panerai153

Beautiful photo. Is that Mt McKinley in the background?

How about Jenny? They made some really unique watches back in the 70's and 80's. Jenny actually owns Doxa and I'm hearing that they are bringing out another Jenny Caribbean Dive watch series. Lots of colored dials too, even ORANGE!!

Beautiful 1675!! I have to agree, the faded Pepsi is going to make it soooo much nicer!!

It looks pretty good. looks like it hasa scratch on the acrylic crystal, but you could probably polish that out with some plastic polish (polywatch). Nice thing about this one is it's local. If you have any fears, work out a deal to let one of youer local Rolex watchmakers open up the back and take a look. The seller is in Dallas, and I know there are a ton of good Rolex folks there, including the legendary Bob Ridley in Arlington. 3.5 K is a pretty decent price, you can look at the serial number and the clasp code and figure out if it's really from 1988. 1988 was the first year rolex went to a letter/number classification 1988 was R999999. 1987 was the last year for number only. Started at 9766000. Clasp code 1987 "L" 1988 "M". Rolex never published any information on numbers and codes. so al lthe information has come from Rolex addicts who researched the numbers and came up with the system. From this, the numbers and codes may be off a little. Also back in the 1980,s Rolex watches sometimes sat around in a Jewelers or watch store for a couple of years before being sold. Lots of examples on the Vintage Rolex Forum of punched papers being from a particular year, but the sales receipt and warranty card are signed a couple of years later. All in all, I think this is a nice watch. I own a genuine 16750 from 1983 and it is a great watch. One of my all time favorites.

Definitely the Snowflake Here's mine. Genuine 9411/0 Very nice watch, however the bezel is a problem. Very hard to turn. Great blue color dial/bezel insert.

That would be an impossible restoration. finding all the necressary parts could take years, or maybe forever. I doubt whether DOXA SA has parts for this one. It's at best a parts watch. Obviously the watch was very wet at one time for the dial to deteriorate like that. No bezel, no caseback ? looks like maybe someone bought this one for parts, got what they needed and selling the carcass on!

Beautiful Build A set of vintage hands and a tritium pearl would be the icing on the cake. As far as the crown, I would bet that 90% of the 1680's and 1665's have had the crown replaced at service. Considering the reds are closing in on 40 years old, most have been to a RSC or a Rolex certified watchmaker several times for service, so having a later 703 wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. I keep telling this over and over, but when the 1680's and 1665's came out, they were fairly expensive, but not like today. they were less than 250.00 USD especially in military PX's and commissaries. Even to the general public, the prices were less than 500.00 USD. I know, i bought a 1680 and later a 1665 and neither was over 500.00 USD. Lots of them were sold and they weren't safe queens! They were worn, beat to hell and subjected to every abuse a watch could endure. I wore my 1680 every day for around 5 yeard and finally sent it back to Rolex because the crystal was so scratched and scuffed, you couldn't see the hands! My local AD looked at the watch and told me," that's the most beat up sub I've seen"! Guess what? 6 weeks later, it came back looking like a brand new watch. New crystal, insert, crown/tube, springbars, polished case and bracelet. No one was trying to preserve history back then, when a watch was sent off, folks expected it to look as close to new as possible when it came back. And like me folks were thrilled to death to see their old beat up watch come back looking like new.Unfortunately, there is no telling how many red subs and DRSD's were returned with white service dials. Back then, it probably didn't matter because you were getting essentially a new watch, and no one had the faintest idea that Red dial subs and DRSD's would skyrocket in value over time. Hell, if I had a crystal ball, I would have a safe full of vintage Rolex watches, plus tons of stock like microsoft, IBM and maybe a few shares of Berkshire Hathaway!!

Will a Gen crown really really raise the level on this 1680? Yes it will. T39 is a superdome for the 1665 SD I don't think it will fit a 1680. you need a 127 . i would try to find a genuine vintage insert, something that is aged. Watches look odd to me that have a vintage aged dial and hands and what appears to be a brand new insert.. What about movement is this a slow beat in the watch now? I think that the ingod dials are pretty nice. Genuine dials don't fit the MBW case so they are out, unless you want to do a lot of modding, including cutting the dial feet off to fit an ETA There are some genuine parts over on the parts forum for sale now genuine crown/tube. There are always inserts for sale over on Vintage Rolx market. And please when you add a genuine insert, relace the tritium pearl. If you visit the vintage rolex forums, look at all the 1680,s on the forums, almost every one of them has a insert with pearl. Don't worry about the lugholes being chamfered, most of the old 1680's and 1665's that were worn every day have lugholes that have that wallowed out look. Here are some photos of my 1680 Oldskool MBW case Genuine Crown Genuine "Top hat" 127 Crystal Genuine Insert/pearl MBW dial/hands relumed vintage lume by The Zigmeister Case crownguards reworked ,lugholes drilled Genuine 93150/580 end links Slowbeat 2846 movement What I was trying to achieve was the look of a 1680 with a fairly fresh service maybe one that was a year or two out from a service, not too beat up, but not brand new looking.

Those are really, really nice. Being a knife collector with a particular fondness for Damascus, I can appreciate the time and skills it takes to take raw steel and make Damascus stock. Do you make blades as well or is your focus primarily on buckles, etc?

1+ with watchmeister!! It's better to recommend no one rather than have a list of modders who lack the skills to be real professionals, and in fact are ham-handed amateurs. Some of these folks are really good at one aspect of modding i.e. movements, luming,case modding, etc. but the guys/gals who can do it all are few and far between. the biggest problems I see with most folks are their lack of time management skills. or the old "I'm just a gal who can't say no!" Instead of closing down their PM box ,making an announcement that they are full up for 60 days etc., they just keep taking stuff in and before you know it, they have a years worth of work stored in boxes in their workshop. Then the owners start sending angry emails and PM's, because their watch has been sitting at the modders for 6+ months, and they can't find out what's going on. Of course this leads to the modder trying to hurry through jobs, cutting corners and ultimately, making a royal mess of other folks watches. There are quite a few folks on the forum who have awsome skills modding watches. I mean they are professionals. The problem is every one of them has another full time job, and they only mod their own watches. They realized a long time ago, they don't have enough hours in the day to work, mod watches and have a life as well. If you are fortunate enough to buy one of their watches on the sales forum you will indeed have a work of art.

WOW!! Those are beautiful. I LOVE the chrono. The silver dial is awsome, but then the white one ain't no slouch either. Either way it's a home run.

Be patient. Delivery times vary wildly from country to country, time of year, etc. I have had watches deliverd to me in 7 days from China to USA, I've had packages (non watch) take 2 months from Australia to USA. A lot of the waiting time seems to be with customs clearance. Tracking may show your package is at customs, but it may take a week or more for it to move from the receiving dock through sorting and inspection and on to release. EMS tracking, like the US Post office tracking is marginal at best. Accuracy of tracking depends on packages being scanned at every stop. This doesn't happen except on rare occasions with EMS and USPS! I have had packages still showing "awaiting customs clearance" that were at my local post office waiting for pick up.

Well, for one thing, it's got a 2893 movement, which is a purpose built GMT movement. Steinhart makes a pretty decent watch at that price point. Nice homage to the Rolex Explorer. MKII has produced one like this one as well, however Ii believe that it's around 41-42mm so bigger than the Expolrer. Nice watch hope you enjoy it.

It didn't sell at 2999.00 USD! No bids. Pretty poor description, and maybe a little too pricy for the watch in that condition.

My question is ? Why turn a very respectable genuine watch into a reverse Franken? You would be much better off putting this one back to the original condition and selling it if you don't like it as is. Take the proceeds and build a nice franken Milsub from a MBW base. you can get where you want to go probably a lot cheaper and not destroy the value of a vintage Tudor. Sounds to me like what you are trying to build is a fantasy Misub. Blue lume and sapphire crystal? even if you solder in solid lug bars, it's not going to be a milsub, any more than the Tudor would have been a milsub

I can't answer that question. It could very well be that that is the response everyone gets when he turns off his PM, but He would have to answer that question himself.

I suppose one thing that you learn as you get older, people really don't give a darn what you're wearing,driving, etc. At least where i live, most folks don't. Maybe if you are in an environment of young "wannabes" folks notice what you wear or drive or where you eat. It took me a long,long time to figure all this out, and I probably spent a fair amount of money buying cars, watches, etc. that were different from the average. When you live in a small rural community, driving a Porsche, BMW or Range Rover stands out, or so I thought. Finally realized, no one cares!! Now i'm a lot more comfortable with myself, I wear what I like, I drive what I want to drive and I eat where the food and service are good, not to be seen. Personal satisfaction is a heck of a lot more important to me now than what others think about me. Watchwise, I have a fair number of reps of watches that were 500 dollar watches 30- 40 years ago, but are expensive now such as a DRSD 1665 and a 1680, few genuine that are moderately expensive such as a Rolex 16610, Tudor 9411/0 and a Rolex 16750 GMT. I also have a few cheap reps that are reps of rather expensive watches such as a Lange Flyback, a Breguet Chronograph, and a UN Maxi Marine Blue Wave. Probably the watches that get the most wrist time are a couple of MKII homages to the 6568 "Bond " Rolex, and a OCean 7 LM-5 GMT that sort of looks like a Rolex GMT master on steroids!. So my advice to you would be, buy and wear what you like and feel comfortable with. If every time you strap on a rep of a 50K watch, and spend the evening trying to hide your arm in your pocket, then, it's pretty obvious that those type watches are outside your comfort zone, and you shouldn't wear them. On the other hand if you don't worry about being "Called out" and your watch isn't spoiling your evening, then by all means wear what you want. And on the subject of being "called out" I believe that it's far too overrated. Here again, unless you are standing at a bar bragging about your 50K watch, no one will notice and /or give a darn.Of course I temper this with the fact that most people around here couldn't tell a Rolex from a Timex, and probably where you are it's pretty much the same. Want it noticed, find the best looking girl in the place, showing a lot of cleavage, have her hang your watch around her neck like a pendant and see how much notice it gets!

Interesting article. I had no idea, although the USPS must have some place like the airlines where lost packages go to die! I suppose one way to prevent this would be to enclose something with your address and phone number inside the package. I do know that labels etc come off because my wife had a package lost for about 2 months. Package was going to Europe, but obviously the clear plastic envelope with the customs declaration got torn off, the package went to a zip code in the USA that was close to the one she was sending to in Europe, I suppose it shuttled around for a month or so between post offices in the area of the zip code, then finally it was returned to us with a label "No Such Zip Code" it took them over a months to figure that out? Crazy thing, even though the package never got delivered, we still had to pay the postage again when we sent it the second time !!.

The Zeigmeister closes his PM box when he gets filled up and/or he is going to be gone for work,vacation, etc. At some point in time, he will get caught up and reopen his box. You just need to check on his status frequently. As far as his email address, I would doubt that any of the older members would divulge it.Nothing against you, but he has asked folks who have done business with him in the past to not give out his email.

Beautiful watch, and the bracelet really makes it ! Nice thing about genuine vintage Rolex, if you ever decide to sell the watch, and the buyer doesn't want to spring for the bracelet, you can more than likely get your money back and then some.

Pardner, you must have it well hidden on Ebay. i searchesd using your user name iceberg1459 (which you said was your ebay name as well) It showed an iceberg 1459 from Germany, with 87 feedback and it also said this seller has no items for sale. So if you really do have and Omega listed on Ebay, why don't you provide us a link? I believe that most of the bs is coming from your side not ours!

I suppose if you were a Pizza shop manager, and you were handed a new Rolex, you wouldn't care if the company logo was on the dial. Rolex did quite a bit of "private label" branding back in the 90's maybe late 80's as well. Some of these have become quite collectable. One example was the Cotton bowl watch that was given to players and coaches of the teams playing in the Cotton Bowl. Now the dials are worth as much as a same era Air King watch! You see these watches come up for sale on the Vintage Rolex Market pretty frequently.

Mike, i believe that you will find the community here both helpful and generous. If you are courteous, don't act abusive or overly critical, everyone here will go out of their way to help a fellow member. Looks like you are definitely up to speed on your etiquette, but it always goes a long way to thank folks for their help, and most all of us are into "pay it forward". As you spend more time here, the day will come that you can help someone else as well. Welcome to the forum

I had some problems last year (Summer) with a couple of packages mailed from Australia to me. It seems like the US Customs folks along with the USPS didn't tell anyone that anything shipping Airmail over 13 oz. was going to be scrutinized, and there had to be a customs declaration attached. In the past low value items could be put in a padded envelope, and sent airmail, no customs declaration, etc. Not now!! In the USA, I believe that it is one method to make folks opt for the higher priced Priority or Express mail. Incidently, has everyone noticed how much international shipping has gotten thru the USPS. I would say that in the past 5 years, the price of International Priority mail has almost doubled. It's no bargain to ship overseas today.

I totally agree with nanug. If you are in such a hurry, don't even stop here, use Ebay, they don't vet anyone! That's probably why a large number of watch sales end up with either a dissatisfied customer or a dealer that has a less than stellar rating because of problems. If I were to sell a high value watch here, I would appreciate the vetting process. It makes it easier to sell the item, because the buyer can be confident that I'm not some "Fly by night" Scam artist that lands here, fleeces a bunch of members and then disappears. unfortunately, that has happened even with vetting, but it does put up one more firewall to protect the members. I saw the same thing. I can't read German, but he has a 95% rating, which gives pause as well. Also a lot of the items are small value items. Saw a couple of ETA 7750 movements, but nothing i could identify as a high end item. also those watches he wanted to sell are not listed in his "items for sale". As others have said in the postings above, if you aren't happy with the way things are done here, all I can say is, Adios Amigo.