r2d4

Eric, I managed to get mine straightened out by squeezing it between two soft pieces of wood. It worked but I ended up going Gen. It wasnt perfect but it did fit back on and it did have a little tight spot when turning. Also, I gound a tool to bend the inside lip back so the retaining ring would fit. PM me if you have any more questions.

Tor, Did your brother ever get the pearl fixed?

Dill is dead on correct about this in that a gen is still easily scuffed. But I have a hunch the Rep might be a tad softer. Some of these reps which use 316L (same classification as gen) SS may have been annealed (softened) to enable longer life on the tooling and to permit more accurate formation of the parts in less operations. The more you work with the steel the harder it will become this would stand to reason why it might be easier to dent and or would be a tad more easily scuffed up. No way to know for sure but I'll just bet Omega uses either a few more steps or heavier machinery to work the material so that it retains it's Rockwell hardness standards.

Carl, If you can pick up the watch today have him give you a 24hour window to authenticate. Use an Escrow service and agree to release funds upon authentication. My thoughts anyway, this is what I would do if I was not sure.

Otto Frei Part Numbers for 45.5MM caliber 2500 HAN4221 are the hour and minute hands "set" HAN4222 is the seconds hand Good luck! Happy Modding! Bye Bye $60!

Leave the gen alone! Sell it if you don't really like it. Alot of parents will buy those midsized watches for their teenagers. As to your transplant are you going from Asian 21J to Gen or ETA? If this is true it might not work because the movement sits differently in the case so you could really open up a pandora's box. If you are going from the new 28.8 eta asian clone you might be OK. Hope that helps.

I too have use dishwashing soap and it works very well indeed!