panerai153

Sounds like she's looking at the Lady Datejust, they come in SS,SS/Gold and solid gold. If she is going to use this as her daily wearer, then I would stick to all SS, as sooner or later the gold is going to start to wear thin. Having said that, a lot of nice genuine mid range watches come on a SS/Gold bracelet with plated gold. My wife has a gen Tag Aquaracer SS/Gold, and the bracelet is gold plated. If you are looking for a nice one, I would contact mymanmatt. Matt has been working on Rolex watches genuine and replica for many years. He can build you a mid size SS or SS/Gold, use a genuine dial, bezel, crown and crystal, and I promise you can't tell it from a genuine unless you take the back off. It will also come with a nice serviced ETA movement as well, for years of trouble free use. Having said all this, I wouldn't get and older woman a replica watch unless she was familiar with your hobby and was comfortable with one. It would be pretty devastating if she were to show her new watch off to some of her friends, and find out that it wasn't a genuine. God forbid another woman in her circle of friends has a genuine Rolex and they compare watches and your mother's fails the test. If she's cool with it, then that's perfectly OK, but I would ask her how she feels about replica watches before you spend any money on one.

That's pretty hard, how old is your mother? I wouldn't think that she would like one of the new modern 40-42mm models I would look for a Lady Datejust, possibly a mid size one that's around 34mm. Check with the dealers here, I'm sure you can find one. If it has a decent mechanical movement, the second sweep will be the same as the genuine.

Very nice, you are a card carrying member of the Big Crown Club!!

My old 1680 for today Today

good choice. that's a pretty good amount of money to invest in a watch. Best to know if it's one that you really, really like, and a good quality rep is the way to test the water. Good luck!!

I have to say, I'm a sucker for pens!! I've collected pens for as long as I have collected watches. Mostly vintage pens, as I believe that the golden age of fountain pens was the early years of the 20th Century when everyone wrote with fountain pens. When I started school, we wrote with either a #2 pencil or a fountain pen. Most of you guys probably have never written with a pen that you have to fill by sucking ink out of a bottle! I would guess that most folks back in the era of pens lived with ink stained hands and ink spots on their shirts where the pens leaked!! Of course today we have evolved to better easier to use, less complicated pens like the ball point and roller ball. in my work, I cannot use a fountain pen, as all of our records are either 2 or 3 part, and a ball point or rollerball makes better copies. So my fountain pens are mostly in display cases and a few that I use in my office to sign papers and checks. But this story isn't about me and my pens, but another long time member, Mikellum. Mike makes beautiful, collectible pens, but they are also user friendly and robust enough that you could certainly use them as your everyday pen. I read about Mike and his health problems on a thread here a few days ago, and immediately went to his Ebay store. WOW!! I was amazed at the quality and beauty of his pens. Since the watch dial pens are still in the conceptual stage, I decided to buy one for my wife, who is also a pen lover. I decided to purchase the "Pansy" pen which is made from real Pansies inside the resin barrel. I ordered the pen, and yesterday it arrived. I have to say it's even better than the photos depicted. Beautiful, well balanced and a rollerball refill that is easily found at your local Staples ,Office Depot, and online. this is important, because I have bought rollerballs that contained refills that were unmarked and very difficult to source. Another thing I found very handy about this pen is it's threaded on both ends, so the cap screws on the top of the barrel when you are using the pen. This solves a dilemma that often occurs with better rollerball pens, "what to do with the cap"? Often the cap doesn't fit very securely on the top and you end up having to put the on your desk while you write. Problem solved with this pen. I would urge each and every member here to go to the website or eBay. Mike's eBay name is penzrus, and it's easily found. Please take a look and if you like something, contact Mike and he can get it to you. If you purchase it from him directly, there is a further discount, plus he saves the eBay fees. Another thing, Mike is trying to put together pens using watch dials, so if you have any old unused dials lying around, send them to Mike and help a fellow member out. Enough talk, here are a few photos of the "Pansy" pen I purchased for my wife. Thanks for looking.

That is a beautiful trio. You set the bar pretty darn high with your collection.

I bought the Pansies pen for my wife, got it today. Guys, I have to say it far exceeded my expectations!! If you like pens, you need to add one of these to your collection.

Go over to the Rolex Forum, search 116610 Delete the Ln. There are pages of them for sale. From what I see, that price(yours) is too high, as there are good reputable sellers selling used random serial number models for around 6700-6800 USD. and many of these guys will wheel and deal, so if you offered them a hundred dollars less, they might take it. There are lots of these watches for sale, Rolex is churning out thousands of them, so to answer your question, they are not a good investment. They will probably hold their value pretty well, but if you wear it and it gets to be several years old, I doubt that you are going to get to within 500-1000 USD of you purchase price, so if you buy one for 6800 USD today and wear it for 3-4 years and sell it, probably going to be looking at around 6300 - 6500 USD depending on condition. But it will sell for the same price if you paid 7200.00 USD for it, so in that case you are taking a thousand dollar hit as opposed to 300-400 USD if you buy it right Don't buy watches for and investment, buy them to wear and enjoy. If you are lucky enough to own one that does appreciate, that's just gravy, as most don't. Rolex is somewhat unique as there are not many grey market or non AD sellers out there, but look at other brands like Omega, Tag, Breitling, etc. They are discounted like crazy and pity the poor guy who pays full price from and AD! Six months down the line he tries to sell his mint condition Omega, only to find out that you can buy one from a non AD seller brand new for less than he wants. If he had done his research, he would have seen the same watch he owns selling for 35% off, online!! Last Christmas, I bought my wife a Tag Aquaracer midsize with a MOP dial with diamond indices and a diamond bezel for 1700.00 USD it was a watch that had been a display model, came with all the boxes, papers and a full warranty, had a few swirlies on the clasp that polished right off. We priced the exact same watch at and AD in Florida a few months before and it was 3500.00 USD plus 8% tax!! You got to do your homework before you buy. Don't jump at the first deal out there, especially with current contemporary watches that are out there by the thousands.

Thanks Freddy, your seal of approval means a lot And apologies to you big B, not trying to steal your thread.

You are absolutely correct. that's the reason my 1680 never progressed to the gen movement category. if you add another 1000-1200 USD for the movement and then find out it needs a 250-500 USD service, you are into some serious cash pretty quick. It's really easy with genuine vintage Rolex prices in the Stratosphere, to end up with a 3500.00 USD franken 1680. Add up a phong case, gen bezel/insert, dial, movement, hands, crown/tube bracelet and endlinks and see what you come up with. I guarantee you are going to be in striking distance of a genuine 1680. As alligoat said as well, you will probably never get your money out of one of these frankens. Best chance is a teardown and sell all the genuine parts on genuine watch forums. The market for high dollar frankens is pretty rarified. there are tons of folks who would LIKE to have your watch, darn few that can/will shell out the cash to buy it.

Old 7924, new Big Dazza dial!

FedEx will send you a bill, and after that is exhausted, probably try some sort of collection process. For sure the next time you receive a FedEx package, they will hold it and you will have to go to the FedEx location and pay the back charges before they release the package. They are sort of hit or miss over here in the USA, sometimes they charge the duty, sometimes not. Over the years I have ordered perhaps 6 new watches from Switzerland. I believe they charged customs on 2 or 3 and the others slip through. When you send a watch back to Omega in Bienne, for restoration or repair, they make you fill out a customs form that declares that the watch is used, and is for repair and return, they use that to keep from having to pay incoming duty to Switzerland, but also put that form in the package to keep the owner from paying on return.

Thanks sir, that's the old Tudor we talked about a while back, I got Matt to build it for me, but I never liked the dial, it had probably had too many coats of lacquer and attempts at aging. I got this one from your buddy Big Dazza, and I really like it. Matt had to cut it down some as it was 29mm. Preserved the gilt chapter ring, but unfortunately the "Swiss" didn't survive the cut!! Can't really tell unless you look at it closely in direct bright light. Yours is really, really looking good. You just can't beat Gilt!!

I agree, if you are going to do a really good 1680 build, I would spring for the phong case, a gen or gen spec dial and the 1575 movement. Now you really have something!! I have a old MBW cased 1680 with a gen dial and a 2846 movement. First problem, the old MBW cases were 5513 cases which used a smaller dial, the cases are even marked 5513, plus the "polex design", so when you try to use a gen dial the dial either has to be cut, or the dial shelf below the rehaut has to be opened up a little. Either way, you are going to have less dial showing which decreases the realism, although it would never be visible to anyone except a Rolex expert here, and old school Rolex watchmaker, and a few WIS on other forums. The second problem is the ETA (2846) Date Window is positioned slightly different from a gen dial, so if you use a 2846 movement and a gen dial, you need to use a DW overlay. The biggest problem with the overlays is getting all the numbers to appear centered in the Date window. I had a heck of a time with mine, and we finally got them pretty well centered, but some of the numbers in the 20's are a tiny bit left justified, again no big problem, but if you are as anal as most of us are it will always be noticeable to you. If you use a genuine dial and a 1575 movement, you will not have any of those problems, provided you use a gen spec 1680 case. Don't get me wrong, there have been some outstanding 1680 builds on the forum over the years, mainly using the old MBW case, ETA 2846 movements and gen or gen spec dials. Crowns/tubes, Inserts, Bezels and crystals. It's just that getting it built and done correctly takes way more than just putting the parts together like you would if it was a genuine 1680 that was disassembled. The watch of Freddy's is a 1665 SD, which is a different case, I have one very similar to Freddy's, both of ours have gen movements DW's and gen spec dials.Once you get the movement fitted in the case, everything else fits up pretty nicely, mainly because it's all Rolex and it's made to fit together perfectly. Problems come in when you start to change out parts,such as dials, DW's movements, etc. that were not designed for that particular watch. just because it looks like it's going to fit, doesn't mean it will. Tolerances in watch builds are very tight, and it doesn't take much to make something not fit. Here is mine. as you can see the dial is bigger than the opening, as the minute markers extend under the edge of the rehaut. It's not very noticeable, but I know it's there. Unfortunately, that was the only way to get a gen dial in the MBW case. too bad we can't shrink dials to fit!!!

That's a beauty sir !! It's lowly little brother says hello

It's pretty addictive. Sometimes it wanes for a while, you might get involved in other hobbies, kids sports, etc, but it's sort of like a cancer, it's always lurking right below the surface and one day when you least expect it WAM!!! It's back in full force consuming you and your every moment. Mine is seasonal, like allergies, it lessens in the summer, because I spend a huge amount of time outdoors and stay pretty busy, between work and keeping up the "plantation" as my wife calls it, but come late fall and winter, less to do outside, days are shorter and it's back with a vengeance.

those are beautiful!! I had and old Speedy Pro several years ago, hardly ever wore it, I believe that if It had the Panda dial, it would still be here.

probably want to take a real close look at the threads on the caseback before you put it back together, make sure it doesn't have any burrs or a boogered up thread section where someone may have started it cross threaded. Once the movement is out, I suppose you could play around with it and get it smoothed up before reassembling it. glad you got it off, and the movement wasn't hurt in the process.

No, only a couple are, but who knows what happens when your EBay store has something that is prohibited, it may block everything? The EBay store works fine here in the USA,. Maybe you can try to sign in or look at the EBay USA site, find the pen you want and buy it directly from Mike, that helps him out, as he doesn't have to pay the EBay charges.

My old Tudor Big Crown with a new Big Dazza dial

The problem is those are all countries are signees of CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora The pen that is creating the problem unfortunately is the Alligator Bone pen. Back a few years ago, the Alligator was placed on the endangered species list, then threatened, now off the list, but in other countries, the alligator is still endangered, thus countries that have signed on to CITES prohibit the trade in Alligator skins, and any part of alligators. That's the reason you cannot ship Alligator skin watch bands to some countries.

All the old Rovers used Lucas electrical components didn't call Lucas " the Prince of Darkness" for nothing!! AFA Jaguar, I always was a sucker for the old XK's and the E type. Never owned one though. A friend of mine went into the Jaguar dealership in New Orleans about 25 years ago, a pretty well off Cotton Farmer with a real desire to own a Jag. He walked into the dealership and was looking around, pretty soon a salesman showed up and asked if he could be of help. My friend said he was interested in a Jaguar. But, he said, I have a question? " why do all the cars in the showroom have a paper mat under the car"? Well, the salesman answered, it's to catch the oil leaks. All Jaguars leak oil, it's just something owners have to put up with. My friend decided at that point that maybe he needed to look elsewhere, as he could imagine the hell he would catch from his wife if their were oil stains on their nice new garage floor. He ended up buying a BMW.

It really is, although I don't .like that color!!

Unless you have a pot load of money, and are fairly close to a dealer, I would stick with the Porsche. Beautiful car, and as was said, doesn't look like a Batmobile. I gave up on non US cars several years ago. I've owned three BMW's a Mercedes,Porsche and three Range Rovers. My problem is the closest dealers are almost 100 miles away. No matter how good they are ( and the first two RR's were not!!) they all require service. I got tired of driving to the dealer sitting all day, only to be told my vehicle wouldn't be ready by closing time, drive home in a rental or dealer loaner, drive back the next day or the day after, pick up my vehicle and drive home. Two wasted days and 200 extra miles. Now my wife drives a Lincoln SUV and I drive a Ford F-150!!. She,s lusting after a new vehicle though, and her two favorites are the Mercedes GL 450 and the BMW X-3 or X-5, so I may be back in the same situation as before!