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Old 18 February 2007, 09:23 PM   #3
mike
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Join Date: Jul 2005
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Hi George! Welcome. Cleveland! LOL, Another Buckeye! I'm just outside Columbus.

First of congrats on two supurb pieces! The 1655 is considered one of the "grail" watches to collectors and commands a tremendous price inthe vintage community. What year is it? Would love to see a pic of it and your 1675.

Now, about your 1675, yeah service has gone up. Currently a service is running about $475 to $500 depending on what needs to be done.
That will include new gaskets, crown, crystal, tube......

I would give consideration to NOT replacing the dial. Yeah, the orginal tritium dial is gone, but what you have sounds like what some have dubbed the "transitional" luminova dial. As I'm sure you know Rolex curtailed the use of tritium circa 1998 or so. During this time Rolex used luminova dials marked as tritium (SWISS T<25). Theroies abound for this, but the best I've heard is that Rolex used up existing supplies of trit. marked dials, using luminova as a lume agent prior to marking new dials SWISS.
There's some debate if Rolex initally used Luminova or Superluminova initally.
I am of the camp that feels Rolex at first used luminova for a couple of years before switching to superluminova. Some of those dials were marked "SWISS T<25 (a dial used on various sport models from about 1998-2003), some were marked SWISS (circa 1998-2000)
There did seem to be complaints that the luminova dials did not have the "glow" the SL dials had and Rolex apparently replaced those if the customer asked.
In any event the SWISS T<25 luminova dial is a bit sought after by some collectors.
One of the things said about luminova is that unlike tritium that has a half-life affecting it's ability to "excite" the phosphors in the paint matrix, luminova, being non-radioactive is not supposed to lose it ability to "glow" or "age".

In any event a new dial will run about $225 or so from Rolex. At service I would tell Dallas how fast the watch is running, your wear habits etc... Part of service is regulation of the watch, but it's been my experience giving them an idea of how the watch is used helps.

Good luck.
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