freddy333

"Rolex cannot make watches fast enough to keep up with the demand. With the average watch taking a year to make and the wait ranging from a couple of months to a couple of years, consumers are turning to the secondhand market. Luxury watch sales are a $75 billion market, with secondhand sales making up 30% of that, according to Boston Consulting Group. It continues to grow as demand, PARTICULARLY AMONG YOUNGER CONSUMERS, picks up." Luxury watch market demand boosted by younger generation of buyers

I think your observation is spot-on & I blame the recent crop of 'clone' movements & reps. Back when AOL was dial-up, any serious collector or watchmaker could easily ID a rep or franken. But, today, as I have discovered myself, it is often VERY difficult for all but a sainted few elder collectors to declare, with any confidence, the authenticity of a gen watch without complete disassembly. & even then..........

As more & more former of the 'Mechanical watches are for old white men!' youngsters began to amass huge mechanical gen collections & the nouveau riche began to convert their fiat investments into tangible assets like high end watches, the big 3 brands quickly became unrealistically pricey &/or unobtainium. Because of this, many of the gen forums have become literal ghost towns. At the same time, for a variety of reasons, there has been a reshuffling of traffic to rep forums, which left sites like ours in the same boat as the empty gen forums. From what I have seen, RWI is probably the most traffic'd rep forum today. At least that is where I 1st discovered the incredible current crop of modern 116xxx Daytonas with cloned 413x movements (see my review/frankening threads for details). Vintagerolexforum still seems to be fairly active, but mostly with regulars since few others can still afford the price of (vintage Rolex) admission.

Auto outlined the less expensive long road. The short (though more expensive) road would be to fit the gen dial to a gen movement & handset, or swap the gen dial for a rep dial. It all depends on your goal, patience level & bank account.

I agree with some of the other comments above. For 1 thing, any competent watchmaker can service these movements. Even better would be a competent watchmaker with a Rolex parts account. That said, due to the current asking prices for vintage Rolex parts (if/when they can be found), sourcing replacements needed to complete the work will be the limiting factor, both in time & cost. Depending on a watchmaker's expertise & work load, some of the worn parts may avail themselves to refurbishment by an expert watchsmith. But this is where you will end up spending some serious cash due to the time/effort required. I would start by googling watchmakers in your area. Unless you live far out in the countryside, you are likely find 1 or 2. Tell them you have a Rolex 1530 that requires service & be prepared to hand-carry the watch into them to examine before they are able to give you any definitive answers. You may find that, after examination, some may refuse to take the watch in for the reasons stated above, but I would be surprised if you are unable to find anyone locally. In that case, there are a number of watchmakers who specialize in vintage Rolex (eg, Bob Ridley) that you can ship the watch to for service. Bottom line - if the watch is important to you, I would open your wallet & just bite the bullet to get it done. Good luck.

Since these Rolex clone movements are supposed to be clones, I am surprised to hear a gen 3135 staff does not fit. Have you considered replacing the entire balance with a gen? I have seen used balances on ebay from reliable sellers for as low as $300 (though most run between $350-$400). As for a replacement, you can probably find them on Alibaba & other Asian shopping sites. Or, you might check with the seller & ask them to source a replacement for you.

There are a number of 36mm DJ cases for sale on ebay. If it were me, that is where I would head. Same for a crystal & any other gen parts. Good luck.

Be careful mixing & matching 7xx series crowns & tubes. I have not dabbled with any of this for many years, so I cannot provide definitive guidance (there are many old threads on the subject like this or like this that you might want to read before proceeding). However, I do recall fitment issues of crowns not fully or properly screwing onto tubes due to varying thread pitches & locations. Therefore, I would recommend that you make sure a given crown properly screws fully-down onto whatever tube you want to use before installing. You will save yourself many headaches & requests for help if you test 1st. Remember also that early 7xx crowns were essentially Twinlocks & later 7xx crowns were Triplocks, which partially accounts for the variations between tubes.

Looking forward to the finished project.

What is your plan for each build?

Unless you are an expert in Rolex case stamping, it is unlikely you or almost anyone viewing your watch in the wild will be able to tell a steel gen case from the average rep. However, if your goal is to be able to fool an expert, I would go with a gen case. Dials are a different story because even the most expensive aftermarket dials still contain errors compared to their gen counterpart. However, as others have indicated, you will pay dearly for a gen dial (& case). But if you have the funds, I would go all gen.

As always, the perfectionist. Another great work, Tribal. I suspect that if Bob were still with us, he would post something like 'It's rubbish, why don't you let me take it off your hands?'

Most likely, due to the economy. I think the layoffs within the tech sector, which the gov't & media have been hiding, are beginning to take a toll -- It's a buyers' market! Luxury dream cars like G-Wagens, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris, are being sold at 'huge discounts' because market is 'decimated' Luxury Home Sales Plummet 38%, The Biggest Decline On Record Driven By Inflation, Recession Fears

Still wearing The Big Kahuna, but in honor of oldtools' Spaceview, I thought I would repost my non-Spaceview 214 (I have the original Bulova Spaceview conversion kit, but, because my watch matches the 1 in the ad, I chose not to install it -- yet) --

Back to the freddy333 Daytona --

Oil pooled on the surface of the backing jewel will migrate below & around the pinion, thus lubricating it.

I always peg-out ALL holes/jewels BEFORE cleaning. Also, I likewise generally polish pinions BEFORE cleaning. That way, the ultrasonic agents have an easier time removing debris since most of it is surface contaminants & not burnished into the metal by friction, as in the case of holes/jewels. I generally do not directly oil the balance staff pinions, since they are lubricated (by the oil within the end stones) once fitted back onto the movement. Keep in mind that if you ask 10 watchmakers their procedures, you are likely to get at least 6 variations back. Over time, most tend to learn what works best for their needs & level of perfectionism.

Looking forward to seeing what CTime & theonewatches has to offer. Based on my experience with CTime's Daytonas, the future should be very interesting.

Moonraker Daytonas

My GMT with JoeyB's NON-lexan insert -- if you look carefully, you may be able to see 2 of the 3 broken segments (at 7 & 10 on the bezel's 24-hour scale). Sometimes, lemons make their own lemonade --

Many mistakenly refer to the original Rolex GMT's bezel material as being Bakelite, which is incorrect. Here is a bit of that forgotten history.