Vintage Rolex Buyer's Guidance to determine the originality of your watch..

[The Thomas J]

I am lucky enough to have 5 Rolex's and 2 Tudor's. The newest are the his and her Tudor's from the early 80's that were my parents dress watches.The oldest is a Rolex Perpetual from 1956. A 1016/5500 from the 60's, a 5513 Submariner circa 1977/78. A 1973 1803 and, Last but not least a 29mm 1950's handwound 6654 (I may be wrong about that refrence)

My Tudor and 1803 are 100% original and have only experienced service by RSC.

My Submariner was given to me by my much older cousin who used to scuba dive all over the world as a gift for my 40th has had a combination of RSC and non RSC service. He only wore that watch on weekends or vacation and it showed. He bought that watch in the early 80's new. The first thing he did was change the fold over clasp to a later holdover clasp with the latch as he felt it wasn't secure enough when he would go diving. He threw away that bracket 15 years later because it was falling apart, but kept the clasp because he liked it and put it on a generic bracelet that he got at the mall. I kid you not. He had it serviced at Rolex once. In 2000 He busted it up when he was jogging when he tripped and fell. Rolex wanted a ton of money to fix it. He wound up using a local watchmaker to fix it. However, in his words it was never the same. He tossed in a draw not to long after that. The final straw being when the the second hand fell off. That's how I got it. He did give me the 2 line dial that came with it that he still had. The dial was all banged up and faded so I just kept the service dial on it.

I had my local watch guy fix the second hand and put the Clasp on a Rubber B. He told me the watch needed an overhaul. I searched high and low for a gen 20mm Submariner bracelet, but the prices are bananas and you don't know what you are getting. I had the bright idea to swap my 19mm bracelet from my 1016 and put that on a nato. It fits but has a 1mm gap at the lugs and bothers me so I go back and forth between a NATO and the rubber B.

I had to have the movement completely overhauled last year due to water and rust issues Rolex wanted $2700 to do it and that didn't include a new plexiglass which was cracked that allowed water to get in there.

I wound up sending to a watchmaker that came highly recommended by numerous people. He did an amazing job. Sent me videos and pics of the job as it went on. It was a ton of work. Gen Rolex parts for the 1500 series of movements are virtually impossible to come by unless they are coming from donor movements and those cost upwards of $2000. He did source me a n RSC replacement plexiglass. Probably made in China.

When you are dealing with watches that are 30, 40, 50 plus years old you have to accept that there maybe a non Rolex part in there. It's just the way it is.

I need to send 2 out for service as I dropped both of them. I really messed up the hand wound one.

This pic is the most recent with the 19mm C&I bracelet, which I find very comfortable and, on the rubber B.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk