archibald

Now that is a beautiful piece!!

All the more reason to buy the rep! As far as the 10th goes, I believe there will only be two frankens and no reps of it, sadly... The reps of the date version are absolutely the most accurate muller reps made--slightly better than the famed Conqistador because of the accurate crown, IMO. There is a gen Casa chrono w/ PVD and red, but I'm just not feeling it, and I don't know for sure but I'd guess the PVD version should be brushed under the PVD. I'll probably get the salmon dial along w/ the 2 black dials for the franken.

I think the CG would llok much beeter w/ the pin mod and ffel better w/ a lever mod, but what's wrong w/ the caseback? Looks like one of the better jobs at copying a difficult caseback I've seen. Do you have the Asian 21j version? If so my advice would be to sell it and buy the latest version--much easier and maybe cheaper in the long run. IMO the more pressing problems on the 21J and the "ultimate" arktos are the underwhelming date mag and the gaps surrounding the bezel markings. I would try to improve those long before I'd search for a better casebak.

I know I'm the only one, but let me case one lonely vote for the modern 203 hads. I know i could use fiddy hands, but then I'd have to glue them in. But thanks for another fabulous project!!

I love, love love that great watch!! But it needs an #1176 caseback. I know the Hamilton movement is almost too pretty to cover, but the rest of the watch is screaming, "please cover my ass!" Wear the beauty well!!

I bet your PM inbox thinks you've got them up for sale already.

The differences in the case are marginal IMO. Far and away the biggest difference would be if MBW uses the seconds @ 9 dials on the seconds @ 12 rep. The biggest difference currently, hands down, is the thicker rehaut on the CN version vs. the 1:1 appearance of the MBW dial. I have a gen and MBW dial in front of me as I type this and MBW's hands are not discernable from gen, and the dial printing/texture quality is only discernable side by side. My one second assessment of the AP ROO rep/gen is this: If the crown position bothers you you have to buy a gen; if it doesn't an MBW seconds @ 12 would be the closest rep humanly possible to make without producing a chrono module movement. If you are really OCD, and if you have access to a marginally competent machinist you could buy a Concord Ventu and probably create a rep that would fool the exact same number of people as the MBW frankens that sold for $4500. The only question mark would be getting the 7750 hands to work on a 2894 movement. This remains to be seen. On edit: sorry to bump a 6 month old thread, but I was reading up on the ROO for a friend last night and had forgotten I left page 8 up on the computer this morning.

If I read his p[ost on RG correctly, everything is printed on the movement--the pearlage, wave pattern, text, etc. As I've always said, clear back PAMs can be brought to 99.9% on the wrist and 0% when you flip it over. The worst rep movement will fool the 99.999999999% of the population who don't know what an OP movement looks like and the best rep movement will fool none of the .000000001% who do know what an op movement loos like. Would I buy one LH movemens for a 217 franken if he made a destro version? Maybe. Would I pay 1/3 of used gen for an instant tell rep 111? No Way.

Since you get no brand name juice wearing the (9k!!!) panerai version of this 6497 powered watch, I'd take this over gen panerai any day of the week.

I think you're on the right track--if you're going to dump some money on a base, you better do a damn rare one because it'd be tough to build a great rep or a decent franken w/o going over 50% of the shocking used "standard" Panerai valuations which, IMO, are going to get more shocking, I'm disgusted to say, as more people have to choose between keeping their houses and/or cars for a few more months or selling their watches.

see those pics guys? When arch says good, arch means damn near perfect or better. A question for the experts: Say you took a jimmy case and CG, a T48 crown, and had that PVDed w/ the original pam PVD process. Then you found a decently numbered (eg lower than 300) A series caseback lying in the street. Which of fishgodeep's t dials would you use to make a rep of a watch that actually existed in real life?

No, they're going to laugh at you, but only after you leave the store. They're not going to call out a potential customer (I hear that Tourneau actually has a written policy that salespeople should never call out customers no matter how awful the rep), becaue the downside of being wrong is far worse than the upside of being right. My guess is that the salespople at Westime spotted your rep in under three seconds, and I bet if you do some reading around here and learn how they could tell, you won't wear a rep Offshore inside any more AD's....

OK, you guys have left me in the dust...but, I'm just starting a euromariner-based project to give to a friend, so I probably ought to know what to do. Is it correct to say that if you have an entire bezel assembly you won't need to mod anything? I have a MBW LV perported to have a gen bezel installed (two respected experts have confirmed). I have euromariner on order. I have a WM insert. A couple Q's: --Since the bezel has been installed onto a MBW case does it mean that it is likely so altered to fit that it is unusable for the Euromariner project? --If I sourced all parts of the gen bezel assembly--bezel, ring, etc--will they fit in the Euro case w/o mods? --If I have a gen bezel, no need to mod the WM insert, right? Sorry to sound dumb (which I am to be sure) but any help from one of you pros would be much appreciated!

Unless they can prove it's really a screwup. My houseflipping brother in law once had a sign out in front of a house that said "Owner financed. 0% interest" instead of the intended "Owner Financed 0% Down" One of the people who came by to look at the house actually sued him and it went to court! His lawyer said he likely would have lost but for the fact that the the guy who made the sign saved my brother-in-law's handwritten instructions and his employee who picked up and placed the sign needed an interpreter in court.

My dad used to have this homebrewing book in which the author repeatedly advised: "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew." Such is the case with frankenwatches. Their superior coolness of frankens relative to both reps and gens is derived purely from 2 facts. Frankenfacts, if you will: that few can build them and nobody can "supply" them. That, and the other fact which is that the really good ones take a long, long time to build. The time it takes to build a franken can be expressed in the following equation: t1+(t2v) + s(r+d)/($+a2+l3)+[(Os+Of)/w]+t3= where: t1=Time spent learning about the gen t2=Time spent learning about the different versions of the reps and how they correspond (or not) to the gen v=the number of versions of reps s=time spent searching for parts n=number of gen parts needed r=rarity of gen parts d=dudes looking for the same part $=$ in the bank a=shameless asskissing of those known to have access to parts l=dumb luck Os=Oh [censored]! This part doesn't look like it's going to fit! Of=Oh [censored]! This part doesn't fit! W=access to a skilled, rep friendly watchsmith t3=the time it takes to post pics of your new franken on RWG Good luck and happy hunting!!

Another non development touted as NEW!!! by our collector pals. They could put 107 jewels in the modded 7750 and it will still result in a too thick watch and herky jerky seconds hands. When I read corgi's title, I said to myself, "wow! they finally did it--a dedicated seconds @ 6 movement," which BTW could be used in dozens of now impossible reps (AP, BP, VC, aside from the daytona). Now a genuionely NEW!!! movement would sure be a development.

Wow, that's wierd. I expect that stuff from RWI, which we've known for a long time is an adjunct of the dealers's sites, but I wonder why Geek yanked the thread. I'd hate to find that the rumors are true.

promotersf, the only thing I'd do is maybe give the Xtal a single sided AR. When you compare gen and rep xtals side by side, there is a tremendous difference in the look, both of the sapphire alone and the look it created when installed. Other than that, you're fiddy is as good as a sane person can own.

It depends on how picky you are. The "cartel" 000's and 005's are pretty good unless you're really picky about the logo. After searching for a good logo dial to use on a 195 rep, I'm sadly convinced that there is no logo dial (contemporary that is; the fishgodeep vintage logo dials are awesome) that is not an instant tell for anyone who knows what OP logo dials should look like. DSN's logo is pretty good but the rest of his watch is horrible, from dial fonts to CG. At this point I would recommend waiting for the correct vintage cases to be built (I hear one of the attempts is nearing completion), buy a fishgodeep dial and a DSN pre-V caseback and build a logo dialed watch that way.

Great job, especially for a first effort. But...now I'm going to have to show you up and take my watch apart while wearing oven mitts!

Unless a guy has a very, very small penis, I can't think of a single reason why anyone would feel uncomfortable wearing a 40mm Panerai. In fact, the more wrist shots I look at, the more I'm absolutely convinced that a significant number of Panerai owners ought to be wearing 40mm PAMs instead of 44mm+ models to avoid looking like they're sporting some kind of clown prop. Anyway, 40mm plus a 9mm CG would put a 40mm PAM on the upper end of average watch sizes even these days.

Since I'm the beneficiary of that masterpiece, I won't spoil the fun and confirm or deny what's been done, but suffice to say that, thanks to The Zigmeister, 2009 sure is starting out right!

Unfathomable skill. a CG pin hole was re-drilled. A 1-point-something mm diameter pin was made from scratch. Then it was custom fit. No CNC. Do you guys know how much that would cost in the real world? Neither do I, but having worked directly w/ machine shops to finish franken projects, I can guarantee you'd be seriously considering just buying a gen guard. This is Exibit A1 of how lucky we are to have The Zigmeister @ RWG!

It's a decent asian movement--they sell w/o decoration on the bay for less than $100. $168 sounds like a RWG Collector price, so I assume that's what they're getting for movements these days.