Rossi Valentino Ladies' Rolex-style Watch

Rossi Valentino Rolex-style ladies' watch.

I've heard of this name before but it was in the form of a professional motorcycle racer (it was actually flipped around - Valentino Rossi)... but this is the first time I heard of this name as a watch brand. Regardless, it features a Quartz, 3 ATM water resistance, with a Rolex-styled stainless steel case, and has a sapphire crystal with magnifying bubble over the date.

Quite nice, for its price.

Pictures:

The watch itself in the box

Box cover brand

Close up on the dial

Rolex-style design.

3ATM Water Resistance

Jaguar Swiss Quartz

This beauty piece belongs to a friend of mine. He finally stops getting cheap watches and got this Jaguar some months back. Quite a high end watch... And by high end I mean its definitely a step above what I regularly get, fitting (finally) his financial status.

The only "problem" here is that it is Quartz. Well, it's not as charming as a mechanical.

 

The Jaguar has a Swiss Quartz movement, sapphire crystal and PVD coating. The nice perforated leather strap curves nicely by default, and the crown has some sort of a protected layer on top.

At the end of the day, I totally forgotten to take note of the particular model other than "Jaguar". Initially I had thought it may have something to do with Jaguar, the car company, but the two are apparently unrelated.

Fake "Rolex" - This Time : A Skeleton

What's up? Another day, another watch.

  This one is from my same friend who collects all the odd watches from night markets and other questionable places. This time, he got this from a trip to Indonesia. Off of some guy who sells watches on the street. Behold, a "Rolex" skeleton. I don't even know "Rolex" makes skeleton watches. I assume they don't, but I am not an expert in Rolex. Also, I am not an expert in fakes, but this one just screams FAKE. Well for one thing, the date ring doesn't even move.

 It is an automatic though. The rotor at the back doesn't spin very freely. Like it is resting on sandpaper. Fortunately, it has a manual wind option.

 The bracelet is also funny. The pieces that you could take out aren't many, so when you resize them to the maximum available to take out, it still makes a very large bracelet, which just barely fits my friend.

Therefore, I should show it all in pictures!

Vintage? Sea-Gull ST5 handwinding

 

 

This one belongs to a friend of mine. He just got it and I went over to use office to check it out. He bought it as new old stock from a seller I recommended to him (the same seller I posted earlier).

His cyclops lens thing seems to have gone missing, and some marks on the crystal, and the strap probably not original.

Still, it's a real beautiful watch. About 36mm diameter case, looks bigger than it should, and robust Chinese movement. I didn't get it because it was way above my budget, but oh now I'm really envious.

So I decided some watch customizing...

I found a fake automatic Rolux™ at my parent's storeroom, which was just sitting there probably waiting to be thrown out. It once belonged to my grandfather. So I took it, shook it, and wow, it still ticks. So I took it and thought about customizing the watch.

What made me interested to customize it is because it doesn't look like the usual Rolux™ fakes, in fact it doesn't look like any Rolux™ that I know of. And also, aside from that, it is a see-through transparent skeleton watch. It isn't all see-thru though, it's mostly just fake stuff on the dial like it is see-through, but good enough.

So I thought, why not customize it? Just paint or stick something over the logo and the words "co-axial escapemint", and I would have a decent looking watch. Decent, maybe from 25 feet away. 

Taking it apart was fairly easy, but when I figured out how to take out the stem, I was hooked. I began taking apart more and more, polishing the case and crystal, and put it back together. By then it look clean. But when I put it back together I dropped the whole thing (clumsy me) and bent the minute hand. OK, fine - just bend it back to shape, since it's crashing with the seconds hand. 

By this time I dropped it again and bent the second hand AND the crown stem. GRRRR.

So bending the hands back to shape, and putting it together, with a wonky crown stem that doesn't turn well, I pressed too hard on the crystal and cracked it.

This was all after midnight of course, when I start doing things like this.

The next day I took it to a watch repair shop, and asked if it could be repaired. The watch guy said, yes, in fact he could do it immediately, I was surprised. Well I didn't leave it with him and thought about asking other places, but I didn't have time and brought it home.

Back home, sitting at my desk, holding it in my hand, it managed to slip while I was pulling out the crown and then I dropped it. AGAIN. And this time I broke the stem.

....and here is the result:

Broken crown and crack at 3 o'clock position

So I guess that the lesson is if you're going to do something, use the proper tools, use the proper space, do it in the morning when your mind is fresh and hands are steady, and don't rush it.

But the loss isn't that bad, after all it is a bad fake, and at least I learnt how to take apart a watch. It still ticks, but can't set it obviously with a broken crown.