Please be gentle, as I know there are some real eggshells that I'm about to walk on.

I recently bought a basket case of a 1963 5513 upper underline. This included:

- a 90% complete 1530 17J movement in very clean condition (except the balance has a broken lower pivot)
- An original upper underline gilt dial with seemingly original lume (based on UV test, no Geiger counter)
- Seemingly original hands (minus the sweep from my parts bin)

So, missing the case, stem/crown, mainspring/barrel, and original sweep hand.




Here's the pickle...

1. Hold out and hope someday somewhere somehow a legit <1,000,000 serial case shows up?

2. Let it go and give someone else the shot of putting their grail together?

3. Build it *another* way to just wear something cool and play pretend?

4. Sit quietly and ignore it until my situation or network changes where option #1 or #2 become obvious.

Obviously this is a humblebrag because we all love couch-finds, This was bought for 3 money digits. So all of the options are equally enticing and low impact. I'm not mortgaging my house to make anything happen.

If you had this in your parts bin, what would you do? I know everyone's situation is different so there is no correct answer. Just looking for outside opinions.

Right now, I'm leaning towards #3 with a future #1 simply because I don't know this world and my focus never included a spot for a Rolex. BUT, I do love old divers and this is one of the more neat ones to have. And the price was right so if there was ever a way to get "into" this watch, this is pretty much it for me.

Orphan syndrome always gets me, so this thing has a lot of company in my project pile.

Anyways, thoughts?

 

Oh man, that looks great. I don’t know what the chances of #1, 2 or 3 working out (literally, I don’t know), but worth the shot. Get it into the WTB thread and see what shakes out of the tree.

 

I wonder if there is a way to get a service case.

 

If you want to walk away from that, I will give you the same three $$$ digits.

I am saying Dibs

 

Well who says lightning doesn't strike twice? You eventually managed to round up a case for that Sky Chief didn't you?

 

How about talking directly to some well-known vintage dealers. Perhaps they have the case you need, or might be desperate for that dial, handset and movement parts, in which you could end up with a great piece in return. It may not be as vintage, but you won’t need to ‘play’. Good luck and let us know.

 

Awesome find! I was in a similar situation with a 2915 project but gave it up since chances to find the correct missing pieces are either close to zero or will require you to sell a kidney.
I decided to sell the parts I had which turned out a great return!

 

If you decide to build it "another" way ask yourself if you will enjoy wearing it.
Obviously, there are plenty of good options here for vintage Rolex. Speaking for myself, I would rather try hunting the missing pieces

 

->

Just sayin’

 

How much do you want to spend?

Personally, I would look for a service case, bezel and crown because I don't have a lot of connections in the watch world and would probably be cheaper than just the early case. Otherwise sell it, there seems to be interest in your project.

 

Buying an empty genuine submariner case, practically any model, including service cases will be extremely difficult and if one comes along it's going to be at a price that will make the project near senseless to complete. Even if someone had an empty case that was broken in half, it would still be extortionately expensive. Lately with laser welding being fairly economical, most every valuable case is being fixed no matter how badly damaged.

 

This is not particularly helpful IMO, since different people play in different ends of the pool. What is a "senseless" price for one person may be acceptable to someone else, especially since the OP bought the rest of the project for a low price. I suspect he understood the potential cost of the project going in and he is presumably willing to invest thousands into a case. Moreover, it is not difficult to buy empty genuine Submariner cases if you are willing to pay the price.

 

As said before, a WTB costs nothing and something cool may come up. Alternatively, you may also trade it for a complete, less valuable but maybe more satisfying watch. Maybe an old Tudor sub?
I did find my Ed White this way, traded it with 2998 parts: very happy with the outcome.

I have the same "problem" : a new complete bezel for a 165.014, but no watch to put it on. Can't decide what to do with this, not motivated to spend a bundle on it, so in the safe it sleeps for now.
It is a nice problem to have

 

Here we go. Ok Dan hows about you point out some empty submariner cases available online for prices that make sense for this project, considering the condition and value of the damaged dial in question. A dial is about all our OP has that is submariner-related as the movement parts are shared with other Rolex models of the same period. There are other options the OP mentioned for this project and I am merely discussing one of the option choices he put forth. Should we all keep our opinions to ourselves, despite the OP asking for them?

 

Why should I bother. Yesterday I completely disproved your anecdotal claims about white and red 1680 dials by providing links to researched data, but you still insisted you were correct.

 

Well Dan you brought it up. I gave opinions which is what the OP is looking for. Same with other threads you talk about. If you want to make this some sort of tit-for-tat with me then take it to PM. I am perfectly on topic in this thread and not looking for silly arguments.

 

Back on topic...while finding a compatible empty case in the 1 mil range and mortgaging your house to get it is not such a hot idea, I like option 3. Fix up the movement and build yourself something of a cool wearer with whatever stuff you come across for cheap, maybe some sort of explorer/sub combo that resembles Brando's GMT from Apocalypse Now. This way you can get some enjoyment out of the movement and dial rather than relegate it to a parts box or sell it, and you never know, you might find a 1 mil sub with a redial or severely water damaged dial and movement that you could drop your unit in and have a real deal gilt sub for way under the money. No matter what you choose for options, you are way under the money already with your three digit purchase price.

 

I think this might be a litttttle more expensive than the Benrus, but you aren't wrong! Who knows.

A friend of mine said a similar thing. Basically, sell this and put that towards something I have been wanting, not something that is built because it was available. But at the same time, I'm in a lull and don't have a grail that's been itching, so I don't know what that would be.

 

And I like my kidneys!

That's why this is such a conundrum, finding even a non-correct serial case will be multiple thousands based on the last ones that sold. Granted, the start point is cheap on my end, but after building it correctly (if possible) it won't be as fun financially. Even if it is done for less than standard retail cost.

As for enjoying it if done the "otherway", that's a great point. I think I need to consider looking down and seeing 50% of a watch. I have never lusted after something like this because of the price tag to enter the game. So will that bring me joy to see because I'm close? Or bum me out because it's an attempt.

 

This might be where I land

For the low cost to assemble it, I can try it out. Worst comes to worst, I take it all apart and proceed with option 2 and sell the good stuff. I'll certainly recoup the money to wear it. At the same time, if I fall in love with it, I'll know where I stand in the future when lightning strikes and will keep it tucked away as @S.H. mentioned.

But realistically, all said, I think it will end up with someone else. It fell into my lap, and was never on my radar. Those two things alone make me think it's not in the right home.