First post, long time lurker!

[CaliSpecial]

Hi all

As the title suggests I’ve been lurking on here for some time now and have found the site to be an absolute goldmine of information. I belong to (and moderate on) several car forums so know enough to use the search function before asking questions that have been answered a hundred times already, hence my lack of posts thus far.

Anyway, I thought it was time I introduced myself (I’ll try to keep it brief!) My name is Andy and I am based in Essex, UK.

My first Rolex was a WG Racing Dial (black face) Daytona which I bought as an impulse buy 8 years ago from the AD in Heathrow airport as a 50th birthday present to myself. I knew nothing about Rolex but I always lusted after this watch as it was the one featured on the sponsorship for F1 at the time. It lived in its box and I only ever wore it on very special occasions. I maxed out a credit card to buy it and it probably took me 3 years to pay for it!

Fast forward 3 years and a SubC date was added to the collection. A walk in purchase from an AD in San Francisco. Again, no knowledge whatsoever of what I was buying but bought it because I liked the idea of a watch I could wear more often and went for the date version as this seemed to be the archetypal Rolex.

So to the present. My daily driver watch of some 17 years had been an Armani watch that was as slim as a coin and was just a part of me. I loved its elegant, understated styling and the fact that it was accurate to probably 1 or 2 seconds a month. Unfortunately the clasp broke one day and when I put it in for repair I started wearing the Sub as a temporary daily. Over the course of the next couple of months I tried to get the old faithful repaired but it had been a discontinued model for some 10 years and the parts were simply not available. So in that time I was also searching for a replacement daily but something weird was happening. The Sub was really growing on me as a daily driver! Further more, every thing I looked at as a new daily was really falling short in terms of quality when held in the hand. I didn’t want to spent a fortune so I was looking at Tag Heuer, Longines, Oris etc, but couldn’t find anything that gave me the same feeling so slowly but surely the Sub morphed into my new daily.

However... I am now 58 years old and my eyesight (closeup) isn’t what it used to be and I found that the cyclops was irritating the hell out of me. I could only read the date in strong light (or with reading glasses on) and I found it really annoying that when the hands where anywhere near the 3:00 position the cyclops would just distort them. So I thought, I know, I’ll just go buy a no date Sub and sell the other one. I walked into my local AD (Chelmsford, UK) with credit card in hand and learned right there and then about the worldwide shortage of SS watches and grey dealers.

I won’t bore you with the same story everyone has about trying to get on an AD’s list but briefly, after visiting every AD within 50 miles of my location and getting very politely added to their ‘register of interest’, I finally found one in the West End of London who after having a chat on the phone with the store manager agreed to put me on the bottom of his closed list for a No Date Sub and took a 20% deposit off me. Happy days, even though I was told to expect a 12 month wait.

So while I was waiting I started researching Rolex models, both old and new. I now officially had the bug! I have a friend who is a Rolex lover (and also a member on here) who I probably drove mad with phone calls and questions! As a result of those conversations I decided to sell the Daytona, which I’d probably worn a total of 12 times in 8 years. There were 2 reasons for this, firstly I worried about it’s high value and the possible unwanted attention it might attract but also, with my rubbish short distance eyesight I found it quite difficult to read. I’d decided I wanted a GMT of the 17610 persuasion. As late a model as I could get, no holes case and full set (see, I’d learned all the jargon!) and after months of searching I found one that fit the bill. I bought that and promptly took it straight to the RSC in Kent for a bezel swap (Black to Coke) and then sold the Daytona to a grey in central London.

I wore the GMT every single day from the day I got it and loved how slim and flat it wore on my wrist compared to the Sub. Because I loved it so much (despite the cyclops) I decided to sell the Sub to the same Grey that bought the Daytona and would simply wear the GMT as my daily until such time as the no date Sub materialised.

Two months later I got the call from the AD (4 months total wait) to tell me they had a Sub for me which I picked up the end of January and has been glued to my wrist ever since. Yes, it’s a little chunkier than the GMT but I now feel I have two perfect watches that 100% suit my lifestyle. I love the classic simplicity of the no date dial and the fact that I can read the time with just a glance from any angle, and I also love the elegance of the GMT which makes it the perfect ‘going out’ watch without the niggling worry of the high value of the Daytona.

Honestly, with hindsight I do have some sellers remorse over the Daytona but I simply couldn’t afford to have all three. Maybe one day in the future if my financial situation were to change drastically I might get another one as I still believe it to be the most beautiful watch ever made or that I’ve ever owned but for now I couldn’t be happier with my current pieces.

I am so sorry for the ‘War & Peace’ length of this post but if you are still reading it then I will try to add some pictures as soon as I’ve figured out how to do it. (Apparently the files are too large?)

Andy