Hi Jurgenk
Thanks for the question.
For a start, the members who have been around, like
QueTip will know that I was an avid builder/buyer of AP frankens. At the peak of my collection, I had about 12. And about 9 of them had gen hands. Today, I own 0 AP frankens and about 12 AP gens. I actually have a gen Patek/Rolex collection which is unworn, they are for safekeeping but that is another story. Lets focus on the AP frankens.
An AP franken is a work of passion and dedication. But depending on the skill of the modder, it can suffer from issues like alignment problems in the keyless system, waterproofing, slipping of hands etc.
These are generic issues which some frankens suffer from but most of them are built reasonably well.
The frankens of the old world uses gen hands, which are beautifully crafted out of white gold, and has the 3 S(shine, shape and stack) which no rep or aftermarket hands possess. The aftermarket hands are typically too flat, lack the luster of the gen, and of course, the shape of the base stack is just wrong. These are not very evident in pictures, or heck, even real life, when viewed on their own. But when placed next to a gen, the differences just cannot be unseen. It is like comparing a beat up 10 year old chevy truck to a Corvette. One giveaway, for example, is the thin "stem" connecting the base of the hands to the main part of the hands. This part is typically too flat, too dull, and way too two-dimensional vs the gen hands. Look at the pics Quetip posted and you can see it immediately. The shape and proportion, are therefore, wrong. There is no substitute for the gen hands.
The datewheel font used in this example of a franken is a little over-serifed. If you check the tips of the 2 and 6, you will see that it looks nothing like the gen font. Again, the difference may not be obvious in stand-alone pics. But put the franken and gen side by side and the one becomes a parody of the other. The modern font produced by Mikey, on the other hand, is IMHO the best aftermarket datewheel out there. I personally love it and think that it is very accurate to gen. But the classic font is something I will stay away from. The inaccuracy on the double digit dates stand out especially.
The cyclop issue has been resolved beautifully by Prof. His cyclop has a close to 1:1 magnification vs gen, and is actually a little clearer than the gen cyclop which the modern day ROOs use.
I will define an acceptable AP ROO franken as one possessing gen dial, gen tachy, gen hands and gen movement minimally. But to each their own. Most members here either read what others post, or compare pics from the internet and call it good. But there is just no substitute for the real deal. And no substitute for the side by side comparisons in person. There are qualities which cannot be properly appreciated in pictures, like finish, like poise, and like the finer details of worksmanship. At the end of the day, as long as the owner is happy with the watch, and call it good, the franken has served its purpose. But make no mistake, a franken isn't a gen, and should never be presented as one. It is a fun, comparatively low cost watch, put together to please its owner/builder. It carries a luxury brand on its dial. That is all. It is not an AP. The movement quality are saliently different, and the LWO movement can never be a real substitute for the gen AP 3126/3840 caliber. The smoothness and finesse of the winding, the time and date adjustment, the crispness of the instant date change.. these can never be found in any LWO, no matter how premium the grade may be. And such differences do not show up in pictures.
There are however, the real serious stuff built by madmen like
tosoboso and Quetip. Whatever I have mentioned about frankens, do not apply to such builds. They are simply outside my scope of comprehension, in a good way. It will be far easier to treat these builds like customized gens, which is what they are.
At the end of the day, as long as the owner is happy with his watch, the watch is his business and his alone. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, and blessed is the man who can wear a $5000 AP franken, or even a fully stock rep, thinking that he has a 1:1 ROO on his wrist. We are all different, and we have different benchmarks of quality, and different expectations. I will not buy another AP franken but I am just one guy. Most here are not like me and that is a good thing for the hobby.