About Vintage Rolex

[gimpex]

I was thinking....

There is a lot of comments about vintage rolex , and a lot of "amateurs" like myself seem to like having one from their year of birth. I have been looking around , not found anything yet , but....

I have seen a lot where the dial is replaced , the hands are replaced, sometimes even the case. Given that most of the vintage would have had at least one service ( and another thread here clarified what gets replaced during a nornal service) ... I am wondering how much of the "vintage" is actually left in some of those watches ??

Some are real beauties , no doubt , but some that I have seen advertised left me scratching my head if I am not just falling for some "hype"....

Any thoughts ?

[MonBK]

So true.

[dsio]

Not being an expert either, I bought one that was completely unserviced from someone I trusted at a reasonable price with the knowledge that it was... pretty knackered, as a result the total price of rebuilding plus service cost is going to exceed what I could have bought a good condition running one from off Steve M or another vintage specialist.

I don't regret it for a moment, as when mine's done its going to be exactly how I want it, sort of like restoring a vintage car, but still, next time I'll save myself the parts scrounging and two month wait, and just buy from a known and trusted vintage dealer.

[lhanddds]

With fake dials, hands and other parts, you don't know if the watch is even legit. Finding a watch from an original owner with papers is nice but most of the time the price is reflective of this. I have thought about buying a red submariner from time to time, but I don't feel qualified to do the search on my own. The most sage advice from this site is to "buy the seller". The nice thing about vintage is the fun of the search and the fact that you just can't walk in and buy one.

[gimpex]

Originally Posted by lhanddds

With fake dials, hands and other parts, you don't know if the watch is even legit. Finding a watch from an original owner with papers is nice but most of the time the price is reflective of this. I have thought about buying a red submariner from time to time, but I don't feel qualified to do the search on my own. The most sage advice from this site is to "buy the seller". The nice thing about vintage is the fun of the search and the fact that you just can't walk in and buy one.

That I agree with.... I have spoken to Steve M so hopefully something will come up , but it is fun waiting for the FS threads to appear

[Kokyuryoku]

Originally Posted by gimpex

I was thinking....

There is a lot of comments about vintage rolex , and a lot of "amateurs" like myself seem to like having one from their year of birth. I have been looking around , not found anything yet , but....

I have seen a lot where the dial is replaced , the hands are replaced, sometimes even the case. Given that most of the vintage would have had at least one service ( and another thread here clarified what gets replaced during a nornal service) ... I am wondering how much of the "vintage" is actually left in some of those watches ??

Some are real beauties , no doubt , but some that I have seen advertised left me scratching my head if I am not just falling for some "hype"....

Any thoughts ?

Interesting post. I had my 1966 1601 overhauled last January. I opted to keep the dial, hands, case and bracelet. They just fixed the movement and replaced the gaskets and crystal. AFAIK, they used all original parts, so the watch shouldn't be any less vintage because they did some work on the movement. However, if you change the dial, hands, case etc..(especially if the replacement dial and hands don't have Tritium), I guess you could make a case that the watch is no longer totally vintage.

[Clay]

The truth is, unless you have owned a watch since NEW, there is no way of knowing what is "original" and what isn't......

To my way of thinking, as long as a watch has the "period correct" parts, (Dial, hands, etc.) it's good to go....

A replacement case is okay, but it does lower the value of a vintage piece...

This is my 5.3 mil 1665 from late '77/early'78...

The dial and hands match perfectly and appear to be original, it has the proper Silver Date Wheel and large font insert with tritium pearl....but it certainly is possible that at some point, early in it's life, some of these parts were replaced for one reason or another??????

They are correct for this serial number 1665, so to my mind it doesn't matter.....

[Racer X]

Not all parts are created equal -- the significance of the replaced part depends on what it is. For example, it's very likely that the crystal of a 30 year old watch will not be the original one that came with the watch. Crystals, however, are considered by the Rolex community to be a consumable commodity though so it really doesn't matter. It's nearly the same with the hands and bracelets: as long as they are period correct and match they are fine. In fact, many don't even care if the watch has a period-correct bracelet (e.g., 93150 on a red sub). However, once you start replacing things like the dial and case, you can really affect the value of the watch.

As for buying vintage, you can do it. Although buying the seller is always a good idea, you should educate yourself and know what you're buying. TRF is a great source of information as are various other web sites on the interwebs.

[firstOwatch]

Thx for sharing,
I've been learning a lot.
Good pics from iPad , sage info&advice, along with fresh coffee&green tea!
Thx all U guys and the forum