panerai153

I guess it would depend entirely on the packaging of the movements. I would guess Sellita has the same bulk deals that ETA has. The movements are shipped in trays with say 20,50 or 100 movements. They are packed in a clean room environment and sealed. The big problem is what happens to them once they are unsealed at the rep factory? It wouldn't take long if they were left out open in a dirty, dusty environment to get pretty dirty,and as most folks who deal with movements know, it doesn't take but a few grains of dust or other foreign material to mess up a movement. So,to service or not is a question that only you the watch owner can answer. If it comes with a brand new Swiss movement, is running fine accuracy is spot on, probably OK, but who knows if a grain of sand in a strategic location is slowly destroying a part of the movement. That will only be known if the movement starts to do strange things. Service now and have the peace of mind that you know everything is good, or take a chance and possibly add parts replacement to the service later?

welcome to the manic world of Rolex.Not surprising, they are probably the most popular and recognized watches in the world.

here is a link to one of squinky's EBay auctions Tropical Strap http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-rubber-20mm-Tropic-band-type-perforated-2-keepers-/130581232143?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e673f7a0f

There is a seller name squinky(I believe) that posts on Ebay as well as WUS. He has tropic bands.

No, what you guys have figured out is the way to push the right buttons!! Women have an innate inborn way of telling if you have spent time and effort on something, rather than stopping at Walmart on Christmas Eve and getting her new kitchenware or some cheap jewelry that she would never wear. I am constantly amazed by the stories I hear from the gals I work with in Surgery,Recovery,etc. They always ask me what I'm giving my wife for Christmas,Birthday,Anniversary.So many of them never get even a card for their Anniversary, dinky little bull shit gifts for birthdays, Christmas. I suppose the guys are always wondering why they aren't getting any!!! I realize that I make a lot more than some of these families combined incomes, but a nice night out, a good bottle of wine, and a well thought out gift are the ways to a girls heart, and other parts of her anatomy as well!! The problem is most of these guys spend way more on rifles,shotguns, trucks And hunting leases than they would ever dream of spending on their wives.

Do you mean 2824? Like the others said, the best bet is to buy the parts retail.You might also try a local watchmaker who may have what you want in stock, or can buy the parts for you. Otherwise Ofrei in the USA or CousinsUK in the EU are your best bet.

First off,where are you located? Good guys on both sides of the pond.

the guy to talk to about this is sneed12. He is the king of the GMT IIc builds. He knows which case will take a genuine bezel assembly ( all of them won't!!) AFA gen parts, they are pretty scarce and expensive,but if you can find the right case,CHS movement, a gen bezel assembly w/ insert, dial and crystal, you will have one heck of a GMT.

Here' mine 1680 The black spot over the SU in Submariner is just a smudge I didn't notice when I took the photo MBW case Gen 127 "top hat" crystal Gen crown Gen dial Gen Insert Gen Tritium pearl Gen clasp

You are correct, also the genuine Rolex DW's have the number sequence opposite of the ETA as the genuine DW moves in the opposite direction from the ETA. This applies to the older Rolex movements.ETA rotates clockwise, Rolex rotates counter clockwise

Would you service a new sealed ETA if you were putting it in a watch? I'm pretty sure the Swiss ETA's the rep makers use are bulk movements that are not protected from dirt,dust,hair ,etc. so they should be treated just like the clones AFA a service. I totally agree, if it' a keeper, you should invest in a service.

First off, what does your GF like? You should be perceptive enough to pick up on what she really likes, and if you aren't talk to one of her best GF's, women talk a lot!!!!! Her GF will know what she really,really would like. have her GF give you a few ideas, but don't be too specific aboutone thing, she'll let the cat out the bag sure as heck!!! Some girls like jewelry, others are just OK with jewelry. My wife is a jewelry person, and nice things are always appreciated, but I learned long ago, to let her sort of pick out a few things, that way you don't end up buying something she will never use. Don't listen to some of these chuckleheads here, their only meaningful relationships are with their watches!!! LOL Just in jest guys

Just another day at the beach!!!

well done, never have to worry about getting called out with this one!!

Must be Tags, Cameron Diaz is one of their celebrity spokespersons.

I'm afraid that as long as there is a monopoly on these "almost" gen spec cases, we are going to have to pay their prices. Either that or invest a lot of money in tools to make the others look and work right. I don't have but a couple of these Gen spec aftermarket cases, and both needed modding, but by and large outside of the MBW cases for SD's and Subs, most of the other cases are pretty problematic, at least the ones on my other modded reps.

mighty nice,thanks for the photos!

i remember a while back a noob member here posted photos of his very nice franken Explorer on TRF. About 10 posts of "beautiful watch,great watch,",yada,yada, finally someone who probably really knew something questioned the watch, and then the wolves all closed in for the kill!!! Point is at least 10 members on that forum don't know their ass from first base, but that didn't stop them from proving their ignorance by posting. By and large, I find the folks on TRF to be lacking in knowledge. Most of them own a couple of gen Rolex watches, and the extent if their knowledge is what they read about modern watches on that forum. We have to be observant, because those of us that are really interested in making a watch as close to the original as possible, have to know the things to look for, gen owners don't. Their gen 16610 looks exactly like the other million plus that were produced within that particular serial run.

I tend to agree, the problem is, sometimes we get these "rogue" members who hang around for a while, and then they scam a bunch of folks and disappear. Looking at the problem from the other side, it's sometimes the dealer who isn't doing their job, and especially not communicating with the buyer, and I'm not talking about the "nuisance" buyer that sends and email every 6 hours ,for days, but the buyer that sends one or two over the course of several weeks and gets no response. I certainly don' think that was the case with Mary and this buyer, but we have had quite a few cases where dealers didn't hold up their end of the bargain either. I have a personal incident that happened to me recently. I ordered a Pre Daytona dial from DW. It was sent onApril 4th according to the tracking number he sent. A couple of weeks back I emailed him that the dial hadn't arrived and I still wasn't getting anything with USPS tracking, and would he please check with his PO to see what was going on. I never got any response from him at all. I still don't have the dial, at least not by last Sunday when we left for vacation. Hopefully, I'll get the dial, end if I don't possibly he will send another one. I'm not about to open a PayPal dispute over a 150.00 USD dial, but I can just about guarantee that there are a bunch of noobs on the forum that would have, just based on the dealer not having the common courtesy to sit down for a couple of minutes and send the buyer an email, saying that he would check on the package.

Hump Day at the beach

I second ssteel's post. Stay away from these scam sites. They have the best prices, because you are going to get a piece of junk! Stick to the dealers on this and the other rep sites like repgeek or RWI, you will stand a thousand percent better chance of getting what you paid for.

That's a good one!! I would try to track that one down if I were you.

@johnbob, please do not quote long photo heavy posts. This clutters up threads and wastes bandwith. Thanks