On the left is a nice original watch. It comes from a private source, with a beautiful dial.

On the right is a watch built up from at least three watches.

So. Lets see your best with your worst:

 

as a matter of interest on the topic, where is the line between creating a franken and restoring a nice watch? for example, if you picked up a 2998 with baton hands and replaced them with proper alpha hands, or replaced a poor bezel with a nice one, or a crummy dial with a beautiful one. are any of those considered frankening? does it take a certain number of parts replaced to attain Franken status?

 

Oooh, you are opening a can of worms there!
Heavily discussed on Rolex forums, unless you are talking about movement parts, if the replaced parts were correct for the piece, surely you would never know anyway, unless the patina was very different.

 

Many, if not most, descriptions of parts as "original" with respect to a particular watch, decades old and likely passed through multiple hands are opinion only.

Difficult enough at times to discern "correct".

 

The watch on the right was built up by me, several years ago. Before the Idea of a $10,000 2998 was but a glint in the Watch God's eye.

The case came from a retired watchmaker - empty and without a bezel.

The movement came from a seamster with a case so over polished it had no definition at all.

The dial is from a 105.003 - I didnt remove it, some one did. At the time it seemed perfectly acceptable to place it in this. Now 105.003 dials seem to get $1000 or thereabouts.

The hands are new, issued by Omega as service replacements.

The bezel came from somewhere else.

 

I can see classifying the one on the right as a franken, especially given Spacefruit's account of its provenance.

I was more curious about the other type of 'piecing together' of a decent watch than needs some TLC. I don't mean to raise a taboo topic, if that's what this is, I'm genuinely curious.

It seems to be acceptable, to change hands, bezel, even dial in isolation, but maybe changing all of them is a different matter?

 

It's a good question, to which I'm sure there's not cut and dry answer, but I'm interested to hear what the experts think. I can see it both ways really, I guess it's more what the intention of the changes is/was and how it's presented?

 

What did you do to the hands to make them look like that?

 

The movement of the Franken wouldn't match any of the known series used in the 2998 and it would therefore be a parts watch. The hands don't match the dial. In my mind, what makes the watch the watch is the movement. If it had a 2998 movement and case, then it's a 2998, even with the wrong hands and dial. If you found a nice proper 2998 dial and set of hands to match that dial, then you would have a 2998 that would appear to have all original parts. When assessing a vintage piece that hasn't been in you possession since new, all you can know for sure is that the parts are correct and they seem to have aged together.

 

I dont mind a built up watch as long as all parts are period correct and the watch looks nice over all. But i would pay way less for it though.

 

Yes, but it would surely flag up as "seamaster" in their records?

 

Other than perhaps the movement number being off (and as @dsio noted it is not always clear)... if the parts are all correct and if the seller doesn't disclose it.... just curious how anyone can know it's a put-together watch?

 

Actually, you can. This page has almost all of the movement series used in the 2998. I would add the 18.491.xxx series which I have found on multiple 2998-5s.
http://www.vintageure.dk/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=326

 

Nope. The extract for many early watches simply has the production date for the movement. It doesn't specify model.

 

And here for the freaks collecting the adverts as well. I did not know that one actually:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/30166624836...l?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=301666248368&_rdc=1Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network