panerai153

What a bunch of poseurs!! Most of those guys could not tell a genuine Rolex watch from a really good franken, much less a genuine vs aftermarket crystal. I really love some of those quotes," I don't think the crystal could be counterfeit. It is sapphire and has the etching and who is going make a counterfeit sapphire crystal with the Rolex etching?" and that "we don't talk about those things here"! What do they think, they are the fountainhead of Rolexknowledge, and the counterfeiters are listening in to their Oh so private confidential conversations, thirsting for a tidbit ofinformation in order to make the counterfeits better than the real thing.They are truly a gold mine of misinformation, sadly lots of folks who are new to the watch game are in awe of those idiots.

Man, that is really incredible. finally a 1680 case that will solve the crown and datewheel alignment problems. I have a little creature here that's just begging to get out of the old shell and into a new better one!!

Beautiful watch.Hard to beat those vintage Tudors. Prices have really gone up in the past few years, i wuish I had bought a drawer full of them 8-10 years ago!! Wear it well.

Very nice What was your base watch to mod?

I would wait for the cases mentioned above. The other alternative would be a JewelryandWatch (phong) or Ming Quy (Vietnam) yuki or NDT. i have no experience with these cases. but lots of others here have. The MBW case is nice and much cheaper, but it will not take a genuine dial (Dial diameter is too small for the case) thus no point in using a genuine movement, etc.Tritium genuine handsare available occasionally on the Vintage Rolex forum Sales Corner, Ebay, etc. They will be pricy though. The biggest problem with building a franken 1680, you could very easily have almost as much in the franken as you would going out and buying a genuine in r4easonable condition. Before I spent 4k building one, I would try to find a gen for a little more.

Those are the worst CG's I've seen in a while! The whole case looks like it just came off the milling machine, hard sharp edges, no polish, no chamfered top

There are Day Date replicas, check the trusted dealers websites. As Freddy said, all the gold used on reps is plated on, and it wears like all plated gold objects do. I would stick to the s/s model unless you are very careful with the gold. Also the DayDate is 18k Gold, and it's pretty difficult for the rep makers to exactly duplicate that Rolex 18k color.

Beautiful watches, but those prices,WOW!! They really seem high to me. considering the pound dollar exchange. That Explorer at 11,000+ pounds would be about 17,000 USD. That's a ton of money for and Explorer. Makes you wonder what their prices are for the Daytonas and the Red Sub!!

I agree with Andy, use the search function to your advantage. lots and lots of great info here. I'm not sure about the 6538. The only ones around are the ones from the dealers here, and from what I've seen and experienced myself, they aren't too great. They use non genuine like construction on the case and bezel, so genuine and good aftermarket parts need a lot of adapting to work. Read some of the threads about 6538 construction, then make up your mind what direction you want to go

I'm sure when these are available there will be plenty to go around. Highoey isn't doing a limited edition run of these cases. Some folks may have to wait a little while for the exact case to be available, but from my conversation with him, they will all be ready when they pass his inspection. Like lots of others here, I'm really looking forward to the cases, the old MBW's are getting really scarce, and even those aren't perfect. I would love to build a really nice 1680 with the proper size dial, and the correct date wheel alignment. It doesn't matter how nice the dial is, how good the insert looks, and how well the CG's have been shaped, etc. That darn date wheel being off is a sure "tell". My first project though is to transplant the genuine guts of my DRSD into a better case. I'm waiting impatiently, just like all the rest of you fellow RWG'ers

I swim and scuba with my Ocean7 -LM7 Ploprof,and my MKII Kingston and Stingray,I swim with my Genuine Rolex 16610, my rep 168,my Tudor Snowflake (gen), and my 1665 DRSD (at least I did until I cracked the crystal!! I have a tester at home that will go to 7 atmos, so all mine get tested B4 swimming or diving. When I got the tester, I checked all my rep watches, and most that were designed for water passed, but a puretime 1680 Red, failed, and a cheap SD also failed. Two PAM's failed (one was a submersible!) and a couple of dressier watches also failed. All my genuine sport watches passed.+ Watches I swim and Dive with Ocean7- LM7 MKII kingston MKII Stingray

you are right, actually the previous owner had it serviced about 6 months ago, but It's definitely going north for a relume. i believe that i'm going to get him to do the vintage luminova lume to the dial and hands. Probably wouldn't affect the value of it much, but lots more useful. The Zigmeister has another one of my watches right now, he's done a bunch for me!

Take the advice of older members here who have lots and lots of experience dealing with Paypal and dealers. I would say that unless this is the last rep you plan on buying, and don't want to be bothered with these forums, use up all your other avenues before getting Paypal involved. Nothing much good will come from it I promise you.

Back in 2005, I got the Doxa fever pretty bad. I really wanted a nice example of a 300T professional (orange dial). I searched the sales forums and Ebay on daily basis. I finally found one that had a very interesting story. It was on Ebay, and the folks selling it were the son and daughter of the late owner. I won the watch, and when it arrived, the daughter sent a note with the history of the watch. It seems that her father was a commercial diver and was employed by the City of San Francisco as a diver. He did search and rescue, cleaned out water inlets, everything that needed to be done in a busy harbour. He bought the Doxa new, and wore it on a daily basis for years. After he passes away, his son and daughter were cleaning out all of his personal things and came across the Doxa. So , it's nice to own something that has a real history. I'm sure if the old watch could talk, It would have some real adventures to relate. I wore the watch for a couple of years, and then for some reason that I can't remember I decided to sell it. I sold it to a fellow in Spain who was into Doxas at the time. I told him when I sold it, if he ever decided to sell it to contact me and give me first refusal, which he did. So long story short, he emailed me a month or so back and offered the watch to me as he wanted a racing bicycle. I bought it, and it finally arrived yesterday. The only thing that was disappointing to me, and I doubt he had anything to do with was the deterioration in the lume on the hands. When I sold the watch, they were nice and bright, exactly matching the dial indices. now they are very dark and part of the lume is missing on the minute hand. Anyone have any ideas as to why the hand lume would deteriorate like this, the dial is still very much like it was when I sold the watch. I know it's the same watch, they serial numbers are the same! Here are some photos, the first are from 2005, the last from today.

Guys, thuis probably illustrates the drop in Doxa prices. 3-4 years ago, this one would have been gone in 30 minutes!! now it's expired, and may be relisted. Another one i saw was a Synchron Divingstar (Yellow dial) these are pretty rare as well, it's been up for 3+days only up to 416.00 USD. Of course, it could go through the roof in the last 5 minutes, but after looking at vintage Doxas prices on WUS, TZ and Ebay, I'm pretty convinced that they are not as popular as they were a few years back. My first ever Doxa wasa 300T professional, witha great story. i bought it off Ebay for 800.00 USD, it was dirty, bezel stuck, but intact. I got it cleaned up, repainted the bezel numbers, and wore it for a couple of years. I sold it in 2007 for 1500.00 USD. a few weeks ago, the felow I sold it to decided he needed a racing bicycle more thna he needed a Doxa. He asked me to find out what they were going for. I gave him some references to look up on Ebay,And the various genuinre sales forums, he sold it to me for 1100.00 USD, which was probably more than he could have gotten for it on Ebay, but I wanted it back. So in a period of 7 years the price went from 800 to 1500 and back to 1100. This illustrates something that a really astute pen collector told me years ago. He told me, "buy 'em cause you love them, not to make a profit.The only ones that have a really good chance of appreciation are the rare ones in pristine condition, they are the ones the serious collectors want. the rest may go up, but often they come down just as fast or faster"

I suppose when you have a lot of things on your mind, we're right dead in the part of Issac (should hit here about 10PM tomorrow morning, plus trying to put up with silly surgeons that are insisting that we run a full OR schedule tomorrow, i let my typing fingers out run my feeble mind. nanug, i know you're here often, showing off all those awsome watches trying to make all us lower 48'ers drool with envy by the way I really like the Tudor justasgood spiffed up for you. Not trying to hijack the gentlemans thread, but to nanug, i just got back my very first Doxa 300T Professional, i sold it about 4 years ago to a fellow in Spain. He emailed me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I wanted it back. Sure did, as I had sellers remorse for a long time after I sold it. Very nice with aqualung US Divers logo, original beads of rice bracelet and a great story. I'll post some photos in the "Other brands" section maybe tomorrow (If we have power!!)

Where did you get the case, and was it sold to you as genuine. Some of the better aftermarket cases will have the correct engraving and legitimate serial numbers, so it's not like the old MBW "polex" cases! I believe that Freddy and nick are looking at the overall dimensions, the way everything flows together to determine the authenticity, rather than looking at the engraving. It looks like to me that the case back is much older than the case. It's seen lots of use. The case on the other hand is as pretty fresh, engraving is really crisp, no signs of wear and tear on the case at all.

Sorry Guys, I stand corrected. Teaches me to go too far back in the memory bank. my 16750 is exactly as you said it should be. WOW, I'm glad it didn't turn out to be like I described, then what movement would that be? ETA 2846!

I'm at work, I'll have to check when I get home. Maybe I'm having a senior moment !!!

db2, could you tell us what case your 1680 uses? i have a franken, but I was told that the MBW cases will not accept a genuine dial or a aftermarket Rolex dial. thanks

Any help advice?

I respectfully disagree with you. I have a grenuine 16750 and it has the same hand stack as the 1675. GMT hand, hour, minute, second from bottom to top. The 16750 is not independently adjustable.It has a fixed tracking GMT hand, basically the big difference is the 16750 is quickset and the 1675 is not. The next model, the 16710 GMT master II is the first with the different handstack, it's got the independently adjustable hour hand

I built a nice MBW case based 1665 a couple of years ago (The Zigmeister built it, i just found stuff and wrote the checks!!). Well, I have been wearing the watch a little lately, and a couple of weeks back, i got it wwet, not submerged, but splashed water on it. Immediately got fog under the crystal. I sent it over to a fellow in Texas who has worked on a few reps but mostly gens for quite a few years. He discovered that the crystal was cracked. i'm sure I banged it on something, i 'm pretty hard on watches and that superdome is really tall. At any rate, he tried a couple of crystals I sent him, but they didn't work. He had a genuine Crystal and it works fine, but when he tried the bezel, it was snug going on, but when it finally seated it was loose. He took it off, and told me it looked like someone had shaved the inside of the bezel to make it fit over the superdome. I'm suspecting the fellow I got the watch from did it, because he was the one who installed the superdome originally. the watchmaker is suggesting that I try to find another bezel. i told him that finding an old MBW 1665 bezel might be difficult. His feeling is the bezel needs to be snugger to work properly. Anyone have a MBW 1665 bezel around gathering dust in their toolbox? I don't want to spend a lot of money on this project, as I plan on putting everything in one of highoeyazmuhudee's new cases when they are available. this would just be a temporary fix for now. Any help/advice greatly appreciated.

I'm using offshore's oem 2mm springbars in several of my Rolex reps, and they are very good.

I'm not sure that anyone makes a good one. BK was building a nice one a while back, but they are long gone. Every now and then they appear on the sales forum, but they don't last long. nicely modified ones come up for sale pretty frequently. one of the big problems with 1675's the genuine 1675 and 16750 use a 5.3mm crown. It's tiny compared to the bigger beefier 6mm crowns. All the reps use a 6mm crown, which is and instant "tell". If you try to use a 5.3mm, the space between the crown guards is way too big. The more expensive cases like phong, NDT yuki, ming Quy are correct, but they are pretty expensive, probably 2-3X the cost of a rep 1675 watch. ONe plus, the gernuine rolex movements in thec 1675/16750 have the same hand stack as the ETa or Chinese GMT movements, this makes them more believable, but you have to solve the crown guarfd problem to have a really great one.