To be honest, I was first inspired to think about Franken or SuperFranken by a Build report from this forum. A member reported on the conversion of a Replica Seamaster to a Gen but case Seamaster. All parts except the case were replaced with Gen parts, resulting in a fantastic Omega Seamaster 300 that was Gen except for the case. However, at only about 40% of the cost of a new original Omega Seamaster 300.
And not only had the owner fulfilled his desire for a perfect looking copy of his dream watch, the watch is just as accurate and reliable as the original due to the use of a Gen Omega caliber.
It was only through this report - which was also richly illustrated - that I understood that every replica, no matter how good, has obvious flaws that can be eradicated by replacing it with original parts. This is one part of the story of why replicas are converted to Franken watches. The other part of the story is that some technical parts (for example, the reversing wheels in the Rolex automatic module) are simply bad and this flaw can be fixed by swapping them with original parts.
So there are two aspects:
- Visually (and haptically) getting very close to the original and
- Increasing the reliability of the movements
My principle is that I want to get as close to the original as possible, both visually and technically. However, this effort is also no longer really cheap, but with this philosophy I can afford for the same money about 2 - 3 watches that a single watch would cost on the gray market.