panerai153

+1 to that sir!!

Man, don't do that!! 1680's are a dime a dozen. plenty of good 1680 cases around, The Rose Tudors, especially the old ones like the 7916 are really rare. you can build a great one, use a period correct ETA movement with a Tudor rotor, and if you get a good dial/hands/crown/insert, you can wear it anywhere. there are tons of 1680 "experts", but very few people are really familiar with old Tudors. i promise you, you could hand it to any Rolex AD in the USA with almost no chance of being called out. BTW, Freddy that was a great thread. I just read it. Would be interesting to see where all of the old "Girard" Tudors are now?

Great thread. it would be interesting to see where those old Rose subs are now. Really hard to find a nice gen, or a really nice rep. Prices on VRF have gone through the roof since this thread started in 2008. Probably could have bought a good used 7916 or 7928 for around 1k-1.5k. Not anymore!! I have a 7916 in my collection, got it from justasgood, it's nice, but the dial isn't as nice. The dial is marked T SWISS T, but the rose is pretty funky. leaves are too short and the petals are not correct. looks more like a Chrysanthemum!!

Pretty apparent the law as it stands today is really a joke. one thing that I have been told is that the watch must be assembled in Switzerland to qualify for the "Swiss Made" designation. So basically, a small watch company could have everything made in China, send it to Switzerland where a contract assembler cases up the ETA movement and you have a Swiss made watch. As it stands today, folks who are not in the know, pay a premium for a watch that in fact is entirely Chinese except for the movement, or even parts of the movement, thinking that they are buying a watch that is 100% Swiss. It would not surprise me in the least if brands like Omega, Rolex, Tag, etc. are buying their cases, bracelets, and possibly dials and hands from factories in Asia. Even if they own the factories, they are still not made in Switzerland!! I'm sure this is one of the reasons the smaller manufacturers are so upset about Swatch Groups decision to stop supplying ETA movements. If they are forced to put Asian movements in their watches, it will be impossible to qualify as "Swiss Made"

Here we go

you are right, everything else is fairly vintage, including the lughole 16610, the ceramic is really the only current generation Rolex in the herd.

I have never been a big Cellini fan, always felt like they were sort of Rolex's "junior" line, which isn't reflected in the prices. AFA the size, I believe the Wrist "alarm clock" craze is winding down. Although Rolex is making 41-42mm watches, they didn't fall for the "supersize" 46-48mm case sizes. Personally, I feel like most brands will settle somewhere between 40 and 44mm, probably trending more toward 40mm in size. First off, unless you are a really big person, and I mean a guy that's 6'2 ot taller and has pretty big wrists, the 46-48mm watches are just too big. If the lug ends hang out over your wrist, the watch is not going to look right and it's not going to wear comfortably, as it will always be trying to turn over on your wrist. Second, theys big bulky watches don't fit well under long sleeve shirts.While smaller watches may not look good to you now, as overall sizes shrink, they will become more and more mainstream.

I have been a Rolex lover for lots and lots of years. I got my first, and Airking in 1965 and that was the start of my Rolex addiction. Interestingly, I had quite a few genuine Rolexes until about 15 years ago. For some reason, I decided that there were so many fake Rolex watches around, everyone wearing one was suspect. I sold mine and my first non Rolex was a Breitling Chronomat. After that I had several IWC's, Maurice LaCroix's,Oris's a couple of Ulysse Nardins, but nary a Rolex. I also took a hiatus from Scuba during those years, so I really didn't have any need for a dive watch.This Rolexless phase lasted about 5-6 years, can't exactly remember when, but I do remember I found the old TRC website, and got active there.I was pretty impressed by the quality of some of the modded Rolex reps that were showing up on the site. I was hooked!! I bought a couple of MBW Subs and SD's, tried various modders, got taken to the cleaners by the infamous "redbigjoe"who screwed up a nice MBW SD and thankfully found The Zigmeister who was able to undo the mistakes and built my first real "Modded Rep. Well, fast forward to today, I now have 10 Rolex/ Tudors of which 3 are genuine. You can never say never, but I believe I'm done, at least for a while. I've got far too many watches to wear, and don't really need or want any more. I have examples of pretty much every Rolex I like. Nothing contemporary really "floats my boat" That may change, but for now my Rolex collection is complete. Here are a few photos of and old codgers collection. Can you tell which are the gens? There are 3 in there. The Collection The GMT's The Tudors The Subs/SD Odd Man Out

You can never tell, I might get another one at some point. Right now, I am thinking my Rolex/Tudor collection is pretty complete. I have 10 of which 3 are genuine. I pretty much have one of each model that really strikes my fancy. So for the time being, I'm done. i have a couple of things to get done to one or two, and then I an good. I do like datejusts however, and I completely agree with you that they are probably the quinessential "Occasion" watch. College Graduation, Wedding gift from the bride to the groom,etc. They are also the favorite of organizations/businesses to give as Awards. look at the genuine "Dominos Pizza, Cotton Bowl, various and sundry other companies,which gave these as 25 year awards, retirement awards.etc.

Great monologue. For a lot of folks the Datejust is their introductory watches to Rolex.my first was and Airking, but couldn't abide the lack of a date function. I only kept it a few months and traded it for a all S/S Datejust. I wore that watch through thicck and thin for several years, and finally after about 4-5 years, I traded it for my first sub. That was my first and only Datejust. I agree they are great watches, obviously shown by their great popularity over the years.

Still working!!!!

Thanks, Matt lives up in Dallas, i believe that over the years, he has built a bunch of these as well as DJ's. Heck, you live in Houston, you know Texas is the Rolex capital of the world!! I don't know about now, but back in the 80's when the oil business was booming (Before the crash in the mid 80's) You weren't an oilman unless you had a Rolex "President" and a pair of Alligator boots!!

Working today as well. Call weekend

It's too bad they could not solve the problems of that movement,that would be a great movement to build a "correct" GMTIIC or a 16710. You can build a pretty close rep of both of thoes, but in most cases, the ICHS is a sure tell to anyone who is familiar with the genuine models. Maybe with the 3135 clones coming out, someone will build a reliable GMT version of the movement.

I believe that a valid argument can be made for both sides of Gen vs Rep. In the above posts a lot of very valid points are made, on both sides of the fence. Personally, I have about about a two to one ratio of gens to rep. Aside from a couple, my reps are all pretty much modded to the hilt, or close to it. A fair number of my reps are watches I can no longer afford to own as a genuine. For the most part i have owned the gen counterpart at one time or another in my life, but as retirement rapidly approaches, i just don't feel like I can spend thousands of dollars on a genuine watch (I'm talking about a gen 6542 or 1665 for instance) Reps give me a chance to own and wear some of the old vintage watches that I wore 30-40 years ago. AFA collect-ability, gen watches such as Rolex win hands down. As Freddy said, back in the 60,s Daytona were around 200.00 USD, Red subs were even less! I bought my first sub in about 68-69 and it was around 250.00 USD, SD's were about the same price. Fast forward to around 1980. I bought a 18038 18k Day-Date with the President bracelet for 4000 USD, that was a lot of money in 1980. The watch was retailing for around 8000 USD, however a local jeweler was stuck with several Day-Dates she ordered for a local oil man who only took half of his order . She wanted to move the rest and she sold them at half price, probably about her cost, but she needed the cash, and I wanted the watch. That watch used today in good shape still sells for around 8000+ USD, so essentially you could have worn it for 33 years and sold it for the same price it retailed for. This is not necessarily so about other brands. Many genuine watches especially the more obscure, less well known brands don't appreciate at all, and in fact some depreciate quite a bit. The biggest advantage for gens is the availability of sources to sell watches. If you have a gen for sale, you have a myriad of outlets. WUS, TZ, Ebay, etc. almost every brand forum has a sales corner. This is not so with reps. You have the 3-4 rep sites, period. Another thing I have found over the years, people have a certain amount of resistance to paying top dollar for modded reps. Quite a lot of folks will sort of fixate on the price of the base watch, say a MBW, which sold new for 400.00 USD. in the case of a DRSD, you can easily add another 3k to that initial price, but try to sell it at 3.4k. Lots of posts, but not many buyers. Since you don't have many places to sell, you are handicapped from the beginning. I really care about my reps, but I realize the limitations of reps, both in getting them accurate and the ability to sell on on if it needs to go. For this reason, I've purposely tried to keep my rep collection limited to Rolex/Tudor models, with the knowledge that I'll never get my money out of them like i can with my gens.

Does yours have and independently settable hour hand or a GMT hand? Doesn't the gen GMTIIC have a settable hour hand, like the 16710's?

Glad that we are back to the "old ways". hopefully it will cut out some of the silliness that was going on. If someone wants to sell a watch or two, they need to step up to the plate and get a membership!

I know a lot of folks like to store photos in photobucket, and I use it some as well, however when I add photos to my post, i never use photobucket any more. I just click "on more reply options" at the botom right corner of this page, go down to the lower left and click on "chose files" select the photos I want (you can add multiple photos at one time by holding down the Ctrl key and right clicking on the images, then click Open and they are downloaded at the bottom of your page. Easy peasy. One thing i like about this system, is the photos are veiwable by folks that have web content blocking software, like Barracuda", at work. I cannot see any images from photobucket at work, as photobucket is blocked. I believe , and I may be wrong, but if you use the file download here, if your work computer allows RWG, you can see the photos.

After a couple of weeks wait, I got the watch yesterday. Gold DayDate 18038 w/champagne dial.

Freddy, If the GMt hand is independently adjustable, that would be the same movement or module as the old watches,right? My GMT IIc has an ETA 2836 and it's got and independently adjustable GMT hand. If they come up with a Correct hand stack and a sdjustable hour hand, that woulr really be a killer!!!

PM mymanmatt, he has a source for Rolex aftermarket stuff.

No matter which one you buy, the so called "Swiss" ETA or the Asian version, accuracy and longivity will be greatly enhanced by a good service. most are drt and dirty!

A little Gold Today

There were a few seized in the USA a few years ago, Some of the dealers were "hiding" the watches inside toys and animals. Have you heard of X-rays, perchance? About this time, Rolex USA was raising holy hell with the feds, especially the US customs, as reps were flooding in, mostly cheap reps that were being sold on the street, at flea markets, etc. I haven't heard of one being seized in the USA in a while though.

I disagree. I wouyld not contact them unless they contact you specifically. You aren't going to get the watch back. Also your address is probably now flagged in their computer so when you order another one(s) i would try to get it shipped to another address and name. Also make a copy of the letter that you received from Detain-UK and when you contact Andrew to tell him that your watch has been seized, also send him a copy of the Detain-UK letter. Most of the dealers will reship a watch, but they require proof of seizure before re shipping. As Ssteel said, there have been a lot of threads on this subject in the past few years, read some of them and you will be better informed.