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Dusty Chalk

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I hadn't paid attention, before, but I think the face of my GMT has had the tritium redone.  It was quite dim when I sent it in, and essentially unusable at night, and it's now substantially brighter than my new Citizen (way brighter.  in fact, so bright that I noticed it for the first time when I went to grab a beer and I didn't turn the hall light on).  I remember one of the tritium pads being slightly malformed, from the time Rolex redid it a decade ago, and it's now perfectly squared.   There is a tiny dust speck that wasn't there, too, but I'm not going to complain, as I only noticed it now that I looked at the face closely.  Wow, this rules.

 

I would love to contact your watch restorer about having the lume re-done on my Submariner - after 30 years it also doesn't light up at night, just like yours.  Can you PM me his info? 

 

I now wonder if the Bezel on mine was replaced at some point after the original purchase, because the single dot does retain some glow with a bright flashlight, although not for very long.  Also, does a partial refurb like this (lume) reduce the value of a vintage watch?  

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I never use the baro on my Core but I might need a Sapphire so I can switch up watches so I don't get bored with my watches at the gym.

More is more :)

I just remember being about 13 years old and looking at the Suunto watches at the jewelry store and thinking how cool it was that a watch could measure altitude.

If I was still interested in diving then I would be looking at their dive computers which are also awesome.

Edited by Dreadhead
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Brent,

 

I don't think the altimeter would never work on a plane because it has no way of compensating for the arbitrary cabin pressure.  Even the altimeter on my Garmin 500 gets thrown for a loop if there is a rapid/sudden atmospheric pressure change.  I really need to recalibrate my Core's altimeter and more importantly start wearing it again. 

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I would love to contact your watch restorer about having the lume re-done on my Submariner - after 30 years it also doesn't light up at night, just like yours.  Can you PM me his info? 

 

I now wonder if the Bezel on mine was replaced at some point after the original purchase, because the single dot does retain some glow with a bright flashlight, although not for very long.  Also, does a partial refurb like this (lume) reduce the value of a vintage watch?  

http://www.piecesoftime.net/

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ah, hah.

It's actually a much nicer fake than the one shown at the top of the page. In fact, as a long time (not by my own choice, I was happy to be a long time Seiko and Citizen owner) Rolex owner, I don't know the Submariner that well, and would have said "nice watch," If i saw somebody wearing that. I can't image HPA would have gotten anything else. I've met two people with fake Randall knives, and all I said was "nice knives." Rolex is no different. Embarrassing people is shitty.

I actually had a person tell me that my watch was fake, because a 45 year old watch should have the same movement as their brand new Submariner, right? They got told pretty bad. They worked at a Starbucks, though. So did my wife, at the time, but that's not the point.

Yeah, there are definitely people out there that enjoy embarrassing people or making them feel bad about a fake watch. i think I did it accidentally once and I felt awful, when I commented on a co-worker's beautiful Submariner and mentioned that I could only afford a fake, only to notice later that he made an effort to keep the watch covered up with his sleeve the rest of the time we were together. I suspect that he didn't want me to detect that it was a fake. Sigh... Foot in mouth comes easy to me.

I've been happy with a wide variety of inexpensive watches since my granddad's Rolex was stolen from me. I really like my Seiko SKX173 and Citizen Titanium 5250-53L perpetual calendar chronograph, as well as my newer Citizen 300M dive watch and Orient Mako. The Mako might be the best bang for the buck in an automatic dive watch with a true manufacture movement. I have several other Citizen eco-drive watches, including an inexpensive field chronograph, the Proximity BT watch (don't bother), and a discontinued Citizen 5430-51H which is my dressiest looking watch. I'm usually not dressed up nice enough to wear such a shiny watch, and plan to gift that one to my son or brother. When the Citizen Titanium was discontinued I bought a spare because I liked it so much. My son covets the watch and it may end up being his when he receives this Eagle Scout award soon.

Last year I discovered a source for Chinese automatic watches that were decent imitations of Omega, Breitling and Rolex, and bought a few. Half of them were defective right off the bat. But the ones that worked tell time well, but they are meaningless watches. So I wanted some Swiss watches and bought a Luminox 1842 and Victorinox. I didn't know much about watch manufacturer history and the watch snob would have berated me for my collection of mostly quartz watches. A Hamilton or Baume and Mercier automatic might have been a more decent budget Swiss watch to the snob, but I like the style and build quality on these two.

As I mentioned before, I only got the Rolex Submariner to have an heirloom watch to hand down to my son, a watch that I've worn and he can connect to for that reason. I would have passed down my granfather's oyster perpetual stainless from the 70’s but the portable fire safe it was stored in was stolen from my garage when I got careless. I've got a nicer 80lb safe in the house that's really hard to move, but it's still only rated for 30 minutes for documents. I store the Rolex in there overnight, and wear it during the day. Since the lume is not glowing anymore I grab my Citizen off the windowsill and the hands glow all night long.

GRAWK - I love the look of the orange strap you have on the "Rolex", as they pair well together. The cyclops magnification looks good, despite the suspect crown-guards from the perspective in the photo. Unfortunately the more recent photo shows the wrong font in the date window.

On another note - the watch shop that sold me the Rolex has several places that can restore the lume on the Submariner, for $50-$100. He restores a few Rolexes himself, but outsources the lume work. He can also replace the dial/face with a newer used one while letting me keep the original just in case, or he can have Rolex provide a new face with an exchange of the old one plus cash. He's going to call me back early this week with a complete range of prices. I didn't hear that the lume-restoration hurts the value of a vintage watch, but that it's the replacement of the entire original dial that hurts it.

Edited by HeadphoneAddict
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I guess my watch collection is a little bit silly, as I have few quality pieces although many are decent sub $1000 watches.

 

Top Left are my Casio Tough Solar and Solar Protrek Alt/Baro/Temp/Compass plus a Pulsar titanium solar.

 

Bottom Left are mostly imitation watcheslike Speedmaster Pro moon watch, Rolex Miligauss, Brietling Navitimer, Tag Carrera, a cheap Invicta and Citizen field watch chronograph

 

Bottom Middle are Victorinox, Tag Classic, Luminox, Citizen 300M, Citizen 5430, Stuhrling Original 200M and Nautica day date -

 

Bottom right are Citizen Proximity, Citizen 5250 Titanium, Rolex Submariner real and fake, Seiko SKX173, Orient Mako, Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 007 (fake), Lucien Picard.  This doesn't include the watch I'm giving my son, or some $20 Casio's.

 

fjn2.jpgUploaded with ImageShack.com

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