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Personally, given a choice between a restored Luxor dial and the one pictured, I'd pay a lot more for the one pictured. It really depends on the end goal, does it not? Some people like seeing a watch's age, others want it to look almost brand new. If I had to, I might try to get the "nibbling" at the 5 o'clock mark repaired as much as possible but hi-res pictures usually amplify how aging detracts from appearance so it's hard for me to judge. Of course, there's also times when "patina" is just "dirt" ;). So a cleanup, as opposed to a full restoration, is often acceptable if the dial CAN be cleaned and it's obviously far gone. And there's those times when restoration does actually preserve the rest of the watch and should precedence, like old crystals whose emissions in time can rust the movement and/or dial. I can see why the choice is hard though, I love that dial design and if there no nibbling, I wouldn't even consider touching it. Here's an example of another reason why I'd hesitate getting a dial restored. At the very end is a comparison between the original dial and a restoration. The two have substantial differences. To me, this would count as a terrible dial restoration...

I couldn't resist but to post this picture considering they will be gone by Monday! I don't even have to work on them anymore, they want them as is!!! But I still need to beautify some, not letting them out of my sight without some new paint on the bezels and/or lume. The silver Stargate has some new set of hands coming, I don't like those ones. And I think there may be a hint of Frankie -- you know "stein" -- but not much. I kept them as original as I could sourcing parts from cousinuk. Those guys rock! It has been a very rewarding week... oops! a case for a 6498 project got in the shot! Bad watch, bad watch! :)

Hi all, Will is right in saying the winding stem holds this winding gear in place. However depending upon the movement they can fall out either way watch is facing when stem is removed. Sometime it can be found under the dial and sometimes just drop lower in movement so that stem can't be replaced until winding pinion is repositioned. Normally if you remove the stem while the watch is in the winding position the pressure from the spring pushing the sliding gear against the winding pinion is enough to hold things in place long enough to get stem out. However after I say that I must say that after movement is removed from case the stem should be replaced because after stem is removed those two parts are just being held in place by friction and they will jump out, run away and play hide and go seek when you aren't looking. Also I may have misunderstood your question a bit. I thought you were talking about removing the stem so watch could be removed from the case. After that stem should be replaced into movement until you are ready to remove the keyless works as you showed in the picture you posted. Hope I didn't totally confuse everyone. Charles K

I'm not even a wannabe diver, but I do like my watches to be rugged and waterproof. I was just wondering what makes one watch more pressure resistant than another (other than a sturdier case). @Geo : No, I'm using a PostScript module I wrote for the Perl programming language a while back. So the file is actually a program which means it can be as parametric as I like. I don't know Autocad, but programming a tachymetre scale, for instance, is trivial in perl... @Bob, Will : Well, I have some 45 mm ø stainless steel and bronze. If I ever get around to it, you'll be the first to know :-) My goal is maximum clarity, under all conditions. Once I've got some money again I'd like to see if an idea I have is feasible: I'd embed some photodiodes in the face (did anyone notice the blue square above the day/date?). They'd charge a little supercapacitor and that would pulse some UV leds when it's dark - the idea being that the entire watch (ie all the white and orange markings including day/date) would glow as much as they do in the on screen image :-) PS. These images are actually screen shots (!). The pdfs are much nicer, but I didn't bother to scale/convert them :-( PPS. The styling is influenced by my Fortis and Sinn watches.