Mendota Explorer

Wow. That's amazing!

Nice piece! That's my favorite Datejust iteration - the rhodium dial, Romans, smooth bezel, and oyster. Enjoy it!

Wow. What a gorgeous piece. I'd be happy with a nice rep. To be gen and original is the icing on the cake. It doesn't get any nicer than this.

Is this beauty a gen? It's fantastic. By looking at your list, does that mean your 6536/1 is also a gen? I'm so infatuated with your big crown that I never really paid close attention to the other.

I forgot to add a 1665 double red to my dream box list. I already have a nice PT red 1680 but the sea dweller should have a place at the table.

What are the specs on this build? It's beautiful.

Beautiful shot!!

How many pieces do you have total?  I'd love to see a group shot someday.  My perfect dream vintage watchbox would contain:

A 6538, 6538a, 6200, 1675, 6542, and a 1016.

Best looking watches Rolex has ever or will ever produce.

Droooooool!  

These are so beautiful.  Lovely pieces, fellas.  Nice work on all of them.  I aspire to put together something as gorgeous as these someday.

You, sir, deserve a round of applause for this.  I love it!  Thank you for posting.  

Wow. That is beautiful. I want one!

Hmmm, seems like Mrs. Athaya is dropping the ball on these replies.  He was so lightning fast with me whenever I had questions for him in the past.  

Hope everything is OK.  That would really stink if something bad has happened and we lost this resource on the forums. He's working on a 6538 case and has said to other people that it should be ready sometime this year. 

LOL great post!

Is he back from his travels yet? He said he was going to be off the grid for work for an extended period of time and would not be on the forums. The only way to communicate with him is with direct email and even then it will be his wife answering it to take orders. He provided a list of the ready made items still available during his absence and the crowns are among the items.

Try emailing him instead of PM. That's probably why you haven't heard anything.

His user name on RG is different, right? Just confirming he's the same fella that everyone is raving about over there. He does franken builds, too, from what I understand. Totally customized to your liking. Can't beat that.

I'm not saying any of this is true, and I don't believe it, but I watched an interesting documentary which featured interviews with people who worked at the WTC and survived. Some said in the months prior to that fateful day, there was a lot of construction going on in various floors. There were also lots of guys bringing in big spools of cables. One of the people interviewed was in security for the WTC and he said none of this construction was on the books. They had entire floors blocked off at times, the work took place at odd hours, and none of it was on their official schedule logs or whatever he called it. In other words, if you go back and look at the records it's not there. Again, I don't know if it is true and I tend to think it was normal phone or telecom upgrades just taking place during a busy summer and not trying to disrupt the work days for so many people.

Uff da!  That's a lot to process.  Are you saying it's sort of like "Loose Change," the student film documentary that got studio backing and was going to be released in theaters but never was?

The pics are still down.

The MQ and Phong cases all have nice chamfer on the lugs, though.  Do the NDT and Ingod cases leave out that detail like the cheap rep cases do?  Even Yuki cases have chamfer, don't they?

This one is literally just a straight, 90 degree wall from the side edge of the lug.  Not good.  I'm wearing my Puretime red 1680 right now and that has nice chamfer to it.

Wow, you are right. I don't know about that other stuff, but there is no chamfer whatsoever on that case. How would that even be possible on a gen?

That's a gen Rolex movement though. Did he just grab pics from somewhere else or from a different gen watch?

Beautiful!

This is too funny!  I told a guy over on TRF, very tongue in cheek, to do this very same thing about a month ago.  He was a Pam guy and was making some comments about how he liked Rolex vintage pieces but they were too small for his Pam tastes.  He said even the modern DSSD was too small for him and he wanted something 45-50mm.  

I advised him to go find a vintage Rolex pocket watch, put a strap on it, and then he'd have the best of both worlds.  He'd have a vintage Rolex timepiece that was nice and fat like a Pam.  LOL  

Nice!  It looks fantastic!  I love the 6542 and it's on my dream list.  Do you have the roulette date wheel?

I just noticed something that I had never noticed before.  The 6542 has a long hour hand just like the big crown 6200 does.  I wonder if it would be possible to find one for an ETA 28xx movement? A member was trying to get Michael Young to produce one for the DG2813 but it never came to fruition.  He might have them already produced for the gen movement, though.  Maybe it's possible to modify the gen spec hand to fit an ETA??

Gen pic for reference.

Are you sure?  That looks like a service replacement luminova dial.  I could be wrong, but at least in 1972 (which I am looking at as a birth year piece) they were still using tritium.  Not sure about 1973.

A quick interwebz search reveals that your dial is indeed a replacement dial.  They didn't start using the plain "Swiss" text again until '98.  Just FYI.

1. “Swiss”

   
   

   luminous material Radium

   
   

   used until 1960

   
   

   radioactive

   
   
   

   “Swiss T - < 25”

   
   

   luminous material Tritium

   
   

   used from 1960 until 1998

   
   

   radioactive, radioactivity less than 925 MBq (25 mCi)

   
   
   

   “T Swiss T”

   
   

   luminous material Tritium

   
   

   used from 1960 until 1998

   
   

   radioactive, radioactivity less than 277 MBq (7,5 mCi)

   
   
   

   “Swiss”

   
   

   luminous material luminova

   
   

   used from 1998 until 2000

   
   

   not radioactive

   
   
   

   “Swiss Made”

   
   

   luminous material Superluminova

   
   

   used from 2000

   
   

   not radioactive 

Great looking piece! Nice work with this.

Looks good. Is that Athaya's 702?