Mendota Explorer

G-damn you guys! The quality of the pics today is incredible! Not to mention how gorgeous all of the watches are today. I'm loving it. [emoji2]

If you think about it, all that bezel does is offer a simple ability to track units of time. If you have a meeting in 20 minutes, you rotate the bezel accordingly so that the arrow points to your future minute when the meeting begins. Have a steak on the grill and you need to flip it in 5 minutes? Rotate the bezel. The Turnograph predated the submariner by many years and offered that feature. Then the sub took it and made it useful for diving by having a thicker and more robust, water resistant case, but the basic feature is the same. The Thunderbird offered that feature on a sleek, dress watch without having to wear a clunky dive watch to get it.

Cool!

Catching up on a little late night TV.

I definitely see your point. In my mind, kit cars, or the idea of kit cars, usually means a package or box deal that includes all of the necessary components and instructions delivered to your door or to your mechanic, but you are on your own for assembly or the manufacturer of the kit can sometimes refer you to a local mechanic who can help you with assembly. If I go out and source a vintage Corvette Stingray chassis, then find an engine, and start building the car around that... this isn't a kit. I'm building a vintage car from scratch. This is what Dbane and the others are doing. My wife's uncle works with the guy who owns one of the most beautiful and exotic kit car companies on the planet - the Excalibur roadster. My god, these are insanely gorgeous. He's on the board for his engineering firm. What our Jedi are doing is not kit cars. They are sourcing individual parts from the ground up, part by part. In my opinion, that is building a vintage auto from scratch. You are right about the restoration part. That does imply taking an original piece and rebuilding and improving it. That level of excellence aside, I aspire to be able to make the amazing level of vintage builds that you make. You can take a Silix turd and polish it into an amazing vintage masterpiece! [emoji1] [emoji6]

I do and I don't necessarily agree. I look at what Dbane, cc33, Nanuq, Droptopman, Freddy, and LukeNorris (sorry if I misspelled names or have left anyone out) have done with super genken big crown builds, and I directly compare these builds to restoring vintage cars. Direct, apples to apples comparison in every way, shape and form. When restoring a vintage auto or wooden boat, you have two choices to make. 1) Is this going to be used for personal enjoyment or 2) will this be shown at auto events, car shows, or boat events and possibly sold down the road. The answer to each of those questions directly impacts the avenue you take for the restoration. In scenario #1, you are free to source aftermarket parts built to OEM specs and at the end of the day, the finished car or boat is still a classic Mustang, or Vette, or ChrisCraft. The only difference is instead of being 100% vintage original, there are some OEM-spec parts included in the thing. In scenario #2, however, a comprehensive accounting for parts is required and you need to stick with as many original parts as humanly possible. Provenance is of the utmost importance and this directly affects your ability to even participate in a show or even consider selling it down the road. Still, regardless of the scenario, every person you encounter on the street, auto/boat lover or general layperson alike, will absolutely love what you have done. No question about it. With these gen parts franken big crown builds that our skilled Jedi have produced, using gen movements, I see them as hybrids between both scenarios. They are for all intents and purposes, gen watches with a reconditioned gen dial and a recase, or whatever you call it when the midcase itself isn't original but the replacement is a direct OEM-spec replacement. Personal enjoyment is a given, but there is without a doubt significant value there down the road if the piece were to be sold. The provenance is easily documented along with the build list, and all someone needs to do is source a gen midcase and they have a 100% gen watch. No, these aren't going to sell for $50K at Christie's, but no buyer looking for that kind of original showcase level piece with paperwork is going to consider a build like this. Regardless, any vintage watch lover/collector or layperson will be in agreement that these are gorgeous and incredible. That's what is the most important.

Whatever ended up happening to him? I remember back in '08 and '09 he was doing special 3-pack deals for Christmas. You could choose 3 watches from a menu of 21j options for a fixed price that (I think) included shipping.

Love the red seconds hand!

Thanks for taking the time to post this, and congrats on the new baby boy! I have 3 of them myself, with the youngest one being 18 months. Good times!

This review is about an older version of the GMTIIC. Look at the date of the post. It is from a year ago. Someone just revived it from the dead, which prompted me to say hey, we could use a similar side by side review now that an even better version is out. [emoji2]

Dayum! Look at that gilt! I could stare at that all day long.

Wow! That's awesome. Michael Young does a lot of bracelet stretch repair and restoration work. The prices people have mentioned on TRF seem reasonable, too.

Great info! I'll make a mental note of this for future reference. Yuki dial seems to be a good choice here, as well. Awesome. Is your crown gen? Are the stock Cartel hands OK or is a set of Yuki hands matched with the dial a better choice? I know a lot of people opt to get a matching set of hands with the Yuki 1016 dial. Not sure if the 5513 is the same way or not.

That's really helpful information. Great insights. Thank you. The dial seems like the most high profile, and most difficult component to acquire, so that makes sense that the whole project should center around it.

Awesome! [emoji2]

Who is doing the engraving for you?

I think it looks great. Only WIS types are ever going to notice and it is covered up by the bracelet 99% of the time anyway!

So what is the best starting point for one of these epic journeys? Do you start with a big piece such as the dial, the movement, or the case and then go and build from there? Or do you just look for anything and everything and just grab it as you find a good deal?

It is gorgeous. Is the Cartel 5513 (Josh and Andrew) still the best starting point for a 5513 build?

Same here. It's vintage Monday at its finest. Where's your masterpiece?

Good night, gents!

No. Angus issues a generic 5% off discount code a few times a year. Subscribe to his newsletter and you'll get it when he offers the next one. The last one was for the new year. I bet he'll have another one sometime this summer.