RobbieG

Wow. You are going the whole way then. Cool. How much you figure you will have into it all told when done? I wonder what you ended up saving by not getting the gen all in in percentage terms from a typical street price of $2500 or so for the gen. Certainly less than half for sure. And yet when you are done it will be every bit as nice as the gen for sure.

You having Rob do the lume? Did you double AR the crystal as well? Assuming so, the UPO is basically as good as the gen IMO. And for me, rubber is the only way to wear the 45.5MM really - unless you are a very large guy. That watch wears SO much bigger on the steel than it does on the rubber for some reason. Likewise, my 42MM wears smaller on the rubber and larger on the steel and very noticably so I might add.

One can only hope. The UPO is a great watch that just needs lume and AR to be more than adequate. The 42MM is truly an entirely differenty beast than the 45.5MM version. It is far more versatile IMO. So much so for me that I bought a gen 42MM instead os the UPO for just that reason. I'm sure there must be many more here who simply won't buy the UPO just because of the bulk issue and would flock to the 42MM if there were an amazing version of it. The 45.5MM version is fine on rubber as in CR, but on a bracelet it is a bit much and sort of comes off as a clunky design. It is obvious to me that Omega started with the 42MM design and simply made it larger for the 45.5MM. That is one thing that has always peaved me about gen manufactories and I would like to make this point and see how many agree. They many times just take original designs and blow them up without thought to whether it works or not. Bigger is not always better. I have nothing against large or even huge watches as long as they were designed from the ground up to be the intended size. The Rolex DDII is another example of this. Sure, the watch is fine and 41MM will attract buyers, but it is really just a DD with a larger case and as such, the watch comes off as being a little clunky and I dare say novel. I would much rather see Rolex desing a new dress watch to be 41MM or don't do it at all. The watch has just lost all its elegance. Anyone else agree - not about any particular watch (like the DDII or PO) or whether you like it or not, but rather what is your take on this phenomenon in the industry as a whole?

I know it must be slow around here when I have posted two of these in a row without someone beating me to it. Anyway, I'll be wearing my PO on the new rubber strap I scored for it all weekend. Let's see some watches guys!

I finally scored a rubber strap for my PO. I really love the watch to begin with and this added versatility just bumps up the love even more. The straps are also very comfortable which in my experience is not always the case with rubber. It has such a defined shape that you can even wear it loose like a bracelet, which is especially cool. Enjoy the candy...

Hey Fakey, nice to see ya. The watch on the right is my Ulysse Nardin Maxi arine Diver (42.7MM) with the rhodium (sometimes called grey) dial. Sorry, that pic is kind of too angular to see the whole dial. Here it is posing for the press...

Yeah, I have to say - and I have had (and still do have) some nice watches in my day, but the UN Diver is just the nicest all around sports watch I have personally ever encountered. The build quality is just other worldly and surpasses all others in that respect IMO. Design wise that is a matter of preference, but for me I think UN does the marine theme better than anyone but of course that is subjective. But I can honestly say that the build quality actually surpasses the gen VC Overseas and my AP Millenary (which I recently sold) and that is really saying something. Just running your hands across the bracelet will have you in awe. As another example, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the IWC bracelets like on my AT and it is amazing and wears great, but fit and finish between the two watches is no contest. The MMD makes the AT look and feel like a department store watch in comparison. Sorry to IWC and that isn't really a true knock as obviously I love my IWC or I wouldn't own it. But I can't impress enough that is really how nice the UN sports watches are. Just blinding in terms of fit and finish...

Agreed, although you could also approach it the other way and truly build a "new" replica to pay homage to the vintage piece and then sort of go out of your way to tell others about it as a project to build a new old stock version of something old. But you are right, if the idea is to recreate a vintage piece as if it were truly an old gen, the detail in the aging is critical. In any event, I am most interested in doing a project that will accept gen parts as I think some of those (as in the modern Subs) are a vast improvement in my eyes - such as gen crystals and inserts fro example - although I'm not sure what is available for vintage pieces and if the cost is prohibitive or not. I think I should probably start by picking Tribal's brain if he will let me...

Thank you. Yes, there is a nice UN rep coming - probably by years end, but it not this watch from what I hear. My confidence is high that it will be a nice so called 1:1 level piece.

Thanks Stephane. I will probably PM you for some suggestions and a point or two in the right direction if that is OK...

I've got to build up a vintage Rollie. After years of thinking about it I will now pull the trigger. A vintage white sub or SD will be my next rep. These things are just so cool...

Love that new Pepsi shot BT - and that Ebel is really starting to grow on me. Kind of like a reverse Panda-ish thing of sorts with the bezel contrast...

I'm taking the day off tomorrow for the first time in a hundred years, so I thought I would celebrate by starting my very first wristcheck thread. Hopefully my fellow friends from the old guard that usually post it won't mind. MMD for Friday... and AT for Saturday - my favorite casual sports watch of all time. Light as a feather and the matte Ti dresses down so nicely...

Just stopping buy to say a quick hello to all. I haven't been around in a while as I have been extremely busy. No new watches at the moment and nothing new to report other than I just turned 41 and I feel like I'm older than Godzilla these days. Probably too much work and not enough play. The cure for that is usually a suite at The Hotel in LV with the girl for a weekend and a trip to an AD - or two or three, so maybe that is in order. Anyway, I hope all is well with the crew here and in closing here is a little oldie-but-goodie eye candy of a couple of my favorite hunks of steel. Yin and Yang as it were...

Slow here in Florida too. I know Freddy is also on the East Coast. Maybe a problem with some route point somewhere?

As another side note, although not very notcieable in person, isn't it funny how obvious flashed pics show the relative whiteness and softer sheen of the 904 steel on the gen. Every side by side pic always jumps out at me, but then when I compare my gen Rolexes to my reps over the years it is almost un-detectable in person...

I had the same problem - must be security settings. Just right click his links and select Open In New Window and that should do the trick as it did for me.

For me, the datewheels and cyclops were always the easiest way to spot gens/reps from across a room almost. I can still do that with this watch, but it used to be that the terrible white crystal rings were a second, easy way (which I share with Bytor, as that is a pet peave tell for him too!). But with this new bezel/crystal/case construction that is gone. This is a great watch. After tightening up the CG's a bit it is as close to perfect as ANY rep ever needs to be. That said, I never understood why the Chinese can't start nailing some dead perfect datewheels & cyclops'. Rolex DW's are, well, perfect. For me that is the only reason why the cyclops system is even fadeable at all - because at magnification the symmetry of the numerals and uniform boldness is so nice. This watch also needs its own cyclops. The gen-like contruction has a certain distance to the dial and I wish they would design a cyclops and datewheel together for a specific watch, like they are forced to do with other brands. In other words, it is obvious that many Rolex reps just use the same cyclops between watches with no regard to the small differences in rehaut thickness, etc. between the models. So the result is that the mag is too much or too little or the font is too thin or too bold - or both. Now that they have solved the horrible sqaure datewindow issue, this is the last step to put that area of the watch to rest. So join with me in the vote for the makers to start doing "ultimate" datewheels and watch specific cyclops'. They are doing them with the other brands, so why not Rolex? I know it is nitpicky, but there is not much else to pick on for these watches. That would make it as great as it good be. I really can't see improving much else... P.S: To the OP, did I mention NICE watch? Anyway, the first order of business if nothing else is to mill that bezel channel and get that insert recessed nicely! That is a nice and cheap way to improve the look of the watch in a major way.

On another note, my best bud is not into reps but has one of the foremost gen collections I have ever seen (probably in the world I would think but I wouldn't know). Anyway, over $1M worth and over 100 pieces now. It is just silly to me though and I tell him so all the time. He has a huge walk in closet in his master bedroom with a "watch island" in the middle which is a giant built in with a flat top and drawers on both sides custom made with individual watch pillows for the manuals and a Scatola 64 in the other room for the autos. Impressive but silly. He doesn't even know what he has. I mean we go watch shopping and he will find a piece and say, "Wow, I really like this" and I will say, "Dude, you have the same watch with a different dial..." He just loses track. He just has so much f'n money he has no idea what to do with it. I wouldn't mind having that problem but I wouldn't do that that is for sure. Makes no sense to me. Meanwhile, he always wears the same few pieces and they are not what you would expect from a collector like him. I see him with his Tag Carerra on rubber as much as anything - or a TT Cartier Roadster - yuk. But then he has these sicko pieces from de Bethune and Corum Golden Bridges in all three metals and collector edition Vacheron's and Dewitt Academias and AP RO chronos in several dial combos, etc. and they have literally never been on his wrist since taking them home from the AD a year ago. I just don't get it... Not that there is anything wrong with "collecting" but I think to be meaningful it just has to have some limits or at least some kind of theme...

Wearer. Definitely a wearer which is why my collection keeps shrinking. I was up over thirty and now under ten - and that may shrink too.

Hmmm.....are you sure the dealer didn't mix the pics up? It really is impossible. If two PO's use the same movement, Asian or ETA, the larger of the two will have a date wheel closer to the center of the dial. The 45.5MM simply has more "case" added to the outside of the movement circumference and a larger spacer in the case. Just keep in mind, the movement doesn't move off the center, so a smaller dial will have an edge closer to the DW and a larger dial will have an edge further away from the DW. Here is my gen 42MM (the pic with the lume) and a known rep 45MM along with another pic that shows the movement holder/spacer on a 45.5MM rep for comparision. As you can see on a 42MM watch the spacer will be narrower therefore bringing the whole movement (and thus the datewheel) closer to the edge of the case. If the dealer says that pic you posted is the 42MM I think he is mistaken...

Keep in mind guys that the gen 42MM and 45.5MM PO's use the same ETA 2892 base plate. The datewheel position is determined by the movement, not the watch case. So since the 45.5MM is a wider case, the datewheel is going to be closer to the center of the watch on both the reps and the gen. The 2824 used in the reps has the same diameter as the 2892, although it is considerably thicker. Agreed it is a bit further left on the rep, but again, so is the gen to a slightly lesser degree and of course the rep uses a different movement than the gen was designed around. Back to the same question we keep asking which is why don't the factories use the Seagull 2892 sometimes...

But how can that be? Everyone knows it is RobbieG who is the one TRUTH. Follow me as your one God and I will set you free my children. Drink from my tubular grail and... Oh, and not ever discussing Cuba is basically a law in South Florida...

Is this the incorrect hand stack movement in which the GMT hand is adjusted by rotating the crown counterclockwise on the date setting or the correct hand stack version? Probably the former as I don't think the CHS classic GMT watches are still around. If the former check the rotor and hand clearance as BT suggests and if the latter it is probably ready for the scrap heap.

Oh yes...so accurate from what I can tell from pics and reading. Like I said, just because I couldn't justify the gen at that price doesn't mean it isn't an amazing watch for a few hundred. Yours growing on you yet BT?