Watchmeister

A Ubi piece is like a Patek. You don't own it. You are just the caretaker for the next generation. Beautiful piece. Wear that one well.

Stunning piece. The dial is fabulous.

I think your 16520 is more like a 70's vintage Mercedes. For those who know - impressive. For those who don't - some old car. But you bring up a good point - the Daytona was for many years the top of the line. It may still be. But it is not the usual Datejust or Submariner that you see on someone's wrist and take for granted. In my neck of the woods if you were raised as a a Rolex person you typically started with a Sub as a youngster. And if you wanted to upgrade in a non-gold way you graduated to a Daytona.

The obvious improvements are fixing the six o'clock hash mark (it has been shortened) and eliminating that extra tick mark around 12. I was kind of wondering how the subdials are (in terms of alignment and overall size). It is always really hard to tell without one in hand as depending on how the dial is layed out can really fool the eye one way or another.

Great minds....

For a major portion of the upper end Rolex buyers I am convinced it is simply part of the uniform. If you live in an area or work in a field where the watch is readily affordable it is as I said. If you are in a field or live in an area where $5,000 for a watch is out of the ordinary than it does play more of a status symbol. I look at it kind of like a lower end or mid-size BMW. At one level it is almost expected and no one looks twice. If everyone else is driving a Camry people are going to notice. I do think Rolex has done a great job positioning Rolex as both an aspirational piece for those who are stretching to buy it and simply a solid watch for those who are readily willing to pay that kind of money and want a watch which is well built and more importantly accepted as a good brand. Of course the vintage thing is a whole other topic because the buyers have either owned them long enough that they are now vintage or someone is actually interested in the heritage.

Congratulations on making the repair yourself. You are going to have to get the spare washer out of the movement though. Also if this does happen again with another watch you should consider returning it to the dealer. With most dealers it is not as difficult as you think. I have always done it and it has always worked out. At some level that is why we use the dealers we do.

Thank god for a V2. It gives me an excuse to wait another month.

Always Kudos to Rob!

Franken 28A on my wrist today:

I dug up some old shots of a couple of the other older daylights Ziggy built for me over the years and the gen that got me into this daylight mess. Here is my first build which is long gone to another esteemed member: It took 3 years but I did finally finish a true franken 188: And finally, the watch that got me into this mess and I still own it and love it: And the saddest part is that I still find myself lusting over at least one of the new A7753 reps.

Case transfer (yes, to one of the rare A7750 cases with working date pusher blocked by the movement ring), gen crown with custom case tube, Lello datewheel and dial relumed and sub-dials refinished.

With all the daylight love going around owing to the new wonderful reps I had to throw up a pic or two of one Ziggy built a few years ago. It was a labor of love starting with the original V2 7753 Panda reset in an old case with all the trimmings. Even went to the trouble to have Ziggy add some of his artistic mastery to refinish the subdials to match up beautifully with the original reference pics. Old ain't all bad. Oops, not mine. Panerai reference pic.:cheesy: Here we go: Still gonna save up my money for one of those 236's though. It looks great.

Welcome back! Glad to see you are getting into the hobby. It is a slippery slope. I don't know much about the RXW's but the version of the Pilot with the faux Power reserve is a hell of a rep.

I am with By-Tor on this one.

Selling a rep as a gen is a crime in virtually every country - pure and simple. I hope those sellers get caught and prosecuted. No one deserves to be scammed because they are ignorant. And I have to believe that as reps get better and better the scamming will be more prevalent. If scamming escalates I suspect it will tend to scare the average joe away from the forums (fleabay, timezone, whatever) to his local dealer. So if you see a fake on fleabay or the gen forums report it. And don't do it because it reflects well on you or the forums. Do it because we never want to see anyone scammed - okay maybe your mother-in-law.

Given that you are able to break down, repair, service a movement and find any parts necessary if it does break down there is no reason for you to use ETA rather than Asian. But that is because you have skills and it sounds like you enjoy it. But I ain't going to lie - if I can afford it I go with ETA. Let's just call it silly rep snobbery.

Absolutely stunning pieces. And yes, Concepta is a good man. Wear those well.

Now I get the question. If someone were to break down an Asian movement, look for all imperfect parts, replace those parts with new perfect ones (assuming they had access to those spare parts and those perfect spare parts existed in Asian form (remember some basic parts are often made of inferior materials)) and then serviced it in a clean room - would it be as good as an ETA? I still say no. It certainly would run well though. But I also have to say that you can find an Asian movement used by the gen companies (Seiko, etc.) which is every bit as good. Having said all that I agree with Freddy. A well serviced run of the mill Asian 6497 or 775_ movement is just fine for most reps.

The movement design is fine. But Asian 21j covers a whole host of different movements being assembled in different places. They may be fine or the issue may be assembly with proper lubrication or crappy parts or both. I have found there is a larger "crap shoot" element.

Fantasy world. I think there is general consensus that with proper servicing an Asian 6497 or 7750 model can perform just fine. But don't underestimate the fact that beyond the lack of servicing the basic parts may well be inferior both as to materials and finishing. There is also the confusing element of "Swiss ETA" movements coming in our reps which are often bastardized. In the case of Breitling and PAM (both ETA based brands)there are significant differences. That doesn't mean that the Asian version can't function equally well or that the price difference is justified. I have purposely had Ziggy service reps and gens of similar movement watches at the same time to understand the differences - whether it be a reworked mainspring, additional jewels, substantially improved rotor and rotor mechanism, etc. For instance on the PAM's I was surprised to learn that there is significantly more rework on the automatics than the 6497's. Bearing in mind that the 6497 should really be a 6497-2. Bet you didn't know that the date pusher function on a gen daylight is a beautifully engineered three piece assemblage designed to hold that pusher firmly in place and to allow for the pusher contacting the movement at the same spot every time it is pushed - not a pusher with a spring on it. If Ziggy sees this he can chime in.

I would not hold your breath on that one but I would love to be proven wrong.

Very cool technology. Won't pass the geiger counter test but looks great.

Bollo- Fabulous review. Overall it looks fantastic. Must be the best out of the box PAM rep. Although that date is definitely based on a 7750 rather than 7753 it definitely passes the visual test - huge improvement over the A7750. I really have to look closely to see the difference. The CG looks to be another story. Wrong shaped lever and hole in the cg body and the funny part is that it is probably more effort to machine the curved top of the cg lever versus the flat on the gen. Pick up a gen cg for the rep and sell the gen.

Robbie- Good to see you checking back in.