Watchmeister

You lost me on this one. The date cyclops is mounted on the movement and pokes through the dial. The crystal has no cyclops.

Could one of our Rolex experts clue me in on the best rep alternative for the bracelet and clasp for a 16520. Thx in advance - W

Thanks guys, you are too kind. Most importantly, I am glad the watch is sitting in someone's hands who will appreciate it.

Is the color of the gold fairly close? In truth the weight differential has always scared me away. Some people have tried to increase the weight by making movement rings out of heavier materials and at some point people have elected to start with heavier metals for the base case and then plate that.

Dials are starting to pop up again on the bay occasionally. The movements are available from donor watches. All the other internal parts - crown, hands, gaskets are what are impossible to get.

The answer is a definitive sort-of. It takes some bezel rework. The gen crystal is a good 1mm higher and it is also shaped slightly different using two contact points and two gaskets. The height implies that you either modify the inner bezel or the crystal sits somewhat higher than in the gen. I believe I have a post somewhere here comparing the two. So it is not impossible but not plug and play either.

+1 Latest A7753 chronos. Price is right too. Snything better will be a multiple of the cost. in truth the non- chronos are up to a better standard as they use a standard 6497 movement.

Great stuff. Now I would pay money for that thorough an answer on the AP ROO bezel. You can't imagine how many times I have looked at the video of AP making a watch and tried to figure out what grit that sandpaper is when the smith takes two swipes of the bezel on the sandpaper (oops, I mean polishing papers).

I am always believer that a gen dial for virtually every watch is the biggest improvement we can bestow on our reps. I have always found that other than the vintage stuff if you are patient they do come up reasonably - especially for IWC . I did it on the SS and Ti GST's and on the 3717. I am probably the only person who bought a gen dial before there was a rep in case they ever came out with one. Still haven't bought the rep but will build this one some day.

I hadn't seen anyone mention exploding crystals on the Noob versions. They are using thicker crystals than predecessor versions and they are made out of sapphire rather than mineral glass.

That is the same sandblasted case albeit with the original finish when the case was new. Unfortunately I don't see the Asian factories repping the 2892 chrono module movement. It is not used on very many contemporary movements and as for the AP which is one of the last remaining uses it would require a factory going to the trouble to change everything - new dials, tachy rings, modified cases, etc. Hope springs eternal though.

There IS no Eleventh Circle. This is something of which we must never speak.

If the Eleventh Circle did truly exist, then because 11 is 3 binary, it would contain three members:

Neo, Omni and ExtraExtra.

So true. But the next question is which level we assign to Jetmid.

Wishing you the best in what must be a horrifically difficult time. I would only add that whether you actually buy, sell or build watches come around when you can. I have always found RWG and friends on the forum to be a respite during troubled times.

I have always been very interested in AP's having gotten my first AP Royal Oak almost 20 years ago. Yes, I am embarassed to admit it was quartz. Before finding the rep forums I bought, enjoyed and sold a couple along the way. It wasn't a very efficient way though as I tended to lose money on each trade. Then I came upon the forums in the early 2000's and the first decent AP rep came - the MBW Jumbo. Of course the ETA movement was not very convincing under the clear case back but the overall dimensions, exterior finish and dial was really very good. Below is a poor pic but the only one I have and you can see it sitting next to my first gen which by the way I still own.

After the Jumbo, MBW then started making seconds at 9 Offshores. The dimensions and aesthetics were great but of course it had the wrong sub-dial functionality. And for those who were obsessed with detail (i.e. correct functionality) the franken was born.

The MBW and First Generation Franken era:

What is interesting is that unlike most watches the first innovative franken did not come from the hobbyists or watchsmiths. It was actually built by MBW themselves in 2008 using their seconds at 9 model. At the time they made a total of 6. They got their hands on a batch of cheap dials and donor watches for the movements. And at the time they sold for either 2500 or 3500 Euro's - a princely sum. Now when they came out we all thought that they did a limited run of special cases, used gen dials and tachy rings, hands, etc. With 20/20 hindsight the beauty of using that watch was that it had dimensions much closer to gen since you were able to use a thinner standard 7750 model. The construction was nowhere near gen in terms of design but aesthetically it was closer to gen than the current seconds at 12 models. Here is an original offering pic:

Here are pics of the original case when I got it. The construction may have been wrong but the dimensions were so much better than our current seconds at 12:

On my end my first opportunity to try my hand at a franken came when one of the original MBW buyers screwed up his movement and sold off the watch in parts. I bought them. And what we found was that there was no limited run of cases - it was their standard case plugged and redrilled. Then we saw the hands were the rep ones with the hand tubes crudely closed to jam them on the much smaller 2892 pinions. Today we regard the larger hand tubes as one of the critical tells (the hole in a 7750 hand tube is bigger than the entire hand tube on a 2892). We also found out that the tachy ring was rep as the gen wouldn't possibly fit in the MBW bezel. So with a minimum of parts (gen dial (no tachy ring) and LWO 283 movement) a Franken could be recreated by a watchsmith with the proper skills. And thus the franken era began. On my end my first one was a rebuild of the original MBW with a new working movement and here it is:

And now we knew that all you needed was the MBW watch, an LWO 283 movement and dial which matched up with the MBW tachy ring - and most importantly a skilled watchsmith. As a result an entire build was almost reasonable - unlike today. Here is one of my early "seconds at 9" builds:

Back then I and one or two others built and sold a few to close friends based on whatever dials came up.

And then came the seconds at 12 we all know today. Of course they had the correct functionality but the tradeoff was the thicker amended 7750 adding extra gears, etc. which required reproportioning the whole watch with thicker caseback, mid-case and bezel. As many know it does a great job of making a great rep but in larger proportion . One could say that the size difference is de-minimus as the whole watch jumped only 4mm from 13mm on the gen and MBW to 17mm on the new one. But proportionately we are talking about a 30% increase in height. I do have to say that it is a marvel though with the same functionality as gen and incredibly close gen construction later.

The Second Generation of Seconds at 12 AP Frankens

With the coming of the Seconds at 12 (and it's close to gen construction) now there was a theoretically better base for frankens where the gen tachy ring could be added.but the bar had to be lifted. The whole case needed a diet and a better movement ring had to be made. And as time has progressed over the last couple of years.improvements have included improved custom movement rings, lowering of the height and reconfiguring of the inside of the bezel (to fit the gen tachy ring) and of course the slimming of the caseback and even mid-case. Hobbyists and watchsmiths like Francisco, Sander, Loosetime and Ziggy all continually raised the bar further. I am sure some of these names ring a bell.

Today these frankens can take virtually all gens parts - dials, tachy ring, hands, crown, pushers, crystals and even gaskets. And at least one watchsmith can service the base movement and even the chrono-module. By the way even AP simply replaces the chrono module. We of course don't have that luxury. Here are a couple pics of the last two frankens I own but there are plenty of other pics of the limited number of frankens on the forum.

The Future

Unfortunately it is probably dimmer. AP gen parts are now virtually impossible or prohibitively expensive to purchase so Frankens as we know it may very well never have the same level of "frankeness" but at the same time different folks are now making carbon parts and even cases and folks are even pursuing gen dial projects. So we shall see.

I hope folks have enjoyed my diatribe.

Phew!

Watch arrived today! Phew!

Oh ye of little faith.

What happened to the 11th cycle?

Out of curiousity, if you are really happy with one of the watches why wouldn't you take that and go with a partial refund?

And just to add, you can't substitute the datewheel with a gen. The gen uses a different base movement (2892) and so it is a different datewheel. In order to utilize a different datewheel you would have to start with a 7750 blank and reprint. But generally IMHO the font is fairly good. And as Esavy says your bigger issue is depth and placement given the usage of a different movement.

And I was going to guess EPCOT at Disney World. They have a similar clock tower.

Does anyone know when they stopped using the 700-0 on Submariners?

I had a way too long experience with First Class mail to Canada years ago and have sent everything either via EMS, UPS or FedEx since. I must be going on a couple hundred packages back and forth over the years. By the way, that first class package did take 5 or 6 weeks but it did get there. And I like Nanuq have shipped plenty of gens so have faith.

I am with Freddy.....very nice piece.

As someone has said the base movement is a 2892 and so they are robust enough to hand wind all you want. In the ETA world it is only the 7750's that I am careful not to overwind.

The 10th circle is all of the above except you are embarassed to tell someone the number of watches you own (with or without the project watches) and forget the car calculation, a quick summation of the value of your watch collection reveals that your watch collection is worth more than your house.