southcoast68

Oh, if only this were true..... I whish I could beleive it, although, if it is true........Say, is anyone else feeling their wallet getting lighter??

Some of their pictures look a little too good, and some of their sub's look a little too much like a Rolex catalog photo. Me thinks they may be mixing pics of gens in with the reps, I dunno. Still, for the price there may be some worthwhile stuff in there, kinda like Ufantazone. Again, Caveat Emptor

Congrats!!!! I am sure we will see many fantastic photos of this beauty.

I don't think that Tudor movement could have been used for a Submariner anyway since it has subsidiary seconds instead of center seconds, unless it could be converted someway. Its a nice cleassic looking peice though.

Hi all Check this out on the 'Bay; Item No. 280252689171. The bidding is at $15,000 +/- and I am dying to know what this will sell at. Since it is on the 'Bay, there is always authenticily questions, so, what do the Rollie experts say?? Looks pretty genuine to me and totally to die for.

This was a reply to this article just a little further down the page, and I think it sums it up nice and tidy; This article is rather useless as it only repeats old prejudices. - Replicas can be quality timepieces, they are availeable with good quality movements. - The statement that a replica owners just wants to impress others by wearing an expensive looking watch is not even close to the truth. - Calling a rep owner cheap for that reason is pretty arogant. - Good quality reps can be had for the costs of a full service of an expensive gen, even with swiss ETA movements. - You can easily find a good watchsmith who will service a rep. - I won't expect the author of this text to be able to tell the rep even in a side-by-side comparison if it is a quality piece. Sorry, this article was not worth the time to write it, just old prejudice, but no real info. PS - No, this was not my response, I wish it was since I do agree with every word.

I guess we all decide what is high price and what isn't high price, for me, anything over $400 is highh price. But there are "bargains" out there if one is willing to look. I have mainly been buying used from other forum members, sometimes at a substancial price reduction. A couple of weeks ago, I scored a TAG Aquaracer chrono, like new condition, for $175 US (approx. a $100 dollar savings over new) just because the original owner decided the watch was too big to fit his wrist. I have seen AP ROO's and some Hublot BB's get listed used for between $350 - $500, sure, the AP may have been the older seconds at 9 version and the HBB may have been a "lite" version with only single AR, but they do show up, and in good condition. As some folks decide that they need a change in scenery in thier watch box, they put up for sale what they do not want anymore (I havbe been doing this a lot lately, and still have a few more pecies to sell yet). So keep you eyes open and be patient, there are good deals uot there. Last fall, when surfing the 'Bay, I came upon an ElPrimero movement from a Movado Datron, in complete condition (but needing servicing) with a buy it now price of about $750 US!! It was gone in a flash and if I had the money, I would have snapped it up immediately. I started to add up in my head how much I spent on reps during that year, and estimated I had blown about $1200 or so on the hobby, well more than what that movement, and its servicing, would have cost me, and I would have the basis for a Daytona franken. Currently, I cannot find Elprimero anything for less than $1200, and the price is going further North. Prices for anything Daytona these days are skyrocketing away from my reach, but that is the market and its really my fault for not saving capital to fund a daytona franken project. But yet I still find myself looking for a good deal on a rep. I mention all this because I beleive that we all have a good idea of what we are willing to pay for a particular watch and ALL hobbies cost money. Reps carry a high mark up, sure, so does tires for your car, breakfast cereal for your tummy, clothes to cover your a@s, thats business, always was - always will be. If spending $400 plus on a rep bothers you, save that cash for something gen, I whish I had, everytime I go to a NAWCC show and see what cool gen I could have bought if it wern't for the 6 or so $200 reps I got months before.

Good lord this surpasses the "scary close" right into the "dead on identical" category as far as looks are concerned. How's the weight? it looks like it should be dead on as well. This makes me want to win the raffle even more now Thanks for the pictures!!

Awesome!! thanks for the info.

Thanks for the input, its much appreciated, however, please note that my 1655 is ALL REP - not modified at all and not a franken as far as I know. This one came just as pictured and since then I have not found a similar example from any other rep vendor. I like the idea about changing the hands. Some folks have said that OMEGA Flightmaster hands will work for this, but will those hands fit an ETA which this rep has in it? Does anyone out there have any good photos of the MBW 1655 offered a while back? @togasa, your 1655 looks absolutely fantastic! I whish it were mine Cheers

Wishing you a speedy recovery, take care!!!! sc68

Thanks for all the kind words, I may continue to upgrade it as time goes by, but for now it is finished. I hope to do some additional "mod projects on a budget" and I hope to share those in pictures as well.

Here is mine, unmodded from a vendor that was active on RWI a couple of years ago.

Hi all I thought I'd contribute to this since my 1655 rep is yet still different than the ones shown here already. First, I'll tell you that this had come from Belial2k, a dealer that was on RWI a year or two ago, and I do not know of his source. Take a look at the pictures, hopefully they will give some additional information on these. These pics can also be forwarded to your vendor of choice in case anyone would want to try and source this one for a project. The bezel IMO is pretty accurate looking, I was looking to get one that had "flat tops" to the number 4 on the bezel, and this one does have that. The dial is a heartbreaker, the sub hour markers do come all the way to the edge, and the dial is a nice matte black, but the "oyster perpetual date" font is horribly wrong. It also has the "T SWISS<25 T" at 6:00 'oclock. The case has lug holes, but they appear too close to the edge to be properly drilled out. The crown guards are short and fat and the crown is small and sits rather low in the case. The bracelet is a correct looking non-fliplock logo style, but the case back seems all wrong. The end links are stamped 580, and the bracelet is stamped 78360, correct??I don't know. Another heartbreaker, the date font I quite like, its numbers are thick black and clear on a slightly off white background. However, the date window is not quite wide enough and a little too far to the right to line up with the magnifier. This photo is taken at an angle, but when looking at the watch straight on, the magnifier is definately to the left of the date window. It also has thinner hour and minute hands, still not correct looking, but thinner than the others pictured here. It also has the bubble seconds hand and dark orange GMT hand. One thing that bugs me about this model is that people call it the "Steve MqQueen" model when there is no proof the man ever worn one personally or in a film. If anyone out there has and definative proof he made this model famous at one time, please share it here and proove me wrong. Cheers

Well, this has been a long time comming, amazing how time flies, but this one is done (at least to my satisfaction currently). I started this project as an excersise in what you could do with a stock vintage sub (one costing less than say $200 US), a Deremel, some art supplies and a few weekends time. I also thought this would be a good project to cut some teeth on some case modding. I started with a 3,6,9, dialed 5513 Submariner from Silix (around $200 or so), my trusty Dremel and a small table mounted vise, some Testors gloss clear coat, Testors flat white model paint, coffee grounds, Clorox bleach, GS crystal cement, fine grit sand paper and some jewelers rouge and polishing disks for the Dremel. I am not good at taking step by step pictures yet since when I get going on something like this, I usually forget to stop at intervals to take pictures and I usually continue to rock on until the end of my spare time. So, the following are the finished product with some captions above each to describe the highlights. I was interested to find that Silix carries this version of the 5513, the one with the 3,6,9, dial that also has the registration mark (small white line below submariner). For those who don't know, and I take this info from the book "Vintage Rolex Sport Models" by Skeet and Urul, this small mark was applied during the transition to adding the "T<25" to either side of "swiss made", this was a registration mark to ensure the added text showed up in the right place. I also noticed that this model of 5513 was reported to be a pointed crown guards model, so I decided that it would be good to try some crown guard modding. This picture shows the final result, notice I did not bother to shave the inside of the CG's giving them a more GMT like appearence. If I were planning on changing the crown and tube, I probably would have done the inner sides as well, but this crown and tube worked perfectly together, so I left it alone. The whole case got the once over with the sand paper and then with the polishing pads to remove the "sharp new edges" that the watch had. The case back in particular needed work since it had a new mirror finish to it. It seemed a shame to rough it up, but the end result looks much more like a 40-50 year old watch would. I also did some dial work since this rep had a matte black dial with gold and white fonts. I do not know if this model would have had a glossy gilt dial, but it was listed as a model from the early '60s, and given the history of Rolex being somewhat inconsistent with its detail wourk back then, I decided I wanted a glossy dial, so out came the Testors gloss clear coat. Upon applying the clear coat, a strange phenomenom had happened, its called blushing. I tried to get the dryest weather possible, but being in Florida, sometimes humidity is all you have, and sometimes it can cause this blushing condition. Its basically slightly duller spots of clear coat along with glossy patches. Whether it was the dial, the conditions that day, or both, the dial dried mostly glossy with touched of duller spots to the outside. I though it was a cool looking affect and left it that way. I am not sure if this photo catches it, it is something that is hard to photo. The hour markers came as a light shade of cream color that I left alone. What I did try is to age the hands a bit. I decided to paint the second hand white with some Testors flat white (not sure if this woud have been correct for this model, but I liked the idea of doing so), and then I "packed" the hands in wet coffee grounds for a day or two, periodically checking to see if the grounds were still moist. What I got was slightly darker lume on the hands and a light brown staining to the second hand. The bezel was also worked on, I sanded down the new feeling pointy serations on the bezel and then polished them to be more representative of a 40+ year old bezel which had seen lots of wear. The bezel insert was continually soaked in bleach (10 minutes at a time) until it turned a dull slightly blued and faded hue. The backside of the insert was also sanded down to sit below the top lip of the bezel. The pearl I did nothing with and does look a little out of place, I did consider removing it alltogether, but what do you all think, should I take the pearl out or change it out for an acryllic one? I was going to drill out the lug holes for genuine size spring bars, but it looked as though the existing holes are a little too close to the edge for it to work. So, instead of tempting fate, I quit while I was ahead and just used some date just sized spring bars which fit fine and offer an improvement over the stock ones. I replaced the stock crystal as the one it came with was a little too tall and sat crooked on the case to boot. I picked up some aftermarket Sternkreuz T-19 crystals from Borel. This crystal was a hair too wide to snuggly fit the case on the inside diameter, and a bit too narrow too fit the compression ring on the outside diameter, so this crystal had to be glued into place along with the comression ring. Time will tell if my sealing job is up to snuff for the long haul, but for now, the watch looks fantastic with this lower profile crystal. To me, this modelk always had a military like look to it, so instead of using the stock bracelet, I opted for a nato strap in Khaki Green color. Here is the finished project next to my 1680 I bought from carlsbadrolex a while back. Sorry carlsbad, but that wonderful weather beaten looking crystal finally just broke apart, so I had to replace it, again with a Sternkreuz T-127 from Borel. Brothers pictured in classic black and white. So there you have it. I wanted to try and illustrate that anyone can take a stock rep, some basic tools and time and make something a bit more interesting with it. Sure I would have got a better end result with an MBK series sub, but I hope this shows folks that even a budget priced watch can turn into something cool looking. As always, all your opinions and feedback are welcome. Cheers PS My last thought for this project was to remove the nato and carry the watch in my pocket with my keys and change for a while so some additional ramdom scratching can take place.

The bumpy "orange peel" look it has is probably due to the clear plastic protective wrap that is still on the watch and bracelet. The author of that post stated that it was not his watch to sell, and is probably going to someone else and it would be reasonable to assume that the packing was left on the watch. If they get rid of the "Ring Lock System, etc." labveling on the rehaut, I think they would have a real cool looking watch there.

Ditto

He probably had them switch the dial since the ExpII 1655 dial was too confusing to read . I like the vintage ExpII a lot, but I always did think the dial was too busy.

southcoast68 = I live near the southcoast of US and I was born in 1968 On TRC I was evergreen45, a name I basically pulled out of my [censored]

Thank you for these pictures, this model is next "in my crosshairs".

A rare sub indeed, it uses a ladies watch quartz movement, a really cool and pristine example, bravo.. and that folded link bracelet is to die for!!!

When I think that I could have picked up one of these (genuine) for $1400 back in 1994.... And that was with the original box and paperwork.

Clicking on the more images button will reveal additional pictures of the case, but I did not see a dial, but then again I never signed up on his site and maybe some things I will not be able to see unless I do. I was aspiring to get one of these built someday, but if the price of parts do not stabilize, those aspirations will quickly fade into the sunset . I managed to get a ElPrimero re-dial a while back, I guess it will sit until I figure out something to do with it. Anyway, still exciting to see the offering. Cheers

FYI For those who frequent jewelryandwatch.com, you might have already seen this. For those who haven't, they now offer stainless steel cases for 16520 ElPrimero Daytona for $1,650. I can only guess that they will in time offer dials, pushers, crystals, hands and complete assembly like they do with the 6263 models and such.