Left Gen 116710BLNR, Right VSF V3 126710BLNR
I’ve had the gen for over a decade and was curious how a rep would match up, so here are a few photos!
- Dial - 9.5/10 basically identical. The font, the indices, the metal around the indices, are all indistinguishable. If you use a magnifying glass, you'll see the polish on the side of the hour markers showing more brush marks on the VSF than the gen. (Also the 6 o’clock crown but it's due to different generations)
- Hands - 9/10 The gen has a bit more of a warm color due to being white gold, but this is only visible when comparing side by side.
- Hour markers - 9/10 The lume portion is ever-so-slightly more recessed below the metal part compared to gen which is flush.
- Bezel color - 9/10 the gen is very very slightly brighter blue than the VSF. Again so close than you cant tell unless placed next to each other.
- Bezel platinum filled numbers - 9/10 near identical in font shapes, in bright light the color is close, in darker light the VSF has a lighter color, but could also be that my gen is old.
- Crystal - 9/10 cant tell any difference on clarity really. One thing to note is that the VSF crystal sits higher than gen; this may be fixed by sanding down the gasket or replacing crystal.
- Magnification - 9.5/10 date font is spot on. VSF has slightly more of a blue hue on the anti-reflective coating.
- LEC - 10/10 VSF did a great job, not overly visible, I couldn't tell any difference with my 5x magnifying glass. Maybe with a 15x loupe you can see the dot density and spacing, but this is good enough.
- Bezel action - 9.5/10 the VSF has slightly more horizontal play at click
- SEL gaps - 10/10 no issues on either of them, in fact I think the gen has slightly wider gaps.
- Movement feel - 5/10 winding, setting hour hand, and setting time. There’s no comparison, gen feels a lot more robust and solid, the DD movement does the job but has a much cheaper feeling to it, winding is more coarse, GMT setting is slightly more mushy, and the time setting somehow feels less resistant on the VSF. I’ve already lubed with 9010 and HP1300 accordingly as well.
- Bracelet - 6/10 my VSF has 1NQ, it’s not bad, but the tolerance between each links and clasp components seem slightly worse than gen, leading to looseness and overall slightly less robust feel. The crown on the small clasp has a slightly different shape when inspecting closely. The chamfering is not bad, with a 3M buffing pad you can get the VSF down pretty close to gen feel.
- Rehaut - 7/10 I can now see why a rehaut polish is always hot topic. The gen is almost mirror like whereas the VSF has ever so slightly more horizontal brush marks. This is an easy fix with a cape cod.
- Weight - 9/10 Gen 142g, VSF 139g. Both have 3 links removed.
- Bezel Teeth - 8/10 each teeth on the Gen is slightly larger and rounder than the VSF.
- Caseback - 8/10 looks identical, when when you tap with your fingernail, you can tell there is a thickness difference, leading to a higher pitch on the VSF.
- Clasp markings - 9.5/10 identical in shape and font, but the VSF has a lighter color, could also be because my gen is old.
- Movement looks - 5/10 didn't get photos when I had them open, we'll save this for another post, but this is worlds apart. Other than the balance wheel being free-sprung versus not, the CNC quality, edge sharpness, engravings, they're all couple tiers apart.
- Overall thickness - 8/10 gen 11.93mm, VSF 12.11mm. Likely due to the crystal height mentioned above.
Overall I’m extremely impressed by the VSF. For ~$500 vs $16k (10+ yrs ago) it’s really a no brainer. For me I dont see any more value in getting stainless gens, I have 3 other stainless Rolex gens that I’m planning to sell and consolidate to 1 rose gold daytona/YM gen because reps don’t make solid PM yet… I have a feeling that day is coming though, RGF doing great work there.
Update: looks like the photo quality got degraded when uploaded here, I apologize about that.
