I need. But I may have missed a point somewhere along the way in my earlier research about the mm movements in DWs. Are these movements bi-compax or tri-compax? I was under the impression (mistaken maybe) that the DWs with mystery movements looked and operated just like the gen pre-Zenith Daytonas. Did I get that wrong?

dieselpower -- Nice watch. You are right about the dial font. Definitely a weak point. And I am not positive, but I think the subdials may be a bit small and off center as well. But I love the correctly placed asymmetrical pushers. That is what I am looking for (but with non-screw button pushers and non-Oyster case).

Randy -- Am I correct in assuming that the EE (with the 7750) would be a taller case than the gen watch due to the size of the 7750, and the DW with mystery movement would be more accurate (accuracy to the gen size, function and appearance is my goal).

Thanks, Randy. Do you have a preference between the two -- DW and EE -- and why? I am looking specifically for a black dial non-Oyster PN with button pushers. I have a really nice Venus/Lemania (whichever) based rep, which is very good except that the lower subdial cuts into the white outer bank of the dial so there is no black border between the bottom of the sub dial and the black portion of the dial, and the case is too thick (it is probably the same case used for WM & MBW Sea Dwellers) and does not have asymmetrical pushers. If one of these DW or EE models (with asymmetrical pushers and correct dials, etc) are still available, I would be very interested. I just thought of something -- The pre-Daytona Rolex chronos sold by Josh and Andrew and some others have thinner cases and 19mm lug spacing. With the exception of asymmetrical pushers, these cases are probably pretty close to correct for the PN Daytona. Have you (or anyone else) tried to fit a Venus/Lemania movement into those cases?

Eun or Ubi -- Are those EEs or DW Paul Newmans still available?