she's finally home

[larryccf]

this basket case left for complete spa treatment on Feb 8th - not only was the bezel, insert and retaining ring missing, but winding action was really bad, setting time or date was "hit & miss", loose rotor etc



and finally came home earlier this week



i actually purch'd this basket case July 2008 and it only took 4 years to actually get into gear getting it restored. Complete svc, keeping really decent time (so far over 2 days, about 7 secs a day)

lesson i learned on this one - buying a basket case when the market is "high" isn't the way to go. Between that and the cost of the "NOS" bezel & insert and the cost of svc, parts needed etc, next time if i'm going to buy high, then at least do it assembled, "turn key" or ready to wear.

while waiting for it to come home, i was thinking i'd put it up for sale, take my loss now and move into something else - now that it's home, i don't know. It does everything i want a watch to do, on the wrist.

one interesting note - this is the first time i've had a watch come back from svcing and actually have the crown action feel like a new watch ( screwing down, winding and date/time setting). The watchmaker is a rolex svc agent and has other connections to rolex, enough so that he was able to source me two orig blue bezel inserts (in the shot above it's wearing a slightly faded NOS insert that i paid way too much for).