Let's present my Franken Rolex red 1680 with some RolexAddict magic!(LOT OF PICTURES)

[yamahatwin]

Hey,
After been a fan of Rolex and got the famous 16610, the 1680 always intrigue me in many way. Maybe it's the painting instead of circle tritum dot? Maybe it's the famous plexi? Maybe it's this mystic red "SUBMARINER" ? whatever...I wanted one!

The big problem on vintage watch is that every 1680 (or rolex with painted dial) are different. Even on the Gen forum, you can see f*** expesinve Gen vintage sub which have been relumed by a mason or too vintaged. IMO, Vintage watch are really personal...

Ok, but what's on the REp world for a good 1680?

In the rep word, everybody know this famous MBK box which is told to have some "gen" spec . In reality, i don't know if it's MBK or people of forum guy but MBK is not "gen spec". These very good case need some rework which are : of course the famous "CG Shaving" but also some case adjustement below the CG (the bezel has to be widest that the case) and drill lug.

Then what's to put in it? we can see plenty of dial maker (ingod, yuki, mbk, ...) and relume work. When you look very closely relume work, you can really see fantastic results, and so crappy things that it would have been better to let stock dial.

Let's go back to my baby: I purchased a year ago a package on the Rep watch sale:
- MBK case
- ETA low beat
- Unknow dial (dirty dirty) relumed
- Bezel that have been into 4 wars
- supposed to be GEN crystal (it was not)
- Gen crown & tube

The watch looked like this:

When you see closely on the dial, you can see that even when you look at the watch on your arm the dial was really dirty:



I though it was a good base and really looking for a good people to mod it like in my dream. During this last year, I spend lot of time to look, real, look gen watch, go into shops to look at it and touch it and I found THE man : RolexAddict (also called JJ). I really admired his work and he has very good feedback (his dealer section is on RWG.CC). I liked how he applied the relume (very small dot in vintage color, smaller than the dot, and exactly like the top (and too few GEN)GEN vintage Rolex.

JJ is a very nice french guy and since I'm french I meet him to grab a coffe and look of what's possible to do.
2 weeks later, I meet him back to get my watch... To be honest, I really couldn't imagine how PERFECT could have been transformed my Red1680 . :

First of all, the "unknow dial" which has been relumed like crap was a GEN dial (look closely at the SUBMARINER in red, SINGER on the back of the dial...). The dial was a little miss colored (not full black) and the previous lume was not only on the dot so really in bad condition. JJ did an AMAZING job by removing all the previous crap and relume like only him know in the vintage lume.

He also changed my pearl with a great vintage one and swapped my old bezel with an aftermarket one prepared by him. This bezel is so incredible  : the color is black,grey and blue. It's not like you can see on many aftermarket (and gen! bezel : uniformly back or gey. To be honest, it's one of the best bezel it's seen (reg&Gen watch).

He also changed my "supposed gen crystal" which wasn't one by a clack one (by far much better). He also explained me that a GEN crystal is not the good option on these MBK case because on GEN 1680 the dial is closer than on our MBK box. This mean that the magification if way too high.

He also used his GEN model to reshape my case, and add GEN springbar (very heavy and fill the drill hole on the case).

I think he also gave a little bit of magic to get such a beeauty.

I tried to give justice to this watch even if I'm not a star of photo...so I took a lot of picture.
I can definitively assure you that this watch is X20 better in real than in these pictures:




















































 

[woof*]

Beauty!

[netniet]

Damn, very nice done, and great pics. Now i am sure to send a SSD to JJ for some magic.

[mjmj]

nice one.

[monkeypunch]

Looks great! Wear it in good health!

[ceocorona]

Really digging the background and of course the watch is awesome! RA does impeccable work. Wear it well!

[ogladio]

You've got yourself a really fine 1680, enjoy my envy and the watch on your wrist! Btw, now get yourself a good bracelet

[yamahatwin]

Thanks guys! Jj also reworked my steel strap and did great work specifically on end links.

I will post some pictures when summer will be over... But I like the nato strap too :-)

Envoyé depuis mon GT-I9505 avec Tapatalk 4

[alligoat]

The watch looks nice, but that's not a gen dial- it's an MBW dial which is stamped Singer on the back.

A gen Mark IV red sub dial looks like this one that Orchi posted on VRF.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/539586/message/1217965375/1680--3.18mil+SN%2C+II.71%2C+Red+Sub%2C+non-hacking+cal.+1575--posted+by+Orchi

It's marked Beyeler on the back, by the way.

The problem on the MBW dial is the 'Submariner' is too tall as is the 660ft-200m. Also, the red is too red.

Also, look at the 6's on 660 on Orchi's dial- just a slight gap in the middle- don't see that on the MBW dial.

I realize the MKIV red dial is now referred to as the MKV on VRF sometimes. The first two were meters first and a few years ago someone came up with a third meters first, so that moved the two feet first dials out to 4 and 5.

[sgtguk]

Looks great mate, quite a transformation  enjoy it !

[ianmac]

Looks great, not a big fan of nato straps so looking forward to seeing it on the bracelet. Nice photos too!