panerai153

Beautiful build Sir. looks lovely, and should make a great summer watch. and of course when summer's over and the Aspens begin to turn, you can always find a home for it among us mere mortals!!

Insert looks very nice. The crown guards look pretty short, or the crown is way too long. I would budget a gen crown into the build budget. Also when you get someone to replace the crown, you might think about having them relume the dial /hands to a more creamy color, not so orange. What case is this?

Very interesting story. This shows what a person with skills, determination and a plan (sort of) can accomplish. My hat is off to Paul Gerber, but a lot of credit has to go to Lord Arran, who provided the watch, as well as the financial backing to produce this project. Incredible miniaturization skills to build this watch. While we are greatly amoured with the mass produced Rolexes, IWC's, Omegas as well as the hand built beauties of Breguet, Frank Mueller A Lange ,etc. the real innovations in horology are coming from the small one man workshops that are building a handful of stunning watches a year, and are unconstrained by corporate policy, R&D teams, or marketing analysts who are all telling them what they "need" to build.

Our local airport must have the scanners dialed up to the highest setting, of course they are only handling one or two flights and hour, so the line is never really long. You have to remove everything metal , or it will set the detector off. Belt, change, watch, all go in the basket and through the conveyor for screening.

Like the guys above said use a TC bracelet/SEL's and find a gen 93250 clasp. Even if you buy a 1k gen bracelet, you are still going to have to use the TC SEL's to fit that watch. Save some money and use it for something else like a gen crystal, insert. crown, etc.

You are going up quite a bit in price when you start adding a 1570. The cheapest I've seen them is around 900-1000 USD, and they all need a service. What you probably need to do is find another watchmaker!! There are some guys out there who have great skills repairing, overhauling movements, changing crystals, dials, hands, etc. But this is all with genuine watches and genuine parts, which all FIT. When you get into rep modding and franken building, what you have to remember is what you see isn't always what you get. Parts look like they will fit, but they are a little too big, or a little too small and they just don't work. Some projects are almost impossible to achieve, because the parts just don't match up. If you don't already have the experience, or your watchmaker lacks experience with reps, you are going to make a lot of mistakes by" trial and error" parts sourcing. If someone tells you a particular movement or dial or bezel won't work with a certain case, or model, he probably knows, because he's already tried it and it didn't work!! Possibly the thing for you to do is try to find someone who has experience putting together a nice DJ, let them do the modding work. most of the guys here on the forum that are really good at a particular model or brand, like Rolexaddict with vintage Rolex GMT builds, sneed12 who does great GMTIIC's, jmb with his Explorers, and lots of others have already tried most of the combinations and they know already what will work, and what probably won't. It's very rewarding to look down at your wrist and see a beautifully modded watch, that looks 99% of the gen, keeps as good a time as the gen, but cost 20% or less than the gen. On the other hand it's very frustrating when a project either just won't come together, or suddenly you realize that you are way, way over budget, and that 500.00 USD watch is now over 1000.00 USD and you still aren't finished. Hooking up with a good watchmaker/modder will save you a lot of frustration and probably be less expensive, because you won't end up with a boatload of parts that were tried and didn't work. P.S. Ditch that 93150 bracelet. It's way to big and bulky for a DJ. It's great on a 1680, 5513, etc. but not a DJ. Find a nice rep jubilee (mymanmatt) and put that on your watch when you get it finished. And if you insist on a 1570, there is one for sale right now on the parts sales forum 1570 and an autowind mechanism from a 1560. Looks pretty nice. It would add a pretty good bit to your build but it's real, not Memorex!!

Thought I would post and update to this thread. I received the dial last Friday, which was the 17th of May. the dial was mailed on the 4th of April so 44 days from mailing to arrival at my local PO. Not DW's fault, he mailed it promptly, although I didn't have any luck with communicating in the interim, which is always alarming. What was strange was the package sat in China from April 4th to the 27th before it was dispatched to the USA. "waiting on available airplane space" was on the China Post website. I'm not sure what is happening to mail delivery around the globe? It seems like things are taking longer and longer to get from point A to point B and the cost keeps going up! Items sent Priority Mail to and from the EU that used to take 3-5 days are taking a week to two weeks. Prices are crazy as well. I just put a package in the mail to Ziggy in Canada, Priority Mail, no insurance, total weight 8 ounces. Price was 28.00 USD., and it will probably take a 10 days to two weeks to arrive at his local PO. Maybe the mail services are slower because of the increased risk of terrorist using the mail to ship things that go Boom! Maybe the US Customs service is in slowdown mode because of the sequestration cuts, who knows? It's just frustrating to pay more for less.

Everything freddy has is soooo nice!!

Freddy, I agree, I was a little disappointed in this dial, having never seen a recent photo, I bought this one sort of "Sight unseen" If the build goes well, and I like the watch, I will look for a better dial. Any suggestions as to might have one that is better than the DW and will work with a 7753 movement?

Congratulations to your son for finishing four grueling years of academic study in that hell hole Hawaii What a terrible place to be exiled to for all those years. I'm sure you are a proud Pop, and well you should be. I'm firmly in nanug's camp on this one, all he should be saying now is Dad, thanks a million times over for providing me with a good education. Nice thing is once they are out of College and earning a paycheck, you might not have them off your payroll, but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it probably isn't a locomotive!!

Several months ago, i bought a DW 6238 case set from another nice member here on the forum. Of course if you have a case set, you got to do something, right? So after looking at lots of images of the Pre-Daytona 6238, i decided that the silver dial was what i wanted I emailed DW and asked if he had a dial, which he did. I sent the payment and he sent the dial, and then I waited, and waited, and waited some more. i was pretty sure the dial was lost somewhere between China and my local PO. Well, after about 45 days, the dial showd up at my local PO Friday. In the meantime, I ordered an received an ETA 7753 movement.Tthe member who sold me the case set sent two sets of hands, one black, the other silver. So It's all packed up and heading up to the master. This will probably be my last rep project with Ziggy, nothinig else on the horizon, and he's closing up shop at the end of the year, so sadly this one may be my swan song with him. Hopefully, this one will go together with a minimum of glitches. It seems like every project I've touched lately has been about 2-3X more complicated and expensive than I expected!! Here are a few photos of the parts before packing them up.

you are in the right places. outside of Ebay,Vintage Rolex forum, The Rolex Forum, Maybe TZ and WUS as well, the only other choice is to try to find one from a AD.

My feelings are avatars are so tiny, that unless they are animated with the bouncing boobs girls, or something to that ilk, I don't have a problem. Some of the signature photos are pretty tasty, but not very appropriate for situations where children or wife/girlfriend are around. maybe these should be confined to the lounges. I also agree that posting something like the What "watch is this" video is inappropriate without some warning. All you need to do is post that this is explicitly sexual, or nudity, etc.that kkeps folks from opening up the video with their 5 year old boy looking over their shoulder

Sounds like a ploy to run the prices up!! "get them while you can guys, even at these inflated prices, soon there won't be any more". Create a little mass hysteria, and sit back and watch the profits roll in!!!

I had your email and phone number, but somehow I have lost them. Tried to contact you but you aren't receiving any PM's, so that's out. Have a couple of 6542 questions related to GMT hand and bezel construction. Thanks

Is this the only known legit RCO dial in existance, or are there more out there?

What these and other sales typify to me is the insane amount of money floating around these days, folks buying Manhatten apartmemnts for 88 and now 90 million dollars, cars that sell for several million, The typical mortal just cannot inmagine that amount of money for some "object", but if you are a multi billionaire, this is nothing. Your third "trophy" wife probably spends that on hair, makeup and shoes every year.

your inserts and correct hands make the watch.Great watch. Are you luming the numbers on the insert as well? Too bad they can't get something as elementary as correct hands and insert correct!!!

Pan Am today

That baby looks plenty snazzy!! i agree with Freddy, however there are a ton of good Rolex trained watchmakers with parts accounts around that will service your watch (Sbhould it ever need anything beyond what you can do). I doubt verys seriously that they look at serial numbers, looking for matches like a RSC would. Sometimes i think that RSC's go out of their way to look for any little discrepancy that will allow them to either, 1) Turn your watch down, or 2) Sell you a bunch of parts that will replace other genuine, perfectly OK but non matching parts.

That's where the original ones came from. I've seen them a bunch on the Military Watch Resource. They come with all sorts of Military badges. Marines, Navy, etc. Never saw one in the flesh, They don't look particularly comfortable to me.

Everybody that works on anything should have a set of EZ outs for just this problem!!!

TGIF naaaaa Last Day at the Beach