Seeking advice for 1803

[Dan S]

It sounds very basic, nothing special. What was the price?

[Slimpee]

Originally Posted by yellow-mamba

Happy to hear your thoughts on this plan.

I guess I don’t understand why you’d send to RSC and then Rolliworks.

Rolliworks can handle it all.

[Xelor5513]

Originally Posted by yellow-mamba

Hello everyone, thanks once again for all the informative posts!

I visited RSC today and got a quote. The necessary changes are as follows:

- Complete overhaul
- Clean bracelet
- Refinish bracelet
- Replace spring bars (they were steel instead of white gold, great point @miamiclay)
- Clean case
- Refinish case
- Replace crown (the associate there mentioned it wont sit flush with the case even after replacing, which I thought was odd. I figured a new crown/screw would allow it to sit flush again)
- Replace crystal

I understand polishing is an option, but I am happy to go with rolex for all those needs. The 11oclock tritium lume marker cannot be replaced unless I replace the dial and hands and my options there are black and white. But I was only provided a grainy printed photo so it's hard to visualize what it would look like on the watch.

All that being said, I think I will do the service with RSC. I will debate the dial change. And after all that is done, send the bracelet to Rolliworks to get it refinished.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this plan.

Yellow-mamba: IMO, the advantage to having the work done at RSC is getting the 2 year warranty and Rolex's seal of authentication.
If this was my heirloom, I would overlook the missing loom dot at 11 o'clock (character) and keep the piece as original as possible.

[miamiclay]

Rolliworks could do it all (probably less expensively and maybe more quickly), but I can understand the comfort of an RSC service and RSC warranty on your heirloom’s movement. Likely there are no bad choices here.

Two thoughts -

It might be worthwhile to leave all of the polishing and refinishing (case and bracelet) to Rolliworks. RSC’s polishing work is reported as being, well, erratic - Often excellent, sometimes excessive. Rolliworks will at least offer you their range of polish options from 1 to 5.

One logistics issue - I know Rolliworks can give you a confident estimate of how much the bracelet will shorten in the refurb, but personally, I would not have any links removed until after the bracelet had been refurbished and I had actually worn it for a while. Comfort can be affected by remarkably small changes. This risks having to send it to Rolliworks twice, but I think your odds are very good that you won’t need any links removed at all.