archibald

I think he's subsequently found a way to do it w/o leaving much of a trace--at least it looks like he did on Kruzer's 187. I've used scrap pieces of adhesive vinyl to lift the printing off of a 111 dial trying to fix the a's but that left a residue. I did a crappy job wiping off the residue & I noticed printing I wanted to stay came off just wiping it off w/ the cloth.

I'll let you experts discern the rest of the watch but I can confirm in Asad's original pic nothing was done on the watch dial to change the A's. The R still looks off, but that could easily be a series thing.

Let's put it this way: most of us wouldn't be very interested in duplicating asad's method. I've just started working on this issue. I have the euipment needed to cut any thin material at tremendously tight tolerances, like .005mm, and I figure there are two ways to go about the job: make a stencil out of some kind of clear masking material to paint or to cut out the actual letters or parts of letters out of Letraset or some other kind of static or glue adhesive vinyl. I don't think the black-out step would be necessary since I understand the white ink is pretty easy to remove, even just the crossbar if you have a steady hand. Of course, the appropriate vector file would have to be made first.

Best to ask The Zigmeister...I understand he removed a member's l-swiss-l very, very easily. My guess is it's along the lines of a light rub w/ a soft cloth.

I'd like to see decent pics first, but the rotor is the only reason I haven't bought a big bang yet.

Any dial can be sanitised, since it's possible to remove the printing w/o affecting the black paint.

So, Asad, you going to tell us how you fixed the "A's"? On edit: never mind...thanks to the super-sharpen feature in photoshop CS3, I see how you did it.

Cool! I'll take 3 "officne" engraved swiss soprod 2892's, a honpo 28 dial, and an individually serialed 63 caseback, please.

The biggest difference is that you can't get either of the PAMs anywhere except the used market anymore, and hardly anyone's willing to sell. So, yeah, pieces like that tend to appeciate 100 or 200 percent. And people did comment, albeit more gently, about the price of ajoesmith's pieces. But yeah, probably old-school members get a little bit of undeserved deference, just like the drooling old guy at work who's been slugging it out in the same cubicle for 40 years does. I knew this thread was coming after last night's entertainment in the sales area, and I love the just-let-me-make-my-$100-in-peace posts. Sorry, TT stated the policy which IMO is exactly the right one. The guys that for whatever reason feel they have to make every last cent off their used fake watches no matter how small-time it makes them seem are free to do so. Bring on the $100 empty, no-bracelet noob cases, the oops-forgot-to-call-this-lite HBB's. And get ready for the rest of us to make sure the noobs know exactly what they'll be getting for their money.

I've got a watchbox full of them--not only the "freezed" seconds daytona but also the famous panda dial "PAM 163," a Day date Lange 1815 "chrono," A just plain bizarre quartz/automatic "FP Journe," even a Caltrava with the quartz sub seconds ticking away. My thought on all of them was, "who's gonna know?" Funny thing is those daytonas look pretty good to me which shows you what I know...I'm wierdly ambivalent about even potentially great daytonas...I've been sitting on a gen gold bezel, refurbished el primero, gen brown strap, and NOS black/gold dial for over two years. For some reason, I can bring myself to neither sell off the parts or shell out the dough needed to complete the project.

Guys how does the Aquanaut compare to the Nautilus, fit and finish-wise? God I hope they do a jumbo version soon!

Unfortunately we gold watch fans just have to assume that the 5 micron and, more recently, PVD gold claims are customary white lies. Count the plated watches you've bought that sucked (10+ for me) then the number that blew you away (just the Panerai 190 for me, which I actually believe is thick gold or even PVD plating). Unfortunately I'm to the point where I just assume I'm going to shell out $160 for real 10 micron gold replate. But that BCE is an embarassment to the dealer for more reasons than the plating...

Jeez, some of you guys are getting excited about a photo blurb--you'd think GQ said guys who like big watches had samll d icks or something. I'm not a fan of GQ but those two photo captions (heck they don't even comprise an article) merely point out the obvious: Big watches are great but wearing them w/ one of the newer slim cut suits isn't a good idea and, 2,that there is something to be said for understated, elegant watches. In the second blurb they don't even give an opinion about big watches--they report that they had meeings w/ 2 fashion pros and they were both wearing cartiers and wonder aloud if that means anything. Personally, I've always found the "43mm is wayyyy too small for me" comments a little closet-GQ-reader anyway...

Used PO from timezone...$1800. Lord Rasta's rep...$1500. Modding a rep to 1:1 and beating the system...priceless. LR Did you aleady buy that E-series movement for 2 grand? If you can resell it for what you paid, there is a better way....

And a fine family it is!!

Hillary's candidacy has less than a week to go, by the way, so you guys that think she's the other half of the same evil thing can breathe easy. You can also practice saying President Obama. For Democrats its going to be hard to decide what is going to be more satisfying part of the next six months. So far it's been watching Karl's minions grapple with the almost Shakesperian untragic irony that they did too good a job on their base over the last 8 years, that Rev. Huckabee was actually the political antichrist, and that now all the demonizing, race baiting, and lapel pins on the planet earth won't make "social conservatives" vote against their self interest this time since they think, correctly but for 100% of the wrong reasons, that voting McCain is as contrary to their self interests as much as voting barak HUSSEIN Obama. It is going to be equally satisfying, though, as it becomes clear that even real republicans, the semi-educated and/or deeply greedy, won't be nearly as reliable as they would be if their boy Mitt had not been Huckabized, that Northern suburbanites don't like McCain very much (or at least not as much as they would like to show the neighbors how enlightened they are) and that (as yesterday's Washington Post and today's AP opening shots forshadow) six years in a box will make you more unfit to be President than 20 years of guzzling Lone Star possibly could. But not to worry: Obama is deeply moderate and he's going to have a whole lot of rich people to thank on January 22nd of next year. The 401K is safe, the hedge fund millions are safer, and ain't nobody is going to have to downgrade their Yachts over the next four years. Only bad thing that can happen from a Republican's standpoint is that all that glorious killing may come to and end way too soon.

NDT can make you go broke in a hurry!!

Don't know if it's the green bezel or novelty value of wearing a Rolex again after years of mostly PAMs and Mullers, but my new LV has been goed to my wrist since I got it thanks to Dave_NYC. As Dave mentioned in his sales thread this old school MBW has a different bezel from most MBW's I've seen--seems to be cut very crisp and at least to my eye sits more like gen than most. Also looks like the CG have been done. Otherwise it's stock MBW. Anyway, I have a gen dial, various DW's/overlays, and a noob LV on the way, but beeing a total rolex noob myself I ought to confirm what I think needs done before I go ruining a gorgeous watch. --Probably definitely want to use the noob bracelt and clasp--endlinks too? --any further work need to be done on the guards? --I hear the gen dial is not a great fit w/ MBW case--better to try the gen dial or is the noob close enough that I should save myself the trouble and just throw it in instead? --Can I do better than the pearl/insert w/ an aftermarket version? --I have OEM crystal crown and tube--it is worth the $100 labor to have them put on? --Date font OK for a (I guess because there are no case holes ) 2005 or newer LV? Thanks in advance, my brothers, and of course I will do a full pic spread when this is done.

Doesn't change the final outcome, but I'm thinking it's an overlay issue. They sometimes use an overlay to get the ETA date position right for the rolex dial, and they didn't align this one properly. Back to Asia it goes. Sadly, you've just had your first and hopefully your last experience with the worst rep headache of all which is, when you calculate the cost of your time, spending more than what the rep is worth to pack and ship the thing back to China. BTW, rolex experts, should that have a roulette DW and a slow beat movement? If that's what it needs, I might be able to help you out.

Will one or two of the 40 guys who downloaded this please kindly turn your torrent program back on so the rest of us can snag this? Jeez.

The marketing on a Rolex or any other luxury good is a hell of a lot more than $20 per piece. It's more like $1000. That's what rolex does: instead of selling a $500 watch for $1000 they spend $1000 marketing the same $500 watch and sellit for the same % markup, which translates to 3x the profit. In fact that's why reps exist. Rolex spends $300 on the watch, $1000 on marketing and sells for $4000. I get a similar watch, produced more cheaply in China, with no marketing budget other than, you know, however much it costs for Andrew to tell me it's got an Asian 1:1 perfect ultimate 7750 inside, for a fraction of the cost. What you don't see are good reps of Lange, F.P Journe, etc. They actually do spend the money that rolex claims to spend on complex movements, top quality craftsmanship, etc. and at least with respect to counterfeiting, it pays off. Whenever your business model involves marking up your advertising budget instead of marking up the large cost of top quality materials and craftsmanship you run the risk that the chinese can produce something very very similar for a fraction of the cost.

ahh yess, the famous TNC diamonds or whatever they're called. I've been laughing at their prices for years since I stumbled upon their website while looking for a steel olex crown in 05, which was $300. It's very wierd--their watch prices are in line with other top-dollar sellers like Watches 247, Jewelsin time.com, etc but their parts prices are absolutey insane.

So hard to tell from pics, and as kruzer pointed out the PVD varries even within gens. I'm pf the thinking that our best bet is to "rep" the beadblasting of a gen sample and then PVD using the method used on the original, e.g. see if you can find someone to beadblast as per a gen crown, CG, case and then have the piece PVD'd using whatever method OP used on the specific watch (TiN, TiAln, or DLC as the case may be). One misconception I can lay to rest is that the kind of beadblasting done would neccessitate a certain method of PVD application. Beadblasting is beadblasting. PVD is PVD. Each effects the final look in its own way but they are two discrete parts of the process.

I can't speak for you, of course, and in pictures it would be impossile to accurately discern the color of anything but I can certainly instantly tell 14k gold from 18k, whether it's cheap-ass QVC jewlry on a chick's hand or a looking at a rolex rep or gen in person. Rolex's gold is really obvious. I believe rolex has a higher percentage of copper in their yellow gold, but who knows? How can I tell? I don't know. I don't know if it's because my wife collects jewlery and I've been with her 100's of times @ flea markets and antique stores as she picks through a tray of gold jewelry and goes "10 karat, plated, 14 karat, filled, 18 karat, 14 karat, plated, 22 karat" or what, but they do look really different.