- 12/10/21
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Re-posted from the new members area into the Rolex Sub Forum for relevance.
First of all hello from Oxford, United Kingdom.
I joined because I was impressed with the technical knowledge here, in a world of fakes frankly you could think that no one cares...but they do and that is nice to know.
So many people say its a world full of sharks and criminals and fakery is bad...but I've seen some places where people actually care about what they do, and provide a good product and a decent service and if you want a Rolex but only have $400 then what are going to do?
I wonder if you could help with quite an advanced project I have running which is ...a bit odd but bear with me it will be a spectacular success or failure depending on what follows here...its long, so get a drink and sit down...
Years ago I was lucky enough to be awarded a Military Rolex Explorer II (216570) Black Dial with Zap# and Specialist Badge back plus engraving, I wore it for a few weeks until a friend of mine died. He had one too, There were 30 made for our detachment, his wife to be...she had a few bills to pay so she sold it, I remember it being frowned upon at the time. But she really had no choice, She was going to be homeless and needed the money for more important things than pride and honour, and a shiny watch. it was sold at Sotheby’s for ridiculous money…something like £25k.
10 years has gone past since then and now one has just sold at £44k
So I put mine away, I wasn’t going to strutt about with that on my wrist, its bloody ridiculous. But I missed it and made a stupid decision because I could not afford a real one, I went to Hong Kong, and yes you have guessed it,?
I came back with a ‘good quality’ fake. By that I mean its made of 216/904L Surgical steel, has mineral glass, is waterproof and kept decent time with a low beat 5 gradiations/sec primitive Myota pattern auto movement (GMT hand is at the bottom, and the hour hand does not set independently and directly linked to the minute hand unlike the Gen. the GMT hand sets at POS-1 if you thumb wind the watch backwards, forwards sets the date).
Here's the real reason I need advice, I thought this watch was basically indestructible, had amazing scratch resistance and kept good time so I was happy with it for a very long time-years went past.
Then even more stupidly a couple of years back I dug some house foundations by hand wearing it, hours of pick-axe work and this good quality not a Rolex had a few issues after that, I'm entirely to blame.
Top cardinal marker triangle went AWOL, floats around the face getting in the way and snarling up the hands.
Face not fixed +/- up to 90 degrees depending on how you rattle it and twitches on setting like a buckled wheel so is very loose inside the watch no interference fit or spacer grip to help that. so its in need of some engineering now.
Problem is I have grown to love it it has a few stories to tell-its now 10 years old and had until that point been my surrogate to the one never to be worn again.
More stupidity follows…obviously I don’t like the fact its actually fake and broken, so took it upon myself to try to build in some quality so its..slowly…erm...less fake.
I’ve bought a swiss ETA 2893-2 GMT Elabore-CDG-DATE for the 42MM Oyster case.
I also have a new face from a guy in the US who managed to write off his Explorer II he dived with the crown at POS-3 and gave it a lovely salty bath so there is minor water damage to the original Rolex face which I do not mind at all it it clean up good, if not I’m not really bothered by it.
And my 24 hour bezel is worn so I got the bezel from his too. Gen bezels have decent black anodized markers, the fake ones flake off after five years or so.
The hour marker hand is wrong the Gen is stumpier, so I bought the Gen 216570 Handset in the hope they can be fitted to the 2893-2 ETA stack.
Am I mad or stupid or both? Would a watchmaker be able to fettle this bag of quality junk back to life do you think...and I guess most importantly have a missed anything that would make it easier for a decent watch maker to have a good stab at this and a reasonable chance of success?
Do not reply "if you want a real one buy a real one.." I already know that and I'm more than a grand in and its fun...having a gen Explorer II to go with the other one now is kind of besides the point, now I'm so far down this track. Basically I want my old fake to be a higher quality fake with some gen parts, and a swiss movement. I'm seeing a watch maker on Thursday but wondered if you had any advice I could act on prior to that?
First of all hello from Oxford, United Kingdom.
I joined because I was impressed with the technical knowledge here, in a world of fakes frankly you could think that no one cares...but they do and that is nice to know.
So many people say its a world full of sharks and criminals and fakery is bad...but I've seen some places where people actually care about what they do, and provide a good product and a decent service and if you want a Rolex but only have $400 then what are going to do?
I wonder if you could help with quite an advanced project I have running which is ...a bit odd but bear with me it will be a spectacular success or failure depending on what follows here...its long, so get a drink and sit down...
Years ago I was lucky enough to be awarded a Military Rolex Explorer II (216570) Black Dial with Zap# and Specialist Badge back plus engraving, I wore it for a few weeks until a friend of mine died. He had one too, There were 30 made for our detachment, his wife to be...she had a few bills to pay so she sold it, I remember it being frowned upon at the time. But she really had no choice, She was going to be homeless and needed the money for more important things than pride and honour, and a shiny watch. it was sold at Sotheby’s for ridiculous money…something like £25k.
10 years has gone past since then and now one has just sold at £44k
So I put mine away, I wasn’t going to strutt about with that on my wrist, its bloody ridiculous. But I missed it and made a stupid decision because I could not afford a real one, I went to Hong Kong, and yes you have guessed it,?
I came back with a ‘good quality’ fake. By that I mean its made of 216/904L Surgical steel, has mineral glass, is waterproof and kept decent time with a low beat 5 gradiations/sec primitive Myota pattern auto movement (GMT hand is at the bottom, and the hour hand does not set independently and directly linked to the minute hand unlike the Gen. the GMT hand sets at POS-1 if you thumb wind the watch backwards, forwards sets the date).
Here's the real reason I need advice, I thought this watch was basically indestructible, had amazing scratch resistance and kept good time so I was happy with it for a very long time-years went past.
Then even more stupidly a couple of years back I dug some house foundations by hand wearing it, hours of pick-axe work and this good quality not a Rolex had a few issues after that, I'm entirely to blame.
Top cardinal marker triangle went AWOL, floats around the face getting in the way and snarling up the hands.
Face not fixed +/- up to 90 degrees depending on how you rattle it and twitches on setting like a buckled wheel so is very loose inside the watch no interference fit or spacer grip to help that. so its in need of some engineering now.
Problem is I have grown to love it it has a few stories to tell-its now 10 years old and had until that point been my surrogate to the one never to be worn again.
More stupidity follows…obviously I don’t like the fact its actually fake and broken, so took it upon myself to try to build in some quality so its..slowly…erm...less fake.
I’ve bought a swiss ETA 2893-2 GMT Elabore-CDG-DATE for the 42MM Oyster case.
I also have a new face from a guy in the US who managed to write off his Explorer II he dived with the crown at POS-3 and gave it a lovely salty bath so there is minor water damage to the original Rolex face which I do not mind at all it it clean up good, if not I’m not really bothered by it.
And my 24 hour bezel is worn so I got the bezel from his too. Gen bezels have decent black anodized markers, the fake ones flake off after five years or so.
The hour marker hand is wrong the Gen is stumpier, so I bought the Gen 216570 Handset in the hope they can be fitted to the 2893-2 ETA stack.
Am I mad or stupid or both? Would a watchmaker be able to fettle this bag of quality junk back to life do you think...and I guess most importantly have a missed anything that would make it easier for a decent watch maker to have a good stab at this and a reasonable chance of success?
Do not reply "if you want a real one buy a real one.." I already know that and I'm more than a grand in and its fun...having a gen Explorer II to go with the other one now is kind of besides the point, now I'm so far down this track. Basically I want my old fake to be a higher quality fake with some gen parts, and a swiss movement. I'm seeing a watch maker on Thursday but wondered if you had any advice I could act on prior to that?