Nanuq

Knocks

Keeper, you'll stay within the rules because they're the damn rules. Not because you happen to think the admin is a gentleman. He is, but that doesn't mean he's to be taken lightly.

Time to go back in the safe.

Giving the old timer some rare wrist time this Easter.

2 hours ago, Bears Bob said:

Whoa whoa whoa!!!!

Slow down Bro, let's see what they are offering first. Then we can talk shop.

Shirley, would we ever disappoint?      Here's my favorite.....

Hey guys welcome to our corner of the Internet. Scotch and Cigars night is every 4th Tuesday but we gotta find the key to the liquor cabinet, one of the Mods "misplaced it". Yeah right, the level in the MacAllen is dropping like a brick.

Stick around, you won't believe the depth of knowledge here, or the gen pieces lots of guys here have. We're all about watches, not just reps.

Lanikai

Mon dieu quelle tragédie. C'est déchirant.

I've been playing the heck out of Guitar Freakout this week. Great stuff!

Pink Panther

Stockings   

Smite

Oregon

I messaged the Boss, we'll look into it. Thanks for the alert!

1 hour ago, jimcon11 said:

Not to go too far off topic, but what is this? Explorer? this watch has no crown 

 

That, sir, is the rarest of all Rolex, a chimera of sorts.  Let's see who's first to figure out what it is!

RWG is such a fine place for gentlemen to hang out, it seems like good things always happen here.  

Watching James Bond movies, you see him with his 6538 and when the bad guys jump in the ocean he leaps in after them without a thought to the watch he's wearing.  Contemporary VRF denizens would shriek in horror at the thought of a precious 6538 getting wet, much less flying into the ocean.  This is remarkable to me, because the big crowns were produced as an upgrade to the small crowns, with increased water resistance.  Read the dial... it says "SUBMARINER" not "DESKMARINER". 

These were made to be worn in the water, down to horrific depths like 330 feet and beyond and were expected to keep time and not leak.  They were tools to make a diver's work safer.  Now, because of their scarcity, we treat them as My Precious and polish and coddle them.

I can't think of the last time I polished and coddled my tools in the garage.  Their purpose is to keep my Land Rovers running.  When my micrometer torque wrench screws up, guess what?  I'll buy another.  It makes me a safer mechanic.  When I was a commercial diver my tools made me a safer diver.  Strip away the mystique and that's all these watches are.

There's a certain thrill to taking a Big Crown out into the ocean, and USING IT like it was intended.  It's in its natural environment and we can taste the reality of what the nostalgia promises.  Down at moderate depths, there's nothing quite like looking at a Big Crown on your wrist doing its job.  Throwing caution to the wind, scoffing at the fears of weaker men, and just enjoying the beastie in its natural environment.  Like it's supposed to be there.

And if it floods?  If you're running an ETA, no harm done.  Fix it and go diving again.  If you're running a 1030 or 15xx?  Welcome to misery.  IMHO life is too short for misery.

If I was to do that I'd get a good Phong case and have Dbane work it over. Then a Dark Lord dial and ETA movement, maybe a 2783. Gen hands and gen everything else. That would be a good looking workhorse I could wear every day for the rest of my life.

1 hour ago, Mendota Explorer said:

From what Automatico has shared, now the genuine 15xx movements are in that same category as the 1030 movements were 10 years ago.

Exactly right.  I used to wear my 6536 every day, it went everywhere and did everything for decades.  Then on its last service with Ziggy he sent me traces from his timing machine and some scary photos.  Then he said he was able to clean up the autowind gears and they work fine, but they're nearly used up.  And there are no more available.

That settled it, and I put it away.  I still wear it on special occasions, and I miss it.  So now the Big Gonzo wears the mantle.

It's funny, I just had this conversation yesterday with someone else.  I've got several gens with 1030 movements and I never wear them anymore.  Parts are too hard to find.  But that look is inescapable.

So I built the Big Gonzo 6538 to replace the 6536 that rests now in the safe.  I wanted something with the same strong vintage vibe, perhaps slightly different than the Small Crown, and something I can go swimming with.  These are, after all, tool watches.

So I went nuts on expensive parts, and put a low-beat ETA movement inside.  It's robust, parts are readily available, and if I flood it in the briny deep, who cares?  The Big Gonzo is a tool watch too.

Griffith

Myself

Goggles

I am older than my vintage Rolex watches

I got lucky, my favorite vintage was "born" the same month and year as me. Then 56 years old, then 51 years, then 47 years. Oops there's also one 98 years old, and the one sitting in a box in Seattle, 68 years old. Sure wish I could get my hands on that one again.

Dragging this topic back on topic, I'd have to say the ARF SD43 Anniversary Sea Dweller is the nicest out-of-the-box rep I've seen in a loooooong time. If it wasn't against forum rules, I wouldn't hesitate to wear mine into a Rolex dealer. It's that good.