Stephane

Another Tribalised beauty ! Congrats my firend...now I'm jalous !🥰

Oh, no. That is a very sad news. I'm so very sorry for your loss David. Your dad helped me often, he was a very good man, no question ! With love from Brussels, Belgium.

Olraaaajjjjjjt as they say in Malta (Molta) I'll try to get in touch with Mr T. Thanks Bob 🙏

Hey guys, This link contains many other links which are broken... I'm not sure if there is an easy fix to replace rwgforum.net with rwg cc in all those urls ? Any idea? Cheers Stephane

Oh, what a lovely piece indeed ! 🥰

Hello everybody. I'm still getting notifications and thus I'm visiting from time to time. But I must say my life has changed totally since I got sober (5 years ago) and broke (2 years ago) ! The brotherhood of RWG helped me a lot 2 years ago when I couldn't even imagine having a simple job back. You guys gave me a couple of watches and hundreds of euros that kept me alive till I found a job. I'm back on track, a radio presenter job during nights and weekends, still sober, publishing a blog about my alcoholism. I earn a very nice income, live in a nice flat and eat more than enough. I don't have the financial power to buy reps (and certainly not gens), but I'm more into spiritual living than I was before, so all is fine. Great to have news from you guys ! Keep safe, Stephane

My God. I paid mine back then around 3 k €. If only I had kept all my gens I would have made some serious money...but then, as I'm the asshole I am, I preferred to spend the money on drinks back then. To answer your question, I have only one information: a friend of mine here bought a 16610 from 2000 with the "swiss" dial, the exact same as mine, for 7.000 € recently. I bought mine 3.100 in 2008 and sold it 3.750 in 2014 So my guess 7.500 USD is the correct market price these days. Good luck!

Happy Birthday to us all ! We've made it so far 🥳 Many more 😍

Oh well, that is one nice build Tribal. I'll get in touch with you, I may have endlinks somewhere 😉

I wish I was 13 too 🙏😂 Happy Birthday all of us ❤️

Happy 2019 to everyone at RWG ! I thank you all for your support which has saved me in a very difficult summer last year. I made it through with your kindness and generosity ! May you be free of suffering, hunger and discord, live a joyful life 🙏❤️ Much love and peace, Stephane

Welcome back Ken. Very sorry to hear about your Dad and the misfortune that followed.

Well, I did some stupid moves in this hobby like putting 2K of parts in a franken that doesn't even had that much gen parts. Money wise, it's insanity and I would never do it again neither buy a rep over 200 if I had still some decent income. But I had a great time here with some of you guys building these great watches. I owned gen, for example 1680 or 16800 and had reps build of the exact same models: I would go for the reps I sold here rather than the gens at the prices they are now. I paid my 1680 (White, full box, paper, service history...silver date wheel, 9315....) less that 4 k (€). They go for 10k to 15k now....ridiculous. My rep 1680 which is the last one I sold costed me around 1,700 and in my humble opinion was as good/nice as my gen was. Gen vintage is too high now anyway! If I ever want and can afford a 1680, I would buy mine back (if the buyer would sell it of course) 😂 In the end I wonder why I went for gens, wasn't it to feel superior, better than, show off ? For sure, what attracts me in a watch is the design, not the "in house movement" rather than a cheap Chinese one. For the record, a friend of mine from RWG offered me what he calls a cheap Chinese Rolex recently. It's running within COSC standards and it has the design even with the various tells for your expert eyes! And guess what: two persons came to me to tell me I had a great vintage Rolex (which never happened with my gens by the way). One of them even told me "It's a 1978 one I think, you shouldn't have it polished" Go figure 🤣 Bottom line: out of the box rep, 2-300€ is fine, more is ridiculous. Photos of My 1680 and 16800 and 16610 and so on

Oh well, my current collection right now is a watch offered by the RWG community and another by one member of RWG Monsieur By-Tor 😍 My life has been a rollercoaster, due to my inability to cope with it, so I sold all the gens, the reps and the modified ones too...(some I could not sell as they are not worth the trouble to fix for the recipient though). As we speak, one is in a good friend's hands to fit some parts I still had around. The virus of collecting more is gone anyway. Wearing the gifts is another story: gratitude to be able to wear the design I like (Rolex 5513) and feel the kindness behind it ❤️ Priceless ! Be well!

I identify with your post! I've been trying to get as close to the gen as possible...to finally buy the gen...to come back to the idea that I should ask myself what is it that I like in the model. Answer: I like the model 🤣 In short: why the hell would I modify anything if I like this or that design? And yes, why wouldn't you alter a model to have something different? Makes sense to me. My grail would be a white Daytona with date @4 by the way 😄

Good to see you J. 😎

Excellent news for the community ! Good luck Mike 😊

Life is amazing and I certainly intend to continue this journey. Only good things happen to me, even in hard times like these. Many many thanks V. May you have a blessed day 🙏

Thank you !

Dear All, I’ve been thinking about this Fundraiser that you guys organized for me. When I saw Mike’s post it I thought “oh, well, some of us are going through a rough path”. I had no idea this was intended to be for me. I’d like to give back to the fellowship of RWG. I will certainly do that in “gifts” once I’m back on my two feet. Today I can’t find any better way than to share my story with honesty. It’s a lot of words to say THANK YOU ALL. I hope somebody can identify with it, and maybe it will help to avoid a lot of pain and misery to another being. How the hell did I hit this financial rock bottom? Well, before that financial bottom there has been an emotional rock bottom. Of course, I can only describe the process now that I’m sober and that I do something about my emotions, my character defects and that I slowly repair the damages I made around me in the course of the last 35 years. I have been a blessed man all my life and yet I wanted to rule everybody and everything around me. I worked from the age of 17 as a DJ, co founded the movement of private radios in my country when I was 19 and stayed under the spotlights as a radio presenter during 33 years, every day. At the same time I encountered people who wanted to partner with me in business in the field of music production and in the industry of dating, long before the internet arose. So, money only got better, year after year, it was flowing! But it was never enough, never prestigious enough, not grandiose enough. I deserved better ! I had wonderful relationships with women, none lasted more than a year or two. They were never good enough for such a great guy like me offering that kind of life. I finally settled with one to become the mother of my two beautiful and healthy kids. I resisted the call for “better” during 13 years, pushed her to their limits, broke up. I then met another wonderful person, moved in with her, travelled, shared wonderful things. But, again, I vanished 4 years later as “I wanted to live on an island in the sun” and she was afraid to move. That was 2013 and for a full year I drank myself to death, spend as much money as possible on pleasure, instant gratification to finally hit the total rock bottom. Every family member, every friend were fearing for my life, expecting me to jump from the roof. They told me that when I slowly got better. I made everybody around me worry and I was still blaming everybody for “not understanding me”! What happened next, when I left my hometown and got on that island, is that after drinking daily for 25 years and drinking several bottles a day for the last year, I woke up one day asking for help. The miracle is that I got help in the form of a spiritual awakening that pushed me to meet with people like me, suffering from the same disease, alcoholics. The second miracle is that I shut up my big mouth, listened to what those people said about their own recovery, put down the drink on the 31st of July 2015 and never touched alcohol again since then. 1,114 days ago the compulsion of drinking simply vanished and never returned (as long as I continue to take care of my mind of course). In sobriety, no grandiosity, just a regular job as a customer care agent that paid the bills until the end of 2017. The company I worked for closed, and since then I couldn’t find another job on the island, got back to my hometown did not find a job yet either, sold all my remaining watches (as there was nothing else to sell) and live now for the last 4 months on a few bucks I make here and there doing voice over jobs. During my entire life I suffered from low self esteem coupled with an immense ego. I knew everything about anything, had strong opinions and slowly, but inevitably, pushed away every single person who wanted to help me, loved me, who really cared for me as I KNEW BETTER. My moto was “all this is your fault, not mine, if only you would do as I say I wouldn’t be angry and all would be better”. God knows how things were simply perfect, how blessed I was: everybody saw that except me. I am in no way giving any advice, neither suggestions. I learned my lesson and just want to share it. I can only confirm what my life is today: difficult materialy speaking, wonderful for all the rest as I rebounded with my family and the friends of my past, live in harmony with others and myself, love to listen to others and more and more good things happen to me. I am grateful that I found the desire, the willingness, to listen, on a daily base, to other people rather than voice my opinions as I used to do. I still have opinions but by listening I can spot my weaknesses and by observing my reactions I see how wrong my thoughts can be. This recovery journey is a gift, it is not about will power. All I do is wake up every day saying out loud “thank you for giving me the willingness to continue this journey”. I'm terrified to loose that desire as I know, without a doubt, that together with me, the alcoholic in me, wakes up every morning too. Last Friday, when I got that email from PayPal about this fundraiser, I couldn’t believe my eyes. You guys have give me another month of reprieve of course, but you have also confirmed that my life is now 100 times better than my old one. No grandiosity, lots of human connexions. The icing on the cake: that same Friday, a very import national radio network I have been auditioning for the last 6 weeks called me to tell me that, although they will not hire me full time, they want to give me a weekly show and take it from there. There is hope, every single day! And every week brings more pieces of a solution and less complications. As long as I keep that willingness to stay away from my own character defects and to have the intention to be useful to others, all will fall in place exactly how it is meant to be. Again, I thank each and every one of you guys for your support. I never met most of you but I genuinely feel the beauty within your hearts all the way to mine. With all my love, Stephane

What can I say? ❤️ A lovely package and a mail from PayPal the same day 🙏 For now I will just say thank you all ...take deep breaths and write a few words when I'm back at my computer.

Agreed. Very nice looking ! Wish I could have kept mine 😉 Enjoy and wear it in good health 🙏

The 1680 is a wonderful watch for sure. Congrats on the built. Here is a blast from the past with some pics of a genuine I owned and some pics of the first rep that a fellow helped me bring to life. A Rolex 1680 From 1978 and some more photos ! Too bad we did not save all those pictures back then 😤

I'd love that...

Mine, which is from around 2007, TTK, is a "ORIG POLEX DESIGN 5513" with a serial L341102 :-)