panerai153

I had a very bad experience with RBJ as well. He completely screwed up a 1665.Thankfully,The Zigmeister was able to fix all the problems and I ended up with a pretty nice watch. Not long after that RBJ disappeared from TRC.I wonder if he is still alive, what with all of his ailments tthat he constantly used as and excuse for not getting watches done.

Amazing stories, and you know how I feel about 1665's. i'm wearing mine, and i'm sure all the other watches in my watchbox are pretty angry, the old 1665 is getting all the wristtime now!! As far as wearing it every day, that's what they were made for. These are all "using" tool watches. they don't like to be left alone in the dark inside a safe!! I would bet that most of the 1665's were purchased by divers and or very active outdoor types that were looking for a rugged watch that would hold up to any type of abuse (short of some of nanug's watch stress tests!). I would love to have one of the Tudor Big Crowns, I think they are lovely watches.

Very nice!! What movements are you using in the 16710,1675 and Explorer?

Take a look over on the Vintage Rolex market. they sell lots of vintage dials and Tudors come up for sale at times. Might want to post a "want to buy" over htere, but do NOT mention the word reps, or you will be out on your head!!

Great watch, nothing like old steel.I've been wearing my 1665 for about 3 weeks now, only take it off to shower and sleep.I LOVE old Rolexes :throb:

If your movement is indeed a 2846, i can just about guarantee it's D&D (Dry and dirty) These are old movements, haven't been made in over 20 years, so even if yours happened to be a New old stock, ( old but never used),it's still going to be dry. all of the oil has lost it's properties, and is probably more like hard grease. Get it serviced and you should be in good shape for a few more years.

Thats a very nice example of the early Tudor Sub. dial/hands looks nice, the insert is good, It sort of looks like the dial plots were redone at some time, several are "outside the lines". this is certanly not a pristine watch, but it would sure be nice as an everyday "beater". Can't tell much else from the photos. No idea what it will sell for, These were bringing around 1400-1700 USD a few years back, but wouldn't be a bit surprised if they were twice that now.

I think that is a wise decision, although, I can't say that I have done the same.Although the only two reps that cost me more than that to put together are my 1665 DRSD and my 6542. I have about 3400.00 USD in my 1665 and around 1500.00 USD in my 6542, but at my age, I 'm pretty set on those as definite keepers. I'm down to only 3 reps now but I have a fair number of gens, so my watch wants are pretty well satisfied.I believe that my swan song for modding will be replacing the MBW case on my 1680 with one of higho's. it has just about everything else I want in a vintage sub, but I don't like the fact that the case won't accept a genuine dial.

FedEx does it's own customs clearing, that is crucial to them to have real overnight and second day delivery to overseas destinations. i have gotten new genuine watches from Switzerland and customs duty is pretty hit or miss. I have bought several Doxas, and i was charged around 50.00 USd for one and nothing for the other two. i have no idea how it works going the other way, but from what I've heard on the genuine forums, they charge customs duty on just about every package. The second thing that you might consider is what the valuation is. You may get a Rolex submariner rep and get customs charges based on the value of a genuine Rolex!! I use FedEx and UPS for packages quite frequently here in the USA, because quite frankly, I like the idea of accurate and up to date tracking, which the USPS sadly lacks. For international packages, I usually stick to USPS because they are cheaper, and the paperwork is much simpler. I can fill out a USPS Customs Declaration in about 10 minutes, the last time I tried to do the UPS forms to Camada, it took me and hour to download, fill out and print all the different forms.

That to me was the golden age of chronos. There were some outstandingly beautiful watches back then. I believe what makes them so nice is their simplicity. The dials aren't cluttered, easy to read, and beautiful. I can't think of a contemporary chrono that comes close to those old models.

On this black dial, are the hour markers and hands gilt, or is that just light reflection that's making them look gold? Will the blue dial be the same except for color? Thanks, great project. I'm in for a Blue. Nice Christmas present to myself.

That's my take on it. Here in Mississippi, as in most states, the mail goes through one of several sorting facilities. Some of it is absurd, because I can mail a letter to a business here in town, the letter goes to Jackson MS, then back here. takes 2-4 days to go a quarter mile!!! One of the main purposes of the sorting facilities if I understand the concept corectly is to "Accumulate" batches of mail to send on to other destinations. So if you sent a watch to Miami Florida from Houston TX, it would go from your local post office to your main post office to a sort facility, there the mail is sorted, if yours was a Priority mail package it would be bundled with other packages going to Miami,trucked to the closest airport facility, put on a plane and delivered to Miami. If it's a registered or first class, it would go by truck from the sort facility to the destination facility in the destination city then to a post office for delivery.

I believe that everyone who is into "Super frankens" goes through all of those phases. I was really big into reps starting about 2004, on TRC and the first RWG, I slowly sold all my reps and only had gens for a few years. I also got away from Rolex except for a couple of my favorite genuines (16750 and 16610). I was sort of fed up with modding after a couple of bad experiences with guys who were supposed to be rreally good, but weren't (They are long gone so don't worry). At any rate, over time, I started collecting some reps, however they still are only about 20% of my total watches. What I found was I could only wear one watch at a time, and most of mine were spending their entire life in my safe. The ones that weren't getting any wrist time I moved on. Others I kept. Another thing i decided was I would rather have just a few really good reps, well modded and believable, rather than a drawer full of stuff that wasn't anything special. So from my point of view, it's perfectly natural to want to trade up from basic reps to modded reps to Frankens to superfrankens to genuine.And for many of us, the process will reverse ae well. One thing that i will say, and I have said this ad naseum, building superfrankens is OK, but you have to be really careful to make sure you don't end up with a watch that is almost as expensive as the genuine. unfortunately, that is pretty easy to do especially withRolex models like the 1680 and 16610. you start out witha rep case, Silex,MBW, Yuki,phong,etc. and the next thing you know, you have a genuine dial,hands bezel,insert, crown/tube and movement. maybe you picked up the parts over a period of time and you really haven't kept account of the cost, or you just say Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead, ad go out and buy all the parts at once. big problem here is if/when you decide to sell the watch, you realize that you have 3+k in a rep watch. You could have bought the genuine version for 1K more! Now the second problem, try to sell that 3k watch on the rep forums. Even though the watch is 90% genuine, it's still a rep, so all the other sales venues like Ebay, WUS,TZ, etc. are closed to you. What I'm afraid is the hard truth is the interest pool for expensive frankens is really ,really small. You will get plenty of "WOW, beautiful watch, wish I had the funds, and GLWS's" but very few "Hi I just PM'ed you with intent to purchase"

Not sure which Lange model you are looking for, but I did own a rep of the Lange flyback Datograph. Here is a review and photos. http://www.rwg.cc/to...k-short-review/ I have since sold the watch, but it is a very nice rep, although it is not 100% (What rep is!!), It is pretty close, and this is a rep of a watch that is a very limited seller, so you are unlikely to run into another one at your local pub.

I like them as well. No love for the modern ones, In my opinion they are pretty much "Department store" watches now. the old Heuer were something else though. i would NEVER cannabalize one of these to make a rep Daytona.

In most cases with vintage watches, I would agree with By-Tor, but the 16710 is not a sought after vintage, tons of them are around, and they won't be escalating in price like a good 1675 or a 1680 for a long time. just too many of them out there.I would tend to agree with you, while i'm a big fan of keeping watches original, every one and that means in the hundreds of thousands or possibly millions, that have cycled through RSC's are not original. at the very least, they changed the crystal, probably changed the crown/tube polished the watch, etc. So unless a Rolex has been a true safe queen for the past 40-50 years ,there is a pretty good chance that it has a different crystal, dial, hands, crown/tube and maybe bracelet than the ones that were part of the watch when it left the facrtory. Heck, for a long time, DRSD's and Red Subs going in for service were coming back with white service dials. no telling how many DRSD's were converted. Back then, most owners could have cared less, they got a "New" watch back from service. Today that little swap is probably worth around minus 5-10k depending on the old dial. I doubt that changing a tritium dial to a lumi service dial will make any difference at all in the case of a 16710, at least not for many,many years. The only thing that would concern me in this deal would be "where was it serviced"? The reason I'm asking this is if the watch was sent to a RSC, it would NOT have left there with an aftermarket bracelet. They would have either changed the bracelet, or refused to service the watch, so either the seller took off the new bracelet and substituted a cheaper aftermarket, or the watch was sent to the RSC without a bracelet, or it was serviced by and independent watchmaker. Along with the papers that came with the watch, I would want to see the service invoice as well, just to make sure of what was done, and how long back. All in all, I believe that 3500.00 USD is a pretty good price for a 16710 with papers. I haven't been keeping up with the prices as this model is a little too contemporary for me, however jumpwed over to TZ sales corner, and it looks like the going price for a really nice 16710 w/ box and papers is around 4700-4900 USD, so even at the low end, you are getting this one for around 1200+ less. you should be able to pick up a nice Jubilee for quite a bit less than that. My feelings about htis are if the watch is as good as it is supposed to be, it does have the documentation, and it has a documentable recent service, I would not hesitate to buy it.That is if you have a good feeling about it and it's what you want .

That is correct. You should also check on the watches for sale in the "trading zone" which is a section for members to sell their watches to other members. A lot of very nice watches are listed here every day. P.s Can you explane me because this submariner if of poor quality for you? (so i can understand somthing more) What you need to do is follow Freddy's advice and go on the internet and download some photos of the watch you are looking at, which looks like the 116610 Ceramic Submariner. Get some high quality photos of the genuine, go to a Rolex dealer and try on the watch, see how it feels. Putting one on a nd seeng how it looks and feels is important so that you will be happy with htis model. After you look at the genuine, and photos of the genuine, then look at the replicas and decide which one is the best for you. All of the dealers on the forum are reliable and trustworthy. It is very important to make sure the dealer will ship to Italy and what is his policy should your watch be lost, stolen or seized by customs. After you have done your homework and researched the watch you want, then order one from the dealer you want to buy from.

Those are pretty decent looking cases, at a good price. I am not sure whether or not they all come with the same serial number or not. iwould much prefer to get one with a unique serial number. Another thing as someone said, will the case take an ETA movement, or is it for a 1570 and you need and adapter for the ETA.. I'm looking for a 1680 case, I want to transplamt the "guts" from my MBW case 1680 into a better case. I don't like the MBW Crown position, nor do I like the idea that you can't use a genuine dial, as the case is too big. I may be wrong, but the date window on the MBW dial is more to the outside, and I believe that is what causes the problem with date numbers being left justified. I suppose the only way to solve that would be to make a slightly bigger datewheel overlay to move the numbers out a tiny bit.

Great!! The moderators are all serving this community on their own time and their own dime. members need to remember that. Also threatening mods is a sure way to get banned. Folks who buy/sell watches need to work out their differences between themselves preferably using their emails or PM's. Only when all other avenues fail, or someone is running an outright scam, should the mods become involved.Using the shout box and/or forums is not the way fight over a private issue.

No matter how secure we think we are, there are folks out there right now figuring out work arounds to circumvent the security measures. i believe the best defense is to check your credit card statements onlinr very frequently. Depending on the credit card compamies is pretty hit or miss. Some are very diligent about tracking your spending activity and patterns, others don't seem to do anything. Sometimes some of the security activities are a little irritating, but when you consider they are doing it to protect you, it's worth it. It never ceases to amaze me that some folks get very angry and irrate when a sales clerk asks for ID when making a purchase, but they would be the first to scream if someone cloned their card and went on a spending spree!!

Congratulations!! I've been here going on 7 years,and I'n still below 2K, so you're doing great. :)

Any girl would love to have that one!! Great build.

I agree, I ended up replacing the cracked genuine T-39 on my1665 with a Clarks Superdome. I have a genuine T-39 service crystal, but the Clarks was a better fit. I'm very happy with it. And as you said at a fraction of the cost.

The reason they can get away with it, and have been for a while is they are a business, and they can control who they sell to. If they don't like what a AD is doing, or they suspect he is selling parts secondhand, they as a company have the right to shut off his parts account. It's happened in a lot of other industries, where dealers were selling below the MSRP, which is fine until another dealer down the street rats you out, and then the manufacturer will probably warn you first, but if it continues, they may well refuse to sell to you. Don't believe for a minute that Rolex doesn't know where a lot of those "take off" parts are going. They aren't stupid by a long shot! Another factor from their standpoint is reliability. Suppose you take your genuine sub to a Rolex repair person, and he decides that you need a crown/tube. Now suppose he replaces your crown/tube with a really used set that came off another watch. You take your watch home and in a few days, weeks, you see moisture under the crystal, or you go to the beach, wear your watch swimming and it floods. You take it back to the repair person, they tell you you must have left the crown unscrewed. He tells you it needs to go to a RSC which repairs your watch to the tune of say 1200.00 USD, now you're mad, and in some cases, rather than taking it out on the guy who installed the old bad crown /tube, you're mad at Rolex for selling you defective parts. This may sound far fetched, but I'm sure they don't want parts reused on Rolex watches, and they darn sure don't want them being used on Reps!! It's all about protecting the brand image, and they,Rolex, could care less whether the independent watchmakers, or customers are not happy with their rules. I firmly believe that the purists will always spend whatever is necessary to keep their Rolex watches "Pure", however the vast majority of Rolex owners are not WIS or Rolex purists, they are just a guy or gal with some disposable cash, who wants a good watch, and wants the prestige of wearing one of the few brands that are instantly recognizable by just about everyone. Those are the folks who, when their watch requires a service will take it to a watchmaker, generally someone local, for their service. If the watchmaker tells them, I think you need a new bracelet to replaced your old stretched bracelet. A new one from Rolex will cost you around 1K, but I can get you a nice replacement ,use your old clasp and end links for around 200.00 USD, and no one will be able to tell the difference.I believe that a lot of folks will buy the 200.00 dollar bracelet and save the rest.I wouldn't think many if any AD's will offer this option,as it could very likely put their parts account standing in jeopardy, but independents who aren't beholden to Rolex would probably do it in a heart beat.

Online shopping is absolutely not safe. Several years ago, I got a call from the AmEx fraud dept. They asked me If I had bought any stereo equipment to be sent to Arlington TX? I had not, seems like they found about 4k worth of charges including an airline ticket on Alaska airlines, The thieves also attempted to buy a first class ticket Dallas to London on British Airways, but the BA rep said that they would have to call AmEx to confirm the purchase l.e. AmEx woulld then call me and make sure it was me buyiing the ticket.The thief immediately logged off the BA website. Over the years,I have had several smaller thefts on my cards. What they will do at times will send a few very small "Feeler" charges through to test your cards security, and then hit you for big stuff. Checking your credit card statements frequently,as well as having the credit card company up your fraud alert status. AnEx Delta Skymiles card always asks for my zip code and the last four digits on the card for any purchase over 15-20 dollars. Don't forget it's not just onlins shopping, giving your card to a wiater or waitress at a restaurant is an avenue for fraud. Gas stations are plagued with thieves using card reading equipment that can be concealed inside a pump. They can come by a station at night, pop open a few pumps attach their readers and come back in a few days and remove them, loaded with lots of credit card numbers, names, everything that's on the magnetic strip. Safer to use an oil company gas card with a very low credit limit for purchases at gas stations.Nothing is foolproof, as while you are busy working trying to feed your family, the thieves are sitting around scheming up new ways to steal from you and I.