panerai153

I understand that we probably spend an inordinate amount of time talking about "super reps" and highly modded watches. I believe that for the most part folks enjoy reading and looking at photos if these watches. I believe that a huge amount of knowledge can be gained from these threads. Obviously, before someone spends 3-5k on a vintage Daytona build, they are going to spend a lot of time researching all the nuances of these models. Most folks are eager to share this information, which is wonderful because if for nothing else, it keeps the rest of us from making the same mistakes over and over. I also tend to agree that we build these watches, spend a lot of money on them and then are disappointed when we put them up for sale and are disappointed at what they eventually sell for. Believe me, I know that feeling all to well. In fact back when some of us were on the old TRC, I got so disgusted with taking a beating on modded reps that I sold every one of my reps and totally got out of reps for several years. I suppose I didn't learn my lesson very well, because I'm right back in the same dilemma, with a box full of highly modded reps!! I think that most of us that have built a few realize that the chances are very slim that we will ever get our money back on a build. I think that for most of us it's more the journey than the destination Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Problem solved!! Sold the V5.1 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Those are terrific cameras. I have a Fuji X Pro-1 super nice, but it's up for sale as I decided to stick with my Canon DSLR system. As much as I like the Fuji, I just couldn't afford to keep two systems. cc, the hybrid is amazing. It's so much better than all the digitalis that only have a viewing screen on the back. How many times have you tried to take photos in bright sunlight and you couldn't see the screen? With the viewfinder, no problem. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Drop top, It's usually pretty easy to discern who is legitimately interested and the "hit and run" guys who don't seek knowledge, just who has the best sub, etc. As I have said before, we were all noobs once. The big difference is who is genuinely interested in horology, has the intellectual curiosity to dig around and find answers, and is eager to help others who are looking to expand their knowledge base. Those are the type of folks who make a forum successful. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the info. I have thought about that option on several occasions, problem is the movements aren't commonly available, and the cheapest donor watches are several hundred dollars. I sure like the watch, but I've already spent a lot on it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a guy on Ebay watchNY who sells 6263 bezels that are much better than the old DW bezel. Akira, that is a beautiful job, basically you took a bucket full of lemons and made some delicious lemonade!! Well done sir. Fore the life of me. I cannot figure out why someone hasn't been able to source the "DW Daytonas". I doubt that DW was building them himself, so out there somewhere is a manufacturer that builds those nice Daytonas, looking for a sales person to peddle his watches!!

You might try to look up some of the threads on Rolexaddict's builds, get in touch with the guy who started the threads, give him your email and ask him to email RA and have him respond. Most folks here are pretty reluctant to give out email addresses, never know how the email address owner will react. I know back when Ziggy was doing work, he made it clear that if you gave out his information, you were off the list!! No problems with emailing him and giving him someone's email address, then it's up to him as to whether or not he responds.

I have seen it here, and a lot on some of the gen forums. A complete lack of intellectual curiosity, coupled with this overwhelming desire for instant gratification. There are a lot of folks here on this forum that I owe and immeasurable amount of gratitude for their knowledge, skills, and their unselfish desire to spread the knowledge. I would be far less knowledgeable about reps and watches in general were it not for you great guys. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the "no nothings" And I'm not talking about the noobs who come here with a very limited knowledge base, which is pretty much where we all started, but are diligent in their research, ask intelligent and well thought out questions, and before long are real contributing members of the forum. the ones I'm talking about are the ones that come here, with the sole purpose of finding a nice rep that will fool their friends and their fellow workers at Domino's, have no desire to increase their knowledge base or become a contributing member of the watch society. Sorry fellows, but for you, I don't have the time or inclination to spoon feed you knowledge that I and many others learned the hard way. These are the folks who are buying a rep for one purpose and one purpose only, to fool people into thinking that they are something that they are not. What these idiots don't realize is that it would take a real watch guy (WIS) about 30 seconds of conversation to realize that the person he is talking too is more fake than his watch!! You know I should be worried that I might step on some toes with this post, but I'm pretty confident that the folks I'm talking about aren't taking the time to read anything here, much less some mundane thread like this ( not being negative to your thread lhooq , just that those folks that refuse to read threads relevant to their watch desires will certainly not waste their valuable time reading this!!)

Need some input from you guys who are the real AP experts. I have two AP Divers, a V5 and a V5.1, I bought the V5.1 sort of on a whim, to wear while my 5.0 was at Vac's getting modded. Looks like there isn't much interest in the 5.1 so I've been thinking, what parts between the two would make one better watch? I know the inner bezel on the 5.1 is not as good as it has the "kissing" 50. Also it looks like the hands on the 5.0 are not as good as they are a grey color (Or is the gen watch grey like this?) I'm not sure I'm going to do this. but it would be nice to know what the experts think. Any and all ideas are appreciated.

Just wondering as I have had problems with two of my AP's that have undergone the slow beat conversions. One was done by a member here, and finally solved the problem by replacing the unstable slow beat with a Seagull ST 2130, now my second AP diver V5 is running about 15 minutes per 24 hours fast It was converted by Vac, came home and was not running right, sent back and it's still not right. Has anyone else experienced problems with these slow beat conversions? Very frustrating to send a watch back and forth trying to get problems sorted out. While I realize that sometimes it's not possible to adjust these to COSC specs, at least some semblance of accuracy is required.

Those photos are pretty bad, but looking at the case and the caseback, where is the gasket? I think that bc1221 is probably correct, the caseback is binding on the rotor. If there isn't a gasket, it's allowing the caseback to screw down too far and hit the rotor

That is very nice!! I've had a couple of other brands with the Bicompax movement and it's pretty good. Just to clear something up that often appears in sales threads and reviews. The movement in question here is not a Lemania copy, it is a copy of the Venus 175 movement. Here is a short blurb that I lifted from a thread by RobbieG, back in 2009. Perhaps the most interesting item in the Venus 175 history is ironically how we came to be the recipients of its clone via Seagull in relatively recent times. Around 1957, a factory in Moscow started producing a copy of an earlier Venus Caliber - the 150. This was the legendary 'Strela' movement. A few years later Venus was planning to reduce the number of movements they offered and were planning to offer an upgrade of the 175 - the 180. But they realized they needed money to do so which they would generate by selling some redundant tooling they didn't need. They first tried to sell it to the Soviets (who had already shown an interest in copying them) but they were happy with the Strela and turned them down. But it just so happened that at the same time the Chinese Airforce was in need of a pilot's chronograph and for political reasons could no longer buy Strela's from the Soviets. So Venus offered them the 175 by selling them all the tooling to make the movements. Here is a picture of an early 175 seen in a Chinese military pilots watch. It was only in production for military purposes for a time and then was eventually released to civilians as the Seagull ST-19 in more modern times. Here is a link to the very good .comprehensive thread by RobbieG comparing the Lemania Venus and Seagull chrono movements. http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/91877-lemania-2310-venus-175-seagull-st-19/ I know this is off the topic, and sorry for getting off topic. You have a beautiful watch. Could you tell us where it was purchased? Might be something I would be interested in.

These insane prices illustrate to me over and over, how much money is floating around in the world today. There is so much wealth today, folks act like they are spending Monopoly money instead of real cash! It's crazy. When you spend 660K or 1 mil for a watch, I believe that you seriously need to have your head examined! Of course I have never ever even been close to that sort of wealth, so who knows, If I were a billionaire, maybe I would be right in the middle of the bidding.

there is one for sale in the sales forum, on the first page. It's almost identical to the photo in your post. The seller has a list of all the parts used in the build. Go over and take a look, also I believe that for what the parts cost, this one is a bargain., but still pretty darn expensive.

I agree, with all the latest Rolex reps, the ceramic bezel is a big tell. look at the photos of a genuine and then look at a rep bezel, the numbers are totally different, depth, width and the platinum that Rolex uses for the numbers has not been replicated. IF you want and accurate sub that will be as close to genuine as you can get, I would go for the TC. Otherwise the BK for the ceramic.

Looks like you have at least been doing some research before asking the "Who has the best sub" question. Generally that question is met with some gentle and sometimes not so gentle flaming!! I don't keep up much with which is the latest and greatest Submariner. I have a genuine 16610 and that satisfies my "Sub appetite" I believe that many of the folks here would say that the TC is the best around now, but I would not take that as a fact. AFA the movements, unless you have access to a watch before you buy and can tell the difference between an Asian clone movement, a genuine Swiss ETA and an "amalgam" movement which is a mixture of Asian and Swiss parts, then you are buying a "Pig in a Poke". There are almost no new Swiss ETA movements available to the rep manufacturers, so what they are doing is cannibalizing old watches, which may have and old, dirty, worn out movement. Substituting some Asian clone and selling it for the price of a Swiss movement or using some ETA parts and some Asian parts to make a movement. At the very least, anything you buy is likely to be dirty and dry, or over oiled. I understand that TC uses a pretty good grade Asian movement. From the posts, it seems to be a good movement and is not any more problematic than an ETA.. Back a few years back, if you bought a rep with a Swiss ETA movement, you were assured that it was as described. it might be dirty, as they were buying unsealed movements in bulk, and were exposed to the dust dirt, human detritus that floats around in every rep makers workshop. No matter what movement you have, if it gets dust or lint or a human hair inside during the assembly process, it could cause problems later. All I can say is keep reading, hopefully some of the guys here who are more up to date on the contemporary sub reps will chime in here and help you out.

You would be better served by posting this in the "Want to Buy" in the Sales section. Since this is a discussion forum, want to buy and for sales threads are not allowed.

Nice watch and a great story! I have found that you can find out a lot of info about older Seikos over on the Seiko and Citizens forum. Also WatchUseek has a pretty active Seiko forum.

Mighty nice Sir!! Hard to beat the old iron.

How about some better photos? Can't tell much from these.

Like most everyone above has stated, you need to do a whole lot more reading and research before you start a build.One of the biggest mistakes that noobs make is start a build project without a really well thought plan. By this I mean what dial (start with a great dial and build around it). The Daytona, to do it right is a very, very expensive build, the parts are s scarce as hens teeth and are breathtakingly expensive. these are the builds that use the Val. 72 as the movement, a gen spec case. and a MQ or equivalent dial and a lot of genuine parts. There are other avenues, but they all require a decision at the beginning as to what you want to build. You can use a DW case set, an A7750 movement and a DW dial, or as some suggested you can start with the cartel watch and build from there, although this build is by far the least expensive, you reach a dead end well before you have a really outstanding watch. Plan your build and build your plan. That will help to decrease the amount of "stuff" you buy, only to find that it doesn't fit. or is totally wrong for your build. That is one of the biggest mistakes folks make is to accumulate a box full of parts that are not compatible. Remember this if nothing else from what I've written here, just because it looks like it will fit, doesn't mean that it will. Watch tolerances are in thousands of an inch, all it takes is be off a couple of thousands to not fit.

Amazing how the AD's worked to get around Rolex's draconian fixed prices. Most AD's wouldn't come off the MSRP a penny, but the ones who wanted your business would take a Timex in trade to get around the companies rule. "Let's see sir. that Submariner you are looking at is 750.00 USD plus tax." "Man, that's pretty steep, can you do any better than that?" "Sorry Sir I'm not allowed to discount", but we would entertain a trade in." How much would this Timex be worth in a trade" Well let's see, that one looks like it's in really nice shape, I think I can give you 100.00 USD on a trade in" Watch sold, Timex probably goes in the trash, or the salesman gives it to the stock boy, everyone is happy.

Just back from misiekped my 063

Back in June, I started a thread about the terrible Cyclops on my 063. This is a really nice 063 with a Swiss ETA 2893-2 movement and some custom work, relume, a better crown guard as well as a Jacob caseback. The biggest problem was the Cyclops, it was horrible. Every time you looked at it depending on the light, it looked different, sometimes it had a white reflection that looked like a piece of lume, sometimes there was a "halo or bull's-eye" effect like there was a Cyclops within a Cyclops!! This is very evident in the second photo. The numbers didn't seem to be in focus as well, they looked like you were looking through a dirty glass. Since the movement needed a minor repair, I decided to try to find a new crystal to send along with the watch. Several folks recommended that I contact DSN, which I did. He had a crystal, sold it and shipped it to me. The watch and new crystal went north to misiekped. He fixed the problem with the movement, and fitted the new crystal. I got the watch back a few days ago, and I was really happy with the results. the only problem that I can see, and this is one that I can easily live with is the Cyclops AR has a bit of blue reflection, not completely colorless. However, the numbers are legible an there are no strange affects in the Cyclops. Thanks and accolades to misiekped for a really great job as usual. Here are the before and after photos:1-2 before, 3- new crystal/cyclops