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Rolex Ridiculousness


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The old adage, "No matter how much money you have, someone will find a way for you to spend it" comes to mind...

 

$15k for a crystal??????

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amazing-Genuine-Extremely-Rare-Rolex-Crystal-25-295-C1-8-Gold-Foil-Embossed-/161468562944

 

 

Anyone else want to share some Rolecks absurdities they've found? A brand with this much cachet sure does attract a sh*t-ton of fools.

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Imho $250 would knock that crystal in the head.

 

 

I just turned down $1M for my set of three nos tritium 1016 hands.

...or was it $100?  

It does not matter because I can't find them anyway.  

 

 

I know a goober who has spent at least $250k on rolexjunk in the past 20 years. He started out in a nice new house with a new car and a Hot wife and now he is down to a small apartment, a ratty old car, and no wife. Evidently he lost money on every watch he bought.

No, it's not me, I am dead nuts even on them, maybe a little bit ahead.

 

Over the years I have known a few characters that had a genuine rolex obsession. Very few of them ever recovered financially.

Otoh I might have a fake rolex obsession.    :prop:

 

update 12-16

Just saw a GF vintage clasp for sale on VRF for $590. A clasp! For five hundred and ninety USD!

...and it sold!

Insanity.

 

In a few years when the guys who paid $50k for an old rolex (that sold for $350 new) go RIP, many of their wives or kids will sell 'Dad's old watch' for a few hundred bucks. They have no idea he paid $50k for it because he kept it a secret so his family would not have him committed to the looney bin.

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"I know a goober who has spent at least $250k on rolexjunk in the past 20 years. He started out in a nice new house with a new car and a Hot wife and now he is down to a small apartment, a ratty old car, and no wife. Evidently he lost money on every watch he bought.

No, it's not me, I am dead nuts even on them, maybe a little bit ahead."

 

@ automatico

 

Funny how the hot wife disappears when the bank balance vanishes - there can't be some sort of connection can there?

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"I know a goober who has spent at least $250k on rolexjunk in the past 20 years. He started out in a nice new house with a new car and a Hot wife and now he is down to a small apartment, a ratty old car, and no wife. Evidently he lost money on every watch he bought.

No, it's not me, I am dead nuts even on them, maybe a little bit ahead."

 

@ automatico

 

Funny how the hot wife disappears when the bank balance vanishes - there can't be some sort of connection can there?

 

 

Most probably because ...

 

IM0E1zP.png

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It's all market driven. As the genuine parts get scarcer and scarcer, the prices will continue to climb. At some point in time, the last of the old watchmakers hoards will be exhausted, and when that time comes, either one of two things will happen, either folks will pay completely insane prices for NOS parts or they will finally decide, "what the Hell" Rolex isn't supporting us, and hasn't for years. I want to keep my old Sub running, so I'll start replacing parts with aftermarket parts. That will be the only sensible alternative. Maybe the 25 guys left on the Vintage Rolex Forum will continue to trade parts, but for the rest of us, aftermarket will be our only answer. 

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And some parts will just dry up completely. The autowind wheels on my 1030 movements for example. When they die and there are NO replacements then the watch becomes a paperweight. So my Frankens with ETA hearts get more and more use.

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Yep, the 1030 has slipped over the cliff into never never land along with the cursed A260 etc. The A260 will not be missed but the 1030 was a good movement. The 1530 base movements are next although they seem to hold up pretty good except for the somewhat fragile autowind assembly with jeweled bearings and steel rotor axle. The aw assembly is basically Ok if you c/o them in between major movement services. I have a 1520 that I have worn for less than a year since c/o and the rotor axle is dry as a bone. I used D5 on it last time (calls for PML163). They are just not very tuff.

 

What the world needs is a Bulova Precisionist movement that will work with vintage rolex dials and kicks about 20,000 times an hour.

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I thought I overpaid when I gave Philip on TZ $300 for a genuine dome T18 crystal ten years ago.  Now there's one on eBay for $980.

I paid considerably more than $300 for these back then, but, as I have said many times (& has been proven over & over again), today's 'insane' Rolex price is tomorrow's Rolex bargain. So get them while you can.

The idea is to stockpile & keep NOS parts for another 10 or so years & then cash them out when their value is an order of magnitude more than their original insane cost.

Tropic18s1_zps0b740108.jpg

(These are NOT for sale)

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I paid considerably more than $300 for these back then, but, as I have said many times (& has been proven over & over again), today's 'insane' Rolex price is tomorrow's Rolex bargain. So get them while you can.

The idea is to stockpile & keep NOS parts for another 10 or so years & then cash them out when their value is an order of magnitude more than their original insane cost.

Tropic18s1_zps0b740108.jpg

(These are NOT for sale)

 

Very good call!

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The market is so small for some of this stuff that you have to go to an obscure $10k a week looney bin down in the tropics to find a buyer.

...or VRF.

 

When I saw Freddy's 25-18, I jumped up and took off to look and do not have any 25-18 but do have three 25-19 and a few 25-22 . The catch is I do not have a genuine 5512/13 or 1016 and use generics on projects.

 

I wonder how long the crystals will keep before they get brittle? All but two of the 25-22 are in little paper envelopes from the 1980s. The 25-19 are in sealed plastic bags.

For some reason I have about a dozen 25-117 (case # 1500 etc).

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Imho $250 would knock that crystal in the head.

 

 

I just turned down $1M for my set of three nos tritium 1016 hands.

...or was it $100?  

It does not matter because I can't find them anyway.  

 

 

I know a goober who has spent at least $250k on rolexjunk in the past 20 years. He started out in a nice new house with a new car and a Hot wife and now he is down to a small apartment, a ratty old car, and no wife. Evidently he lost money on every watch he bought.

No, it's not me, I am dead nuts even on them, maybe a little bit ahead.

 

Over the years I have known a few characters that had a genuine rolex obsession. Very few of them ever recovered financially.

Otoh I might have a fake rolex obsession.    :prop:

 

update 12-16

Just saw a GF vintage clasp for sale on VRF for $590. A clasp! For five hundred and ninety USD!

...and it sold!

Insanity.

 

In a few years when the guys who paid $50k for an old rolex (that sold for $350 new) go RIP, many of their wives or kids will sell 'Dad's old watch' for a few hundred bucks. They have no idea he paid $50k for it because he kept it a secret so his family would not have him committed to the looney bin.

 

Auto, you don't really think a man would do that...do you?

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I wonder how long the crystals will keep before they get brittle?

I found a stash of T39 Superdomes and bought 5 about 10 years ago, all in the envelopes. I stashed them away for a certain project and when the time came the AD tried them all and they were all too brittle to pass a waterproofing test. Ah well, I shouldn't take the watch swimming anymore anyway.

sd1.jpg

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