Great thread, great stories, fantastic to remember some stuff back.daevildog wrote: ↑January 3rd, 2021, 11:34 pm Missed Kevin Rogers cases... saw his 3646 case in flesh when I hosted a get together at my house 12 years ago(?). The owner who was the only one to actually get one after fronting payment before Rogers took off to Thailand. Supposedly he got his hands on a gen case to take measurements.
Was friendly with 1/2 of VDB... offered 6152/1 case set ($2-3k). Only bought one of their custom plexis. There builds were $6k+ back in the day.
Okabum made the first accurate 6152/1 CGs, nice pencil handsets, spring bars. Trustworthy seller who was in tourist industry.
Dow, mega talented lumer that enabled the making of amazing Cali dials
Otto, maker of lovely 6154 and 3646 cases.
Quizats, great guy... made first accurate T24 and T25 with plexi maker in Spain, Nightwatch took over from him.
Ross first and longest running maker of Vintage and custom dials. Always a pleasure to deal with and has well earned reputation beyond reproach.
VDB used dials made from salt water etching(?) from HF 1 member.
Southy for a couple years was the prime dial supplier becasuse he supplied dials and painted them... he retired and passed his knowledge and know how to present member.
Through all these years, Nightwatch was ramping up his selection of Vintage parts and cases. He has been a dependable and irreplaceable asset with an unquestioned reputation. His building services are without peer with respect to workmanship and quality. I have been blessed to get to know him. He is irreplaceable to this hobby.
Elias, great/quality guy and superlative maker of vintage buckles.
Athaya, great guy and maker of 6152/1 cases, 3646, and other amazing parts... in Telecom industry in Indonesia.
Esdee, amazing case maker and great guy all around. Responsible for Welded, 3646 and Millemetri cases. Has had 3 runs of case sets, I have them all.
Kpoy, good guy, great builder of quality Egi builds.
Pvirus, good guy, amazing lumer and custom dial maker. Responsible for amazing/grail Rolerai dials.
Belkin12, good guy, amazing lumer, builder and custom dial maker. Amazing Cali and Rolerai dials.
Jorge, gamechanger supplier of Angelus conversion kits...
Apologies if I have omitted others, doing this at top of my head and my memory is shit... the pillars of this hobby, with at least 10 years of consistency and dependability, are Ross, Athaya and Nightwatch, Without them we would be fucked.
I take close up pictures of my builds from the last 12yrs which include the labors and parts of those I have mentioned. Also have hoarded many hundred of these parts, from most of aforementioned individuals... will take pictures of this hoard too.
Id add to this list (with mix of old school and nowadays, but i cannot imagine HF in general without these guys):
- Davdew - amazing Australian guy who made (my own opinion) the best ever cases for 6152 and the only one 6152/1 no CG with his own dials.
- Neckyzips - i dont imagine HF history without him. His mods and skills back in a day was a light in tunnel for thise who was reaching high-end results. Still doing some great things these days which is brilliant
- Nejad - who made some great hornlugs with his extra lovely toutches like zeis optics (sad i didnt had a chance to own one)
- Bigwawed- the one who had taken know-how from Southy these days (best dual painted on new HFi think)
- Yoda - the most skilled watchmaker around who helped with toughest services for many
- Manifaturre serioso (Alex) - who is no longer here i think but he was hands down the most skilled vintage strap and vintage box maker and supplier of some great old hides
My trip has started when i was looking to purchase somekind of vintage nice looking watch (had no idea about Panerai back then). And i did. It was a 150 usd peace of crap that i sold next day and started to look for something much interesting and unique. Thats how i found RG, watchuseek forum. That was around 12 year ago? On RG i found very interesting pictures and discussions. Then i saw there the very first creamy 6154 which i could not take out of my head for a long time. It was VDB work and there was 616 with Rolex engravings inside. And that was the dream of my future watch. I started to talk with VDB and once i got the price offer with around 4k usd with Silix reshaped case (as far as i remember) i said wow,not my budget,ill better keep dreaming.
Then a few weeks after i found NW 3646 with same 616 and Rolex engravings. Again this was Silix case but with NW some press in bezel and other parts and budget was way more friendly.
That is how little later i found HF with much more deep digging in to vintage PAMS. And then HF become my 2nd home when i had spent hours..weeks..months..years here.
After looking at tome crazy guys over here was also crazy enough to buy some first parts from NW and some old 6497 and build up my very first own 3646.
Years over years this thing turned me in so seriously that i was spending my all earnings in to that (im glad i didnt had a wife back then
) and i built up maybe 40 or 50 vintage Pams with my own impressions and huge help with majority of above mentioned golden members because i was addicted..The story is way much longer and much more interesting and im very happy to have it inside me.
Times had changed and now i have left only:
- Davdew 6152/1 no CG
- Oyang 3646
- Oyang 6154
- Esdee bronze wicked lug MM
Just to keep the best things and my memory of beautiful period close to me.
I plan to leave those to my kid and who knows maybe he will join HF after 20 years and will find this post and there will be no addiction to this which is great!
Thank you guys,thank you HF
