panerai153

definite 1680 and possibly a 1665 for me.

You are a noob, so perhaps you didn't read the rules before posting. this is a Rolex discussion forum, not a sales forum. you need to join as a member and then post your WTB's in the appropriate forum. Sales ,trade and WTB forums are only open for VIP /Platinum members (to post) of course as a member you can answer the posts, but you cannot post new topics.

I'm late to the party, but that isa beautiful snowflake, made better by great work. i'm very happy to see JAG added to the list of modders. Certainly his work is exceptional.

You do have a 1665 case working as well, correct? I am definitely in for the 1665 case, although a 1680 with a proper dial would be really nice. that would spolve the date alignment issues I'm having with my 1680. Great work, sincerely appreciated

I recieved a 7206 expansion from phong yesterday. didn't have time to take photos, but by and large it's pretty nice. The only real disappointment is the endlinks. Instead of 80 endlinks, they are 382. They do fit my cas pretty well, although i did have to close them just a little. the positive is they are big enough to accomodate genuine springbars, which yuki's 7206 will not. another thing that Freddy addressed in an old 7206 thread is the loop at the end of the bracelet for the bracelet adjustment spring bar inside the clasp. The loop is small, and the springbar is tiny. i was able to open it up enough to get a better heftier springbar through it, which makes me feel better, as failure of this springbar would allow the bracelet to seperate, with potential bad results!! Imagine watch falling on concrete, face down, watch falling in water. Interesting that we all seem to concentrate on getting big 2mm springbars on our Rolex reps, drilling out lug holes, opening up endlink loops, etc.,but you never hear about anyone having any concern for the springbar that's half the size of the one' at the end of the bracelet.

Alrhough most of the customs seizure discussions lately have been related to the UK and other Euro countries, their is still an element of risk associated with shipping to the USA. It depends on the time of year, the customs office where your package arrives, and just how busy they are at the time. personally, I have never had a watch seized, but then, my buying of new reps has been pretty limited. One thing that I do believe, if you ever have anything seized you are in the Customs computer. Everything is interlinked, sort of like having your passport scanned at Passport control at an airport. IF you ahve had troubles before, it will show up on the computer, even though you had a problem in San Francisco, and now you are re ientering the country through JFK. I had a personal connection with this sort of problem. my wife goes back to Europe every year to visit friends and family. Several yearsago, not really knowing the rukes , she brough some food products back with her, they were not in a factory package or sealed, she got stopped at JFK, and they went through her bags. they found the food items, and she got a stern warning from the customs inspector. For the next two years, she was stopped and checked. She didn't have anything illegal and after that hasn't been stopped again. I suppose after several trips through with no "hits" they take your name out off the list.My advice to her was just don't bring anything back that isn't a personal item like clothing, personal jewelry, etc. the biggest problem if you are getting stuff or carrying stuff and you are caught, it's going to be confiscated, and you are going to be delayed, probably miss your conecting flight, and have to spend the night at an airport hotel, just for bringing something in that you could probably buy at Walmart!! Another thing, several years ago, some of the dealers were shipping watches inside of "toys" and labeling the contents o nthe custom form as a "Toy'. Several folks had problems, as the packagesare X-rayed, and the customs agents aren't fools, they can see a watch inside the package. i believe thay really sets off the alarms, as now they are pretty sure the ealer is smuggling counterfeit items into the country. much better to label the package 'fashion watch' or "novelty watch' rater than trying to hide it. As several folks have said above, get to know your dealers policies before you buy. I believe that the active dealers probably factor in a percentage of seizures as a cost of doing business.If they do, and they are OK with resending another watch if they have proof of seizure, then you are not taking a lot of risk. If they don't agree to replace a seized watch, then, I would look elsewhere, or accept the risk of seizure.

Freddy, I agree with you. I have read Stefano's website article on the white 6542 several times, and I believe that he would not put something on his website that he wasn't 100% sure was authentic. Of course that hasn't quietened the few over on the VRF that are so adamant that his white dial is a redial, or a made up 6542 from parts. Of course they react to just about every rare vintage watch in the same way. And not to say that a little skepticism isn't healthy, especially if you are paying a ton of money for a watch. If you all remember the 6538 that was on Ebay a year or so back owned by the retired Military physician. Even though he had owned the watch for it's entire life and knew every detail about it, along with photos of him wearing the watch, etc. there were still those who said all sorts of derogatory remarks about the seller and his watch. Funny though when the seller and buyer showed up at Bob Ridley's place, and saw the photos of Bob examining the watch and subsequently pronouncing it completely genuine, the silence was deafening!! Rolex of the 1950's, 60's and 70's was not the Rolex of today. They did lots of limited run watches, company logo dials, etc. I believe that it's entirely plausible that they would build 100 White dial 6542's for PanAm. After all PanAm was buying a boatload of black dial 6542's for their cabin crews. Would have been hard to turn down Juan Trippe on a special order of 100 when he just placed and order for several hundred Black dial 6542's. And if anyone with a real interest in sorting out fact or fiction, and had a year or two of spare time, all the records and paperwork of PanAm are stored at the University of Florida library in Gainsville. So if you're really curious and are retired or independently wealthy, you could go to Gainsville, and spend the next couple of years sifting through tons of records and MAYBE, you could claim to be the person who finally solved the mystery of the White Dial 6542. Bet the scenery around the Library ain't too bad on the eyes either!! To be honest with everyone, I like mine, just as Freddy likes his and joeyB likes his. If Rolex came out tomorrow and announced that after looking back through the old records, they could find no evidence that a White dial version of the 6542 was ever produced, I would still wear mine!!

thanks a lot guys, It's nicer on the wrist than the photos. To answer a question or two. The G is really a G, but honestly, it's so small, on your wrist, it couldn't be told if it was a G that looks like a 6. Diz, the problem is documentation. thus far although a few have shown up around the Rolex world, there is thus far no comcrete documentation that these ever existed. There was some fellow on the VRF that supposedly had a document signed by an exeecutive at PanAm refering to the white dial 6542, but reading the letter, it's very apparent that whomever wrote it was not someone who spoke English as their native language. It's really not very believable. The watch and this document are in a "PanAm museum" , but not where you would expect a museum with PanAm memorobilia to be displayed. What it really boils down to is there is no documentation. Of course Rolex isn't saying, because that's their policy, and they never do.Another thing that I find a little strange, and I really do want to believe that the watches really existed, is there has never been one sold that has a tracable provenence. Surely, over time, one would surface that is owned by the widow or child of a PanAm exec who either has a letter from PanAm or photos of the watch owner wearing the watch. All it would take would be one watch with real impeccable documentation to put the whole controversy to rest, either way. One simple statement from Rolex would solve the whole thing, either aye or nay.Just posing a watch with a bunch of old PanAm stuff isn't enough to prove the history, case in point this one of mine. It's nice but it's not a real Rolex 6542, even though all the other stuff around it is genuine.

I would definitely second the Seiko's. you can get him a nice Seiko dive watch for around 200.00 USD or less on Ebay or on the web. they are pretty bulletproof, have the best lume around, and keep good time. Quartz or mechanical Seiko has them all!!

Some of my favorite watches are Rolex GMT's I really love the look of the watches, as well as the utility of having a watch that allows a second time zone. i have had a few, but my favorite is my genuine 16750. Great watch, wears almost invisibly. That's what I really like about the older GMT's they seem to just "disappear". You have to look down to make sure your watch is still on your wrist. The one GMT that I have not been able to come up with is the first GMT, the 6542. The legendary PanAM. Freddy has built two magnificent examples, and my favorite of those was the white dial "executive suite". Every early GMT enthusuist knows the stories about the White dial PanAm's, so I'm not going to belabor a point with that story, which in the minds of a lot of the Rolex "experts" is fictious anyway. A few months ago, i decided that I wanted a 6542 as my next project. First off, I bought a puretime White dial 6542, what a disappointment! It's no better in the flesh than the photos. Possibly the case could be used if the rehault could be reshaped, but it's got a lot of other problems as well. During this time, I was PM'ing back and forth with joeyB about what I needed to do. joeyb was a little reluctant at first, as he didn't want to run afoul of the Rolex folks by building watches for others. After a fair number of Pm's and a few phone calls he agreed to build it for me. About the same time i got an email from another old member here who had intentions of building a 6542, but never got around to it. He had a brand new Ming Quy (Vietnam) 6542 case set. I decided that this might be the way to go, as it looked like the puretiime case was not going to be a good candidate as a base for my build. I did toy with The idea of using a Rolex 1030 movement, but after finding out that the 1030 modified to GMT would be really scarce, and it required a special calendar ring to seat the dial on. joeyB and I talked about it, and due to the scarcity and price, I decided to use the 2846 movement out of the puretime. Actually the build went pretty smoothly, the puretime dial wouldn't work as it is the wrong size, so joeyB made one using a decal on a dial blank. He also made a Roulette datewheel overlay, as the puretime datewheel was all black lettering! You never know what you are going to get from China when you open the box. The puretime bracelet wasn't even close, i tried it on one side, and there was about an1/8" gap between the case and the endlink!! I found this old "el cheapo" folded link bracelet to use for now, but I have a 7206 /80 coming from phong. So disregard the bracelet, it's temporary. For all who will ask, here isa build list of what we used Case/bezel - MingQuy (all genuine construction) movement - 2846 Datewheel - 2846 w/ joeyB overlay Dial - joeyB special Hands - joeyb GMT hand - rafflestime modified by joeyB Crystal - Clark 116 (my case set had a genuine 115 crystal, but it was cracked at the base) Insert - joeyB insert Crown - puretime One thing I want to emphasize, joeyB is a great fellow, very, very helpful. he will do what's right and he always tries to do the most with the least! I believe that he outdid himself with this one. my hats off to him for a great build. Yesterday, after a few weeks up at joeyB's (I sent him a box of parts) here's what he sent back to me.

Actually, I believe that this is a Eurotimez datewheel. It is not an overlay. i remember searching high and low for one and possibly this is the result. i don't believe the MBW 1680's came with a silver datewheel, of course I could be wrong about that. What is strange to me is the movement is ETA (2846) and the dial is made for an ETA movement.

If I had to sell one, i would get rid of the 16610. Like Danza,i would certainly try to keep both, while very similar, also very different. it would be nice to know the source of these? Have they had any mods.etc. movements? If they were genuine, I would not hesitate to sell the 166610. There are literally hundreds of thousands of 166610's across the world, while very nice examples of 1680's are getting harder to find.

I took my 1680 out of the watch box yesterday, haven't worn it in a long time. After setting the date and time, i noticed something that probably i knew about before, but either didn't pay attention, or forgot. the date wheel is way right justified. When you have double digit numbers showing, the right number is almost unreadable. It's not noticeable of course with numbers 1-9, but 10-31 are bad! I tried to go back and find my original post when this one was built, but it's too far back, as my topics only go back to 2010, and this was done in 2009. It's a great watch, MBW case, genuine tropic 127, 2846 movement, a nice insert and pearl genuine crown/tube and a good band (Can't remember if it's genuine), but the clasp is I'm sure. The Zigmeister did a beautiful job on the watch, great vintage relume, and completely overhauled the movement, etc. My question is is there anything that can be done to correct the date wheel alignment. It has a open 6,9 silver date wheel, which I really like, but either the dial is wrong for the date wheel or the date wheel is not correct. Any suggestions? Here are a couple of photos that show the date wheel alignment somewhat, but no head on photos with double digit dates. Here you can see the "14" is too far to the right, the 1 is hardly visible straight on In this second photo, you can see that the single digit "7" is too far to the right as well, not as noticeable, but not correct

Right. If you call them, they now have you tied directly to smuggling in contraband.counterfeit goods. They have a case if they should choose to pursue it. OTOH, if you never claim it, should they contact you, you can always say that it's not yours, must have been a mistake, you haven't ordered anything in ages! Very hard to prove that it was ordered by you unless you claim it.

Obviously the watches in the locked case were genuine watches that they were using as comparison watches. Crazy idea in my opinion. First off there are literally thousands of models from all the watch companies in the world, second there are within every model untold numbers of variants. So to be able to tell a rep from a gen, they would ,one) have to have the exact same model and variant of the gen to have a valid comparison, and two) would have to have a watchmaker or at least someone trained, to remove the case back and examine the watch. So suppose you are traveling with your genuine Rolex TT blue dial sub, but the airport only has a black dial S/S model. Would they seize your watch because it was a fake Rolex just because it has a blue dial and SS/gold bezel, crown, band? I believe that they would have their ass handed to them in their hand if they ever tried that, at least in the USA. Now if the passenger was traveling with a sack full of watches with no documentation, perhaps they might be suspicious, but one watch on the wrist or a couple in their carry on, no way. Having said that, at one time several years ago, some of the Vintage Rolex folks who travel all over the world to watch fairs, trade shows, sales, etc. suggested that for your own peace of mind, if traveling outside the USA, it would be a good idea to have some form of documentation for your watches, either a sales receipt or an appraisal form, or some documents to show that you brought the watches in the USA and were traveling with them with the intent of taking them back to the USA with you. I went to my local Rolex AD who i knew from watch purchases and asked them to give me a letter saying that my watches were purchased in the USA.They wrote up a short letter, with a physical description and serial numbers, signed it and I was good to go. I made a few copies, and when i traveled,I took it with me.I would guess that I could travel through airports in Europe a thousand times and never have to show any documents, but it was just something that helped with my peace of mind in case on the one thousand and first time I got stopped. Another question, is it illegal to own a rep in Germany? I believe that in Switzerland, it is illegal to posses a rep watch, but not sure about other countries. With all the terrorist moving about the world with the sole intent of blowing up and destroying everything, you would think that airport security personnel's time would be better spent searching for explosives, guns, knives, etc. rather than examining the wrists of every passenger ,hoping to find a contraband watch!!

Listen to the Zigmeister, he is the maestro of watches!! He's done a bunch for me including fixing some other ham hands AKA "Mr thumbs" screwups! Every one of mine has run well and still runs well. he has done genuine and reps including the only documented Doxa Pre- sub dive watch to surface in the world!! As with most anything in this life, you gets what you pay for. “The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.”

i have a suspicion the what you saw on the tracking was exactly what it said "Customs Seizure" like someone said above, I would inform the dealer after a few days of waiting. I would say if it doesn't show up in a few days or the tracking status doesn't change, I would consider it gone. I have no idea how UK customs works, but here in the USA, if you have a package seized, I believe that your name and address is flagged. Very easy to do with computers. I had several boxes of Cigars "lost" last year. No customs information, they just didn't show up. this was over several months. The company I buy from guarantees shipment, so they were going to reship. I rented a PO box in a neighboring town which also happens to be across the state line, in my company name. i requested that the shipper not use my name at all, just my company name. Re shipments arrived OK , and two more this year with no trouble. Sometimes it's better to change addresses and recipient names if you have had trouble before.

I totally agree with you about the reps that folks beat all to hell and back with artificial aging, dial looking like it was left out in the rain and sun for a month (with no crystal!) Pearl missing and everything scratched and nicked like they were washed in a parts washer with a pound of bolts nuts and assorted screws.Just not my cup of tea. I really like watches to look "gently used". I have, when younger really been pretty hard on some of my genuine Rolex watches, but after a trip to RSC Dallas, they always came back looking like new. After 5 years of everyday wear, total neglect except to wash the watch with soap and water occasionally, my first 1680 Submariner didn't look nearly as bad as some of the ones on the forum. The crystal was really scratched, and the bracelet had a ton of slack, the springbars were very worn, but all of that was because it was worn every day in dust, dirt got greasy, oily, Cow S**T, all of which, except maybe the Cow S**t produced a wonderful grinding compound, to wear out the outside moving components. But even with all that, the insert was not bad, and had I known about polishing compounds,I could have kept the crystal nice by polishing it periodically.

Beautiful watch. I love all the GMT's, probably one of the most underrated of the Rolex sport watches. So much utility if you travel, or have to keep up with folks in other time zones. What case/dial did you use for this?

GREAT !!!! Typical Golfer!

I got an email back fro yuki, stating that their 7206 end links would not accomodate 2mm springbars. Anyone have any experience with NDT or phong's 7206's , relative to the genuine or genuine size springbars?

+1 Automatico, you truly summed it up as nicely as I have ever seen. It seems as though Rolex which was roundly criticized for being so ultra conservative for many years has decided to make up for lost time by hiring a bunch of punk rock looonies to design their watches! They went from "evolution rather than revolution" to revolting rather than tasteful.

There is a certain segment of the population, who think that the ultimate "cool' is t owear the most blinged out, absurd jewelry available. They obviously have lots of money, and lots of taste, unfortunately it's all bad!! Most of these folks truly are individuals who have more money than sense, but since they are buying the stuff, I'm sure Rolex has decided that they will try to get their share. Now on the other hand, if they are being bought by women, then they are just more jewelry. Heck, if they made a little smaller version, my wife would want one! Thank goodness she isn't into larger watches.

Thanks everyone for the info. looks like a 7206 is in the cards for the 6542. Do any of the rep 7206 endlinks take a 2mm springbar as per genuine? I did a little quick research on the 7206 Yuki has them with 80 end links for 148.00 USD ND trading has them also with 80 end links for 220.00 USD phong has them (only one photo and it's the back of the bracelet) for 300.00 USD Anyone have any experience with any of these outside of yuki? I would hate to pay double the price and get the same bracelet.

I would second that. Five years ago, my answer would have been different,I would have said get a Swiss ETA, but i'm very suspicious of all these reps with Swiss ETA's considering the fact that Swatch Group, owner of ETA is choking off the supply of Swiss movements. Even the smaller genuine makers are having difficult times getting them. At such time as the new clone 3135 movement becomes readily available,i might say go for it, but only after it's been around for a while and some of the more gifted modders have torn it down and looked at it's guts. The clone 2836 is a pretty simple movement and from all the reports I've heard it is a solid movement. One thing you might consider no matter which one you buy is to factor in a movement service. most of the reps come with movements that may or may not be oiled properly, or they have dirt and dust inside. they may run fine for a while, but a dirty dry movement will self destruct over a fairly short lifespan. Another thing, even though the sellers tout the newer models with "Superlume" I don't think the lume is nearly as good as one that has been relumed properly. i have a new GMTIIC that is supposed to have superlume, and while it's a little better than the older ones, it doesn't hold a candle to my genuine watches or my reps that have been relumed.