panerai153

thanks to both of you for the info. Now the question is how do I get them apart? I don't want to bugger up the insert or the retaining ring trying to get them apart.

I'm getting some stuff together to send up to ziggy, one of which is the blue insert on my Tudor 9411/0 It came with a service insert w/ Lumi pearl. i picked up a really nice creamy white Tritium pearl on VRF a few weeks ago with the intention of changing out to the correct pearl. So here is my question/problem. I popped the bezel off the Tudor, and when i did, the crystal came off as well. I'm looking at the watch, and I don't see a retaining ring or a washer. the bezel looks a little strange, like possibly the retaining ring is stuck to the inside of the bezel. What is really strange is the lack of a washer inside. The bezel is really tight when it's on the watch, but it will turn. What I was wondering, was the Tudor bezel construction different from the Rolex subs? It looks like the same case, but something is strange here. i know everything on it is genuine, because it was serviced at RSC San Francisco several years ago. I would appreciate any advice information, etc. I will send the watch up to Ziggy if this is incorrect. I was under the impression that the bezel assembly consisted of 4 pieces, bezel, retaining ring insert and washer. mine only has two, unless the retaining ring is stuck inside the bezel itself. Here are a few photos:

i understand. i thought the problem was with the hands, but the case not accepting the movement certainly is a no-go situation. thanks very much for clearing that up for me.

Congrats to 2000 posts :thumbsupsmileyanim: . Don't feel bad, we both joined on the same day, and I just passed 1000!!

Remember this old saying: The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."

Would this fix work on the 2893-2 movement to get the hands high enough to clear the dial indices on a GMT master IIc? That seems to be the biggest sticking point preventing a movement swap from a 2836-2 to a 2893-2 Beautiful work as usual . :thumbsupsmileyanim:

Seiko "Monster" Black, Orange blue, etc. Tough, reliable, fairly inexpensive.

1.Continued success for the forum and all of our valued members 2. 1+ hike's porn collection I would suspect that wifey would not have this one in the top 1000 Christmas wishes! 3. Freddy send's me his beautiful white PanAm GMT for "safekeepinig" 4. Ziggy moves to Mississippi to finally get out of the cold!!

Pretty hard to tell from that one contrasty photo. Would be better to have a straight on face shot, as well as a side shot of the crown side. Crown guards look off compared to my v3, but the photo is so poor, it's difficult to see

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news , but I totally agree. you are a couple of thousand off on the cost of your super franken. First as I said above you aren't going to find a 3135 movement for 600.00 USD, Another thing, you have grossly underestimated the costs. You seem to be using Ebay starting prices rather than closing prices for your parts. Also, you haven't mentioned a bracelet. You certanly need a genuine bracelet to complement your watch. I believe that all of the folks who have weighed in on your project are experienced forum members who have all modded watches to a much higher level. I believe as well that all will agree, most of their priojects ended up costing significantly more than they estimated. The sales forum is often a destination for projects that are abandoned because members grossly underestiimated costs. Another factor that you need to consider is resale value. i would suspect that if you go forward with this project, and at some point in time you need to sell it, you will be hard pressed to get 50% of your costs back, unless you part out the watch. I would take the WM9/BK to the next level with perhaps a genuine crown/tube, bezel insert, possibly a bezel, but as far as going anything past that point. It's very iffy. The movement in a v3 is a reliable Swiss ETA movement. get it serviced and it should be relaible for years. Wear the hell out of it and enjoy it. Even if you changed everything buit the case, it's still a rep. It's never going to be a genuine, no matter how many genuine parts you add. If you want a genuine 16610, I would invest in a genuine.

Beautiful watch. I have to say ziggy has re-lumed several watches for me with his vintage lume, and it is absolutely the best there is. his lume jobs either with some "Glow" added, or "non-glow" are indestinguishable from genuine. He's the best!

We've been talking a lot lately about the price/value ratio with "Super frankens" The general consensus is around 20% of the cost of a genuine model. With a 16610, you can't even come closer to that. I have seen older 16610's over on VRF for less than 3k, and lots for sale around 3.5k, so if you use the 20% rule, you shouldn't spend more than 700.00 USD which is just a little more than and unmodified WM/BK will cost you. Like some of the others said, at the most a genuine crystal, bezel insert crown/tube. If you were doing this over time, you could be on the lookout for a good dial that could be installed later. Still with this, you are way over budget. As to the 3135, if you can get one for 600.00 USD , buy a bunch, because you can sell all you can find for 800-900 USD and make a 300 USD profit on every one! When you said you bid 600, that's not the same as winning one for 600. Over the last month, i bid on probably 10-15 older datejusts specifically for a 1570 movement. most of those sat around 300-600 USD until the last few minutes of the auction, and in a couple of minutes the prices jumped from 600 to 1500. I ended up buying a movement off a VRF member. So if I were you, I would expect to pay 1500-2000 USD for a good serviced 3135. My advice to you. Save your modding money and get a genuine

Possibly would be better to go straight to the source. i know Ziggy has a price guide, you could probably PM him for an emailed copy.VAC will tell you what his charges are if you email him. Kent Parks used to have that info on his website, but I haven't been there in a long time ,so I can't say. Another thing, if you have specific projects, it would probably be better to tell them what you want done, and they can then give you a pretty close estimate of the cost.

Good advice. It obviously must be hit or miss. It works fine for me. It's too bad it isn't consistent, as the search is truly the "keys to the kingdom"

Because unfortunately, like a lot of "noobs" who come on to the forum, they arrive with a lot of questions, but want easy answers to hard questions. I'm not being critical of you in particular, It's just a fact that you will learn more by doing your own research, rather than having others find it, condense it and feed it back to you. there are some great reviews here, watches, movements, modding, etc. All you have to do is use the search function.Read the A7750 reviews, and when you're done, you will know more about that movement than you ever wanted to know. Good luck with your search.

The price is right. These weere selling for 4.5k a year or two ago, but it looks like the market for used contemporary stuff is a little weak. I've seen a couple of "beater" 16610's go for less than 3k in the last few weeks.And by beater, i don't mean they were in terrible shape, just some wear, and stretched bracelets. Of course no Box and papers. The only thing i find strange about this auction is the paperwork part. What he has for paperwork, is the stuff I can buy off Ebay every day, but he doesn't have the most important one and that is the certificate ( maybe on this late model it is a plastic card) which is the one thing that is pretty difficult to duplicate. I also don't like the no returns, use Ebay Buyer protection. I'm pretty sure as Dizzy said, it's a legit GMT Master II, but there are just a few too many alarm bells ringing to let me stay in my comfort zone on one like this. He could have possibly gotten several hundred dollars more for this watch had he put up a half dozen high quality photos including a couple of the movement.

I hope you put a good serviced movement in it, because it may be a looooong wait for the 16660 WM9 SD. :(

Thanks Ubi, Your info along with all the other good advice i got from others here have convinced me that this isn't the project I want to do. I believe that the best alternative would be to keep it as is, save up muy pennies and try to fnd a nice 1680. I have had two of them (Genuine) in my lifetime, and i sold both of them before I realized that they were "collectible". I would really like to have another at some point in time to hand down to my son, who also likes and appreciates good watches.

Actually on the GMT II's you could always track three time zones by moving the bezel to track the 3rd TZ. 1st TZ- hour hand, 2nd TZ GMT hand, 3rd TZ Bezel. On the older GMT's you can only track two as the GMT hand is not independently settable (like the rep GMT's and gen's with 2893-2's The GMT hand on the 1675 and 16750 utilize the bezel to indicate the second time zone.

I think you are pretty much right, although I have a recently serviced 1570 with silver datewheel and the 1680 calandar date disc offered to me for 950.00 USD, so if i can pick up a dial for 250-300 a set of Clark hands, I'm in for another1300.00 USD plus the costs of getting it all put together say another 300.00 USD or around 1600.00 USD total. But, when you figure that the watch in it's present state of modding would be worth about 700-800 USD then the sale of the watch plus the parts and labor costs (1600.00USD) total 2300-2400 hundred USD, would be more than half the price of a genuine. Here is the other quandry we are faced with. More than likely if you purchase a genuine 1680 in fairly good shape, it isn't going to lose much or any value if it's kept up. the rep Super franken on the other hand is probably only worth the sum of the parts, with a very limited market. How many folks here have put watches on the sales forum for 2500-3000 USD (which in a lot of cases is less than they have in the watch) only to see them languish unsold. In several cases, the seller ends up breaking the watch up and selling the genuine parts to try to get some of his money back.this was the priomary reason i got out of reps several years ago, i got killed on several highly modded MBW Subs and SD's, wheras my genuine watches were selling for about what I payed for them. So my feelings are if you are going to mod a few really nice watches, and wear them for a long time, then you can justify spending a fair amount of money on them, if however you fall into and out of love with watches on a regular basis, and none stay around too long, then probably the best and safest course would be genuine watches or reps that you wear out the box and don't spend a lot of money on. I'm just throwing this out as food for thought, to get ideas and opinions from members whoo are on both sides of the modding fence, those that believe that it isn't complete until it's been "Tweaked' to the max, and the other side who have no interest in modding at all.

I’m looking at a hypothetical situation here for the most part. Watch in question is and old MBW 1680 (original Polex Design) White letter dial. The following mods have been done to the watch. Genuine 127 Crystal Genuine Bezel insert and pearl Genuine Crown/tube ETA 2846-2 movement Crown guards shaped /lug holes drilled Now here is the question. Would you, if you could, take this watch to the next step, which would be a genuine 1570 movement, Dial and hands? Or some combination of the above such as 1570 movement, very good re-finished dial Clark hands for instance. Or would you leave it as is, possibly save up your coins, sell the watch and find a reasonable genuine 1680? I’m asking this really as a hypothetical question, as I’m neck deep in a DRSD 1665 project right now, but this could possibly be a future project. At the present time, I’m leaning a little more toward selling this and a couple of other watches, and using the money toward a genuine. Using Freddy’s guide (price/value ratio) ,it’s hard to justify spending around half of the price of a genuine on a franken, no matter how good it is. Let me know what you all think. I know quite a few folks have taken their 1680 to the level of Super franken. How do you guys feel about it now? Would you have been better off in the long run putting that money toward a genuine?

I have lost a lot of respect for some of those guys after this (Actually a few of them were not on my "A"list before). What really made me angry was the post by "Viper" that was and out and out lie. He totally made up a Bull S**T story about the 1570 movement ticking away in the 5510, then wonders "What happened to the 1530 that should have been in the watch" Luckily, several of the other members pounced on him pretty hard. basically calling him out that he lied in his post. What all this sounds like is a bunch of spoiled brats whining because they didn't steal the watch from the seller, or they don't have enough money to afford it. They made a really big deal about the USA bracelet. Why? The seller plainly said that he wore the watch as his primary watch for many years , probably only taking it off when he scrubbed in for surgery. What the Hell do they expect from a 1958 watch, Bracelets wear out. Probably since he was just a short drive south of Dallas, the watch got sent through the RSC in Dallas, maybe several times. More than likely at some point in time, the bracelet was changed for a US bracelet, totally usual for this age watch. After all when you look at the for sale posts, how many 1680,s from rthe late 60's and early 70's still have the original 9315 bracelet and 380 end links? Not many that I can see. I know one thing, there are a couple of VRF guys that i wouldn't buy a Timex from, much less a Rolex!

I think this old guy can take care of himself. He didn't get through one of the most grueling of surgical specialty residencies (Neurosurgery) by being a dummy. Several years as a flight surgeon and then 35 years of private practice. folks this isn't "Joe sixpack"! I believe that from his sales items, he has a variety of interests. He sold some serious deep sea fishing tackle on Ebay (They don't give away Fin-Nor reels). I would expect that he found woodworking a complementary hobby to his profession (Splitting wood as opposed to splitting skulls!!!) Seriously, most of the specialty surgeons I have worked with are very detail oriented and making fine furniture would have many analogs to surgery. (If you make a mis cut, bad things happen, if you hit it too hard, it splits) He is being excoriated by the "experts" on VRF, none of whom I expect did any bidding, except for Steve Mulholland. Although I would bet that several of those scumbag low ball pleas to end the auction early were from contributors to the various genuine Rolex forums. Some of their diatribes may be a direct result of the old guy telling every one of them NO!!, when they tried to trick him into selling early. Once they were found out, they unleashed their negative posts to make him look like a scammer and a scoundrel. I sincerely hope that he has the last laugh.

Pretty graphically illustrates how much this one has improved over the past 2 years. Must be the season for DSSD's About this time last year, it seemed like every other thread was about DSSD's. then in the spring, the DSSD threads disappeared from view, and almost nothing was posted until recently. I suppose some of this is related to the lack of "New' versions on the scene. Now they are starting to reappear. Maybe they hibernate during the warmer months!

Crown is way too big as well, or the truly crap crownguards make it look too big. this one isn't worth the postage to get it to your house.