panerai153

Mike as you and I have spoken, this is a huge tragedy. Nothing can be more devastating than suddenly and without warning have your whole life as you know it come crashing down in pieces. The loss of possessions is nothing, they can be replaced. The loss of loved ones is the real tragedy. They cannot be replaced. My thoughts and prayers go out to Alvin and his family. I can certainly empathize with him during these times of intense grief. Alvin, my friend, if you are reading or should read these posts at a later date, please know that your friend down here in the Deep South is thinking about you and your family.

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Sometimes these are a really frustrating. One thing I do is run something through the holes in the new strap to clean out any glue or leather inside. I then try to line up the holes by using the same thing, started with a straightened out heavy paper clip, now I use a small drill bit. Once I can get the bit all the way through I slowly back it out and advance the lug screw as I pull out the bit. Sometimes it takes a lot of jiggling and pressure to get everything to line up. AP has to have developed the most diabolical band attachment mechanism of any watch company around. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Guys, I'm not much of a contemporary Rolex fan, the only one I own is a 116710 Franken GMT. I have a colleague who is wanting a Ceramic sub, preferably the blue dial, blue bezel model. He showed me a photo from one of the scam rep sites and I told him not to buy from there and I would try to find him a decent one and not have him get scammed. My question is who has good examples of these? I have been looking on the sales forums, but these don't seem to come up for sale very often., so it looks like I will have to get it from a dealer. Any help appreciated. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There are some that have a working countdown timer, not sure they are still available from the TD's. I saw one for sale in the M2M sales in one of the forums a few weeks back. I seriously considered it, but it just wasn't calling me loudly enough to pull the trigger! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If someone can build a nice reasonably comparable rep to thus one, I would definite be interested. The no date ceramic Rolex rep sounds like a good base to start this one. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think that Kernow hit it on the head. Because the quartz movements are for the most part mass produced low cost items, think phone chargers calculators, etc. they are held in disdain by most all high end watch aficionados. These are folks like a lot of us here who admire the skill and knowledge necessary to produce a fine mechanical movement, and we are admiring the mechanisms themselves not so much for their superb timekeeping, most do keep super accurate time but some don't, but the beauty and intricacies of this tiny little engine. That is not to denigrate the quartz movements. For "Grab and go" watches, they are the best no doubt. For super accurate timekeeping, they are the best. I believe that you will find that most folks who are not "watch people" are happy with the lack of fussiness of quartz watches. Only have to change the date when the month doesn't end in 31, and they are pretty darn accurate. I find that a lot of women, including my wife prefer quartz watches. She likes watches, but she doesn't like to "fool with them". She quit wearing a perfectly good Genuine Rolex Lady Datejust with diamond bezel and dial for a Tag Aquaracer, mainly because it is quartz. WIS like to "Fool with" our watches, wind them, set the date, set the time, etc. Non WIS want to pick up a watch strap it on and go, they are not amoured with a watch because of it's movement, the clarity of the AR, the DW font, etc. They want one that is nice looking relatively inexpensive, rugged and always accurate.

Lowly 1665 today!!

That is a nice example of a well kept 6542. AFA the case backs, I expect that they use what is available, so what you end up with is a flat back which is more available than the bubble backs which are correct. Question is how do you adapt the yuki dial which is made for a gen Rolex movement? Since it's what I call a press fit dial rather than a dial with dial feet, it would have to be able to fit the movement. When I was building mine, there was a gen 1030 GMT movement for sale on VRF, they were only asking 3k !! Way out of my price range, but the correct movement for the 6542. I used an Ingod white 1675 dial which to my old eyes was identical to the Ingod 6542 dial which was the same configuration as the yuki dial. That's a moot point now as his dials are no longer available unless you can find one from another member. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Sometimes it's hard to find the dealer links even on their page. I suspect that a lot of them want to try to keep their website information as private as possible. we have no way of knowing who travels through this and other rep sites, so the less "outsiders" who know the web addresses, the better. Unfortunately, this sword also cuts both ways, as it keeps folks looking to buy away as well. All I an tell you is keep trying. Sometimes they have a link at the bottom of a post that they make on one of the threads in their section.

Like everything else in life, the better it is, the more it costs!! So the first step is deciding your budget. The Cartel watches use a pretty sturdy ST-19 Venus copy movement. their biggest obvious drawback, the ST-19 is a bicompax movement, so the minute totalizer at 6 is non functional. the 7750 and V-72 movements are all tricompax, so all subdials work. As has been said, the DW watches are no longer available except as a M2M purchase. So it all depends on how much you want to spend. I suppose the Gold cartel models sell for less than 400.00 USD brand new. The DW models used will depending on the amount of modding, go from 500.00 USD to close to a thousand. If the watch has all the spinmaster mods, gen crown/tube, Crystal as well as and ETA 7750, it's going to be close to the top number. When you get into the V-72 movement models, the sky's the limit!! Really good case, genuine parts, oiled and serviced movement and a really good dial, several thousand dollars easy.

Biggest problem today is the dial. Cases can be gotten, I personally think the Ming Quy case is the best, but Phongs are good as well. Lots of 6542's have been made with other cases that are slimmed and modded. When Ingod was in business he had a nice dial for a 6542 build, but he's gone, so that source has dried up. The dial that comes in the yuki kit is a snap on dial that is designed for the Rolex movement. Not sure if it can be modified to fit an ETA 2846. I built mine about 3 years ago, and it was a long tough haul. Most of my problems were movement related, probably due to a well worn old 2846 movement. I finally finished the last part of the puzzle when jmb engraved the caseback with the Pan AM "Meatball" and issue number. I was fortunate enough to get a Ming Quy case from a fellow who is no longer here an Ingod dial and a lot of help from quite a few members here. Especially JoeyB who assembled it and gave me a lot of advice along the way. Since the white dials are not readily available anymore, I doubt that I would undertake this build today.

Better ways to start a 6542 project than this one. I'm sure it's not cheap either. Problem is today, there aren't any good 6542 dials around at a reasonable price since ingod disappeared. If you want to build a 6542, search on this forum, there are a lot of good threads about 6542 builds and what is needed.

I bet Matt could answer this question. He has worked on lots of them. My wife's TT gen Datejust got to where it wouldn't hand wind. I sent it to Matt and he did a complete service and it's been running like a charm for a couple of years. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Tudor Big Block today Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pretty much true. The supply of ETA movements is being choked off by Swatch. Some are still available from the supply houses and distributors, but the supply is dwindling. MKII watches, which is a boutique brand that builds very nice watches in the 1000-1500 USD range, has a very nice 6542 Rolex GMT homage in preproduction. Lots of folks missed out on the ordering and there has been an appeal to make more than the planned run of 300. Unfortunately, the supply of ETA 2893-2 movements has dried up and probably won't be any more than the 300 produced. So if a boutique watchmaker who has lots of contacts in Switzerland can't get movements, I doubt that the Chinese makers are getting them. long gone are the days when anyone with the funds could buy ETA movements in 50 or 100 slot trays.

Haven't worn this one in a long time!! The "poor man's Big Crown" Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's very nice. I have been vacillating about the 1016 for years!! Not sure if it's for me either, but this one sure looks nice!!

Thank you sir for the accolades. I can be pretty short sometimes, especially when the noob asks a question that has been asked about 10 million times and is pretty much only answered by personal research. Like who has the best sub!!! In this case, this is a god question, and I believe that redefining his parameters was worth the post. I know that in my case, Since I'm not a fan of or use many Asian xxxxx movements, I'm not very familiar with the differences, except that I know from experience that some of the high end Chinese movements like the Sea Gull 2130 and the BiCompax Venus copy are good well made solid movements, but beyond that, I figure that the movement in the watch will run til it quits or get's erratic, and at that point I will have to decide if I want to replace it with a higher grade movement or get the movement serviced. What I usually do is decide if the watch is going to be a long term keeper, if it is, I replace the movement, otherwise I get it serviced or replace it with a similar "Cheapo" movement.

First off sir, there are tons of articles on the differences. What you need to realize that while the ETA, Sellita, Soprod ,etc. SWISS movements are built within a highly regulated watch industry, the Chinese have no such standards. There are several grades of Chinese movements, and in fact the top grade movements are comparable to the Swiss, the bottom grades are pretty much junk. So rather than worrying about the difference between SWISS and Chinese, I would first concentrate on telling the difference between the various grades of Chinese movements. Why not worry about the Swiss? First off you are not going to see any new ETA movements in reps today, unless it's and older rep or one that has an ETA movement transplanted into the watch by the owner. All these ETA movements the dealers are selling are either old movements taken from watches or they are a mashup of Swiss and Chinese parts. Now, go read. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

If I were going to change out the movement, and everything fit, I would definitely go with a 2893-2 as it s a rugged purpose built GMT movement. Key words here is "if it fits". There were a few attempts to transplant the 2893 into the 116710 GMT Ceramic, which met with very limited success, I believe primarily because the pinions were too short and the hands wouldn't clear the dial indices. This should be less of a problem with the 1675 or early 16750's (before the white gold surrounds). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is the date window on the gen square and the rep more rectangular? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

AP V7 on Donerix Sharkskin Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk