- 9/7/12
- 22,482
- 17,772
- 113
Surprisingly, when you buy a genuine vintage Rolex you don't have the choice of mixing and matching lume colour with insert colour - unless you purchase a different insert of course. And if you feel there's too much - or not enough patina - on the dial you can't really ask the seller to change it.
If you find the lugs are too thin, or that stain on the hour hand bothers you then you'll need to find another example of a 1675 - the watch is as it is, you either like it or you don't.
This is what makes vintage Rolex unique - even if they came out of the factory 50 years ago looking exactly the same, no 2 watches will age the same way - in vintage watches, perfection doesn't exist, except in the eyes of the beholder.
Those imperfections - the little marks on the dial , the stains on the lume, the scratches on the hands or that nick on the insert etc are the result of time, and to a certain degree the previous owners care (or lack of).
A vintage Rolex is not standardised, sanitised or homogenised, it has character, history, and it's unique - and replicas of vintage Rolex should also logically try to have the same characteristics.
Trying to accurately replicate an ageing process that's taken many years is almost impossible - whether you're trying to replicate a 200 year old painting, a 100 year old piece of furniture or a 50 year old GMT 1675. Replicating the randomness of the imperfections - the imperfections that took all those years to appear. Many are so subtle you barely notice them, but your brain registers them.
So, a thoroughly imperfect GMT 1675 with a MKII dial in a 1978 case (yes, this did exist in Rolex's production of 1675's), with mismatched lume on the dial and hands ( OCD's - cover your eyes or you'll have nightmares), a Rolex 116 crystal, Rolex 5.3 mm crown, and a NOS Swiss ETA low beat converted to GMT - the GMT hand is non adjustable and driven by the hour hand - as per genuine.
Thanks for looking.