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I always recommend members to go get a gen 16610 insert for a reason, it is simply just beautiful! Beautiful how? Our eyes and our brains conceive its beauty but we can not always translate that beauty into plain English. My interpretation of that beauty is a flat and matte insert plus a well polished pearl holder plus a shiny corundum pearl. In my quest for the perfect Submariner 16610, the insert along with its pearl has always been a big challenge. This very specific part is actually an assembly of the aluminum insert, the corundum pearl, and the pearl holder. There is luminescent applied carefully and evenly within the pearl holder so the pearl could "glow in the dark". When I started the insert project in 2012, I thought the pearl holder is made of stainless steel. So I took the liberty being a partner of a local metal part manufacturer and made a batch of the pearl holder. Those stainless steel pearl holders were on every Caddell vintage insert I shipped out along with TC Sub V6 as freebies. This April, a member who bought a TC Sub V6 wrote me saying he has a theory: the gen pearl holder may be made from the same material as the KH 16610 dial indices. So I asked my friend to make me some samples to see if this theory is true. I had to use my microscope since this is late in the night and I couldn't capture anything clearly with my Canon. This is the stainless steel pearl holder on Caddell vintage insert. This is the new pearl holder I just received. How do you like it, gentlemen? TC 10/10/14

Hi mates! Was offered this through a friend: Wondering if it really is gen.... Thanks for your help!!! E

Dear all, before I start I want to thank this really nice community! I already bought some nice pieces here from some members and met some really friendly people - Also from Germany or Netherlands. Lots of support here!! I did not know that the scene would be so big in Germany too. Sorry to copy and paste that from my IWC thread. But I am really impressed here! So here is my work log for my Franken Rolex Submariner 16610LV and of course I have some questions!! What I have: TW-Best case (same case BK uses) 50th anniversery edition (green insert and bigger indexes) dial GEN crown GEN LV insert GEN crystal Yuki Tube Datewheel from the latest Seadweller Noobfactory bracelet (overworked) Cousins Bezel Click Spring The movement needs to be changed to an Swiss ETA 2836. Already have it here - See pictures below. First questions: Is this a good base to move on? Are there better cases available? Is the GEN dial worth to change? The bracelet is too short for my wrist. Is this the best REP bracelet I can get or would you recommend this. GEN is to expensive in my opinion. So what are your thoughts? Any other ideas or hints or feedback? Thanks!!

I ordered the 16610LV from TC 2+ weeks ago and it finally arrived yesterday. It was packaged very nicely. It came bubble wrapped and sealed in a silver poly bag inside a small brown box. Just for fun, I re-unboxed it in a Rolex watch shipping box. I have many of these available, if you are interested in purchasing a Rolex plastic shipping box, shoot me a PM. Anyhow, on to the watch reivew... *Sorry in advance for any moisture, dust, or lint on the watches Dial/hands: The dial printing is excellent as usual with TC subs. The font and color looks great. The marker surroundings are quite good for the round makers, but there seems to be a bit too much lume for the 12'o clock marker. I have an extra TC LV dial and its also the case with that dial. The maxi dials have the same width for each of the surroundings whereas the 12, 6 and 9 markers are a bit thicker on the 16610LN models. The hands are quite good, in these macro shots, you see a bit of extra lume around the edges of the hands. This is pretty invisible to the naked eye. The dial and hands are superlumed. Sorry I didn't get a pic, but I can assure you it glows like gen! CG/crown: This has been covered in other reviews. Gen like CG shape. Excellent cut and finish. The crown is very gen like as well. I had a few gen crowns but I didn't even bother switching it. I think it's that good! Date/crystal: RSH pointed out that the DWO (v1 and v2) are a bit left justified. I can confirm that this is the case with both of the TC watches. The LV came with v2 DWO, the background color is more white, but the left justification is present. Its more apparent for numbers in the 20s. vs I also noticed at the TC crystal seem to magnify the date a bit too much. The TC 16610LN has a Clark crystal installed and the magnification is similar to what I see on my gen GMT IIc. There is no LEC at 6'o clock. The crystal does have a softer edge than Clark's (TC crystal is more gen like). Pearl/insert: (gen insert on the LN version) The pearl is excellent on this insert. It's superlumed and seems to have some sort of covering. The pearl surrounding isn't as neat as the gen pearl but its quite good. The insert itself has very accurate shade of green compared to the gen. I did notice that the triangle above the pearl is a bit thin. It has a small crease present. This crease is also on other member's TC LV subs that I've seen. The edges of the insert is pretty clean, but the outer edge is not painted or smooth like the gen (only seen when removed). (moisture around 35-40 markings) Bracelet: The watch came with the V3 bracelet already installed with 1.8mm spring bars. TC also included 2 2.0mm bars. I decided to try swapping the spring bars and it worked flawlessly with the 2.0mm bars. The fitment with the 1.8mm bars had very slight play, its very tight with the 2.0mm bars. The SEL fitment is excellent. It's even all around. My only complaint about the V3 bracelet is the clasp shape and operation. I bought 4 v3 bracelets from TC and each of the clasp caps open and close differently from one another. Either its too tight or too loose, but its easily fixed. I do however think the clasp from the V2 has a more accurate shape. As seen in this photo, the clasp's corners are not "square" enough. It has a tapered look to it. I tried finding pictures of a gen clasp with this shape but almost all of them have sharper corners. The V2 clasp did not have this flaw (although the coronet and swissmade was incorrect). The backside looks pretty good as well. The next version should thin out the backside of the SEL piece so that its flush with the casing. Here are some more pictures my TC 16610LN (gen insert, clark crystal, still has the v1 dwo, v3 bracelet & clasp) and the newly acquired LV

I have never liked the green bezel on the Submariner 16610LV but somehow the green grows in me and I like it much better now. Before I begin the review I want to list the problems with the LV Sub I got from my seller. For these LV Subs I'd just call it TC factory direct LV Sub. They are built by my seller's watchmaker, they are made in China, so "factory direct" suits the description the best. First the original bracelet that comes with the LV Sub is bad. What you see in the picture is one of TC 93250 V2 bracelet. The lug width of the factory direct LV Sub is 20.06, TC V2 bracelet SEL width is 20.13 I couldn't fit the SEL onto the case in the beginning. I had to trim the SEL then get it fit. The fitment doesn't look bad at all. The dial indices of 6 and 9 were crooked I had to bent it to alignment with a steel ruler. An easy task but takes extreme focus. I bought 5 TC factory direct LV Subs back and all 5 have the same issues, bad bracelet, bad SEL, and crooked indices at 6 and 9 on the dial. Once getting rid off these ugly factors, the LV Sub actually looks darn good. The crystal on the TC factory direct LV Sub is a 2.0 mm crystal. It's the same crystal I used on the M-series TC Subs. The clarity is not bad at all. People say rep crystal clarity is not as good as gen I think that's just because gen indices reflect much sharper brightness then rep indices. Top is TC factory direct LV Sub; bottom gen Sub without bezel insert. I will talk about the dial print quality later. Let's take a look at the case and crown first. I believe the watch case maker somehow drilled the tube hole too deep. There must be a reason for this I will ask my seller the next time I meet him. Crown guard shape is alright, and from the back one could tell the watch case is very well machined. The back case teeth shape and depth are excellent! TC factory direct LV Sub comes with TC's Date Wheel Overlay. I said somewhere before, there are thousands DWO maker in GD province, only a couple has the right equipment and skill to make a DWO like this. Coolchu made a post about gen crystal height versus bezel insert. The M-series gen does have the most protrude crystal height than other gen series. That feature is on TC factory direct LV Sub as well. The LV bezel insert is far better than the black bezel insert I have. The pearl is of the right shape, there's a clear coating over the lume. It actually looks better than Clark insert with WM pearl combo. The green color of this insert has excellent match to gen. It reflects a yellowish tint at an angle like a gen. I'm impressed by this as I have never seen one rep maker done it right. Now let's check dial print quality. Notice print raised high gloss? Needless to say a gen feature that doesn't exist on other Rolex reps. TC factory direct LV Sub's crown position sits just a tad lower than gen or TC Sub V-series crown position. My theory to this the case maker wanted to make a case could house also 2824 or 2836. The movement inside is a Sellita SW200. There is no stem tension when operation I'd say the case maker did a brilliant job! Thanks for reading! TC