Author Archives: tomvox1

Vintage Omega Ploprof dials — More than just 3 Types (UPDATED)

This may be akin to Columbus discovering America and this information is likely duplicated in the pricey but hyper focused Ploprof book by John Wallis of Ploprof.com. But I believe there is enough confusion and misinformation in the collector community about what is period original to warrant this post and make it available to all…

So when one searches for “Ploprof dials” one gets directed to the same litany of 3 accepted variations:

The Type I:

(Photo from Ploprof.com)

The Type II:

(Photo from Ploprof.com)

And the Type III (with full depth rating, usually Luminova replacement):

Photo from the Watch-Setter

However there is most certainly at least one more variation from the period of original Ploprof production and I believe it has been conflated with the Type III (I have been guilty of this myself in the past). Here is a dial that most probably predates the currently accepted “Type III” (should we call it the Type 2.5 or…?) from a watch I once owned many moons ago:

As you can see clearly the luminous material is not shiny or puffy like the Luminova of the Type III but still granular like the earlier dials (Tritium? Who knows — Omega never marked the Ploprof with T for Tritium markings so its likely a proprietary blend for their super divers but probably at least somewhat radioactive).

Also the fonts of the dial are clearly different than what is currently called the Type III:

You can see how much more clean and elegant the printing is (much less serif), which to me strongly indicates earlier production than the replacement dials for discontinued models. In fact, it strongly indicates the Luminova replacement dials were based on this last version of original Ploprof dial iteration.

Now you may ask where this dial fits in for such a “short-lived” watch as the original Ploprof if we already have 2 confirmed period original versions from the early 70s — the Type I with “600”-only sandwiched between “Seamaster” and “Professional” and the Type II with “600”-only below the “Professional” and “Seamaster”. Continue reading →

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — December selection

Kicking off this Holiday Season with a colorful and amazing vintage Certina DS-2 SuperPH 1000M dive watch, circa early 1970s. This is the most sought after case shape for Certina’s many rugged and well-regarded professional divers back in the day with the angled “volcano”-style rotating bezel and the big, broad C-shape of the lugs.

Not only is this watch a stone cult classic in its own right with its iconic yellow dial, which has taken on a warm, mellow amber tone with the years, but this particular example was recently owned by a US Army combat doctor who took it with him on his tour of duty in Afghanistan. This watch has seen some things at the front lines of that war and will come with the letter of provenance to prove it.

A classically big and heavy steel diver at 45mm wide it still wears comfortably and definitely makes a bold statement on the wrist. It also features a very high quality 28-jewel in house automatic movement and comes equipped with an always-appropriate vintage Isofrane rubber dive strap. This Certina DS-2 Super is a watch that’s hard to find in the best of circumstances. But with verifiable modern military service and amazing mint yellow dial, we’re talking about needle in a haystack territory here. If you’re a dive watch enthusiast who appreciates a watch with real history, don’t let it pass you by!

Click here to view the complete ad with many more pictures and full description over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner. ON HOLD

What we’re wearing — Filson jackets & outerwear

In these unpredictable late Fall/early Winter days it pays to have layers and versatility. One of the most important items a guy can have in his arsenal is a good breathable but water and wind resistant jacket that you can wear with or without a sweater or down vest. Now, there are a lot of good imports that will fit this bill, namely Barbour and Balstaff, that make high quality jackets and light coats with good looking contemporary fit and feel. But sometimes it’s good to buy American and not just because of patriotic pride but also because of style and excellence of craftsmanship. And that’s where Filson comes into the picture.

Cover Cloth Mile Marker Coat

Founded in 1897 in Seattle, Washington by C.C. Filson, the company pioneered the use of waxed and oiled cotton to make durable, lightweight and water resistant outerwear for lumberjacks, fishermen, prospectors and ranchers. Filson established a healthy trade with customers heading north to Alaska, as well, who appreciated the versatility of their many grades of outer- and underwear for the often-harsh conditions of their Arctic home. Today you’ll still find many of the items in their collections given the “Alaskan” label to denote a burlier fit and suitability for heavy layering. Filson is also a great proponent of Native American craftsmanship, such as the current Cowichan line of sweaters and wool items handmade by members of that nearby Pacific Northwest tribe.

Men’s Cowichan Sweater

But it is in their wonderfully authentic oil-finished and waxed cotton jackets and coats that Filson does its very best work. Modern and stylish takes on classic working man’s outerwear include the Mile Marker Coat, perfect for the motorcycle enthusiast with a 3/4 length tapered fit featuring plenty of roomy pockets, moleskin collar, elastic wrist and waist gathers to keep the wind out and the ability to accept Filson zip-in vest liners and button-on hoods for added warmth deep into the cold months. Or the Lined Short Cruiser Jacket made of soy-waxed cotton and lined with cotton flannel, a perfect everyday jacket in Fall and early Spring with a classically masculine fit and feel.

Lined Short Cruiser Jacket

Those are just two of my favorites — they even come with a can of oil finish wax in the pockets to help you refresh them and keep them water repellant — and I definitely recommend browsing through the varied offerings over at their cool site. They also feature a line of excellent leather accessories and boots and even restored, one-of-a-kind vintage items from axes to messenger bags and totes. Obviously you’ll soon see that nothing they make is inexpensive and the prices do in fact rival those British-inspired imports Barbour and Belstaff. But just like the Brits know how to keep dry and warm in damp and cold weather, so too do the folks in Seattle, so you know their efficacy is going to be similar. And there is just something about the Filson product lines that’s a bit more rugged and a bit more authentically outdoor oriented than their very fashionable foreign luxury counterparts. Chances are a Filson jacket or coat will be keeping you warm and dry twenty years hence so was the $300 you paid for it really that pricey? At a time where US quality and craftsmanship is really coming back with a whole new generation of artisans taking up the challenge of producing well-made practical and stylish clothes and outerwear, one might say that Filson is the granddaddy of that American spirit. They’ve been keeping it real in the USA for nearly 120 years and they’re still setting a very high — and a very handsome — bar.

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — November selection

This chilly November I’m offering one of the cult brands of the modern watch world, a big honking Panerai. But not just any Panerai: this is a PAM 305 Luminor 1950 Submersible in Titanium with in-house 3-day automatic movement featuring date and independent hour hand complications, plus the new non-screw strap change system.

Making it even more out of the ordinary, my consignor has had this 47mm beast professionally DLC-coated by the renowned International Watch Works to give it custom ultra-black beauty looks exceedingly similar to the coveted PAM 508 black ceramic but at a fraction of the price. It comes complete with triple boxes, booklets, tools and extra strap, although the Tropic-style factory rubber that it currently sports is the perfect match in my opinion.

For the guy who likes a bigger watch with terrific Tool-watch characteristics — super water proof, rotating elapsed time bezel, super luminous military-style dial & hands, stealthy black appearance, that oh-so-cool levered crown guard design — this customized Panerai PAM 305 Luminor Submersible ticks all the boxes. Plus, you will certainly get noticed at the bar with this macho negro machine on your wrist!

Check out the complete ad with full description and many more pictures over at Timezone.com’s Showcase. ON HOLD

Documentary view — Beware of Mr. Baker

Rock musicians are notoriously eccentric as a whole, particularly those whose heyday was back in the anything goes, drug-infused 1960s and 70s. But legendary drummer and wild man Ginger Baker stands out from the crowd in terms of pure insanity and fearsome ill temper. A very large redheaded man with a seriously bad attitude and a taste for mind-altering drugs, Baker is most famous for being one third of the best power trio of all time, Cream. Along with the late Jack Bruce on bass and primary vocals and the inimitable Eric “Slowhand” Clapton on guitar, Cream redefined the sound of heavy blues in the late 1960s and made an incredible impact on Rock despite the fact that the volatile trio could only keep it together for 2 years. The outstanding 2012 documentary Beware of Mr. Baker chronicles those heady days as well as the pure obstreperousness of its larger-than-life subject who left a trail of destruction in his wake across several continents in the years that followed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqrigN8jxj8

With his gaunt appearance, madman’s eyes and predilection towards random acts of violence and self-destruction, Baker makes an ideal subject for a film. Beginning in the present at Baker’s fortified South African compound and horse farm and tracing his life back to his boyhood during Blitz-ravaged London, Beware makes use of lovely interstitial animation to add graphic novel vividness to the biography and never flinches from recounting the legendary drummer’s troubled life starting with the loss of his tough father in WWII. Baker, who might today have been diagnosed with ADD as a boy, subsequently finds his special quality when he realizes that he has “perfect time” and becomes enthralled as a teenager with Jazz drumming. He was taken under the wing of Phil Seaman, the greatest of the English Jazz drummers in the Gene Krupa style, who turned Baker on to two exceptionally important things that would impact the rest of his life: African rhythms and heroin. By his late teen years, Baker was not only a smack addict but also one of the most preeminent and technically accomplished drummers in England or anywhere else. This naturally led to his contributing to the intense and percolating London R&B scene and he quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with in The Graham Bond Organisation, one of those big-in-England-but-not-in-the-States-type groups. With an appetite for drugs even greater than Baker’s, Bond’s band soon collapsed but not before Baker fatefully met Scottish bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce. These two polar opposites somehow attracted and were soon to become the fiery odd couple of British R&B making Rock history in the process.

While Ginger Baker disparages Bruce throughout Beware (as well as pretty much every other non-Jazz musician on the planet except Clapton), it’s clear that despite their mutual antipathy the two men fed off each other to achieve the greatest of musical heights. When Eric Clapton tired of his purist exploits in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and chose to return to the heady world of amplified R&B, Bruce and Baker were a ready made fit for Rock’s first power trio, emphasis on power: The Cream. Continue reading →

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — October selection: Dive, dive, dive! Pt. III

If you find older vintage divers intriguing but you’re looking for a more modern watch that you don’t have to worry about as well as something that really stands out from the ordinary, have I got a timepiece for you: this extra funky and cool Squale Tiger rated to 300 meters. Made by a reborn version of the company that produced so many classic, rugged divers in the 1960s and 70s, the modern incarnation of Squale used new old stock parts from their supply, including original Tritium luminous dials with fantastic patina, to create an entirely new yet still essentially vintage model. Featuring a big asymmetrical case with oversized bidirectional locking bezel that is released for rotation by the red button on the lower right lug (much like Omega’s famed Ploprof), the Tiger doesn’t look like any other watch out there and your unlikely to see it on anyone else’s wrist on land or at sea.

Made of extremely high quality stainless steel and featuring a tough mineral crystal and bulletproof ETA automatic movement but priced under $800, the Squale Tiger is remarkable value for money and a remarkable statement on the wrist. For those who dare to be different while living their life of adventure, this Tiger’s got your name on it.

~~Check out the full ad with complete description and many more pictures over at Timezone’com’s Sales Corner.~~ SOLD

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — October selection: Dive, dive, dive! Pt. II

Here’s another special watch that I’m offering on consignment and, yup, you guessed it — it’s a rare vintage diver just like the Benthos. Only this one has a more conventional type of stopwatch complication even if it’s just as scarce. It’s a circa 1960s “Skin 666” with Aqua-Lung logo, a highly water resistant diving chronograph featuring a beautiful black dial with gold accents and intricate Tachymeter & Telemeter tracks. The gilt hands compliment the dial beautifully and their original luminous fill has acquired a lovely patina.

Inside the screwed steel back is a very robust and classic Landeron caliber 248 column wheel chronograph movement. Unlike most chronos, this Landeron starts the timer with the top pusher but stops and resets it with the bottom pusher, a welcome bit of uncommon quirkiness.

This Aqualung “Skin 666” was constructed by Schild Co. in Switzerland and then imported by California’s US Divers Company to be sold along with their top-of-the line diving equipment. You can check out some of their cool catalog images below — love that vintage ad style and layout!

In amazing true Near Mint condition and even featuring its original Tropic rubber strap, this Aqualung chrono is 38mm in diameter by 47mm long, just the right size in my opinion. In terms of wrist presence it wears similarly to a Rolex Submariner of the period. But for all its charm, scarcity and functionality, it’ll cost you way less than one of those. I always say you don’t have to break the bank to make a statement with a cool vintage watch. This beautiful Aqualung diver’s chronograph from back in the day is surely proof of that!

~~Check out the full ad with many more pictures and complete description over at Watchuseek.com’s Private Sellers sales forum.~~ SOLD

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — October selection: Dive, dive, dive!

Kicking off October (and starting a definite trend for the month) with another wonderful consignment watch: a super cool and chunky 1970s Aquastar Benthos 500 diver’s chronograph. This is a big watch at about 43mm wide without crown and 14mm thick and it features a very unique purpose built minute counter complication: once the pusher at “4” is depressed, the big orange hand begins a 60-minute journey around the dial (to tell the wearer how long he’s been underwater, for example). And while it can be reset back to zero with another click of the pusher it will not stop counting until it has made it all the way back to “12”. Unlike most chronographs, the straight white sweep seconds hand is just that, a constant seconds that is always running and unconnected to the minute counter feature. The highly unusual movement is an A. Schild caliber 1902/03 that seems to have been made and modified exclusively for the diver-specific Aquastar Benthos line, as I’ve not seen this strange type of complication in any other watches.

The whole watch is really pretty scarce, in fact, and to find it in this sort of unpolished and simply beautiful original condition is no easy task. Personally, while it’s not inexpensive I feel like it’s actually undervalued for as uncommon and special as this watch is. Best of all, if you’ve got the swagger to pull this bad boy off you’re unlikely to see it on anyone else’s wrist. The Aquastar Benthos 500 is a rare classic from the heyday of mechanical dive watches and it’s for the serious enthusiast knows the importance of the specially designed tool he’s got on his wrist.

You can check out the full ad with many more pictures and a complete condition report over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner. SOLD

What we’re listening to — The Replacements

I was surprised and delighted to find out the other day that 80s Indie stalwarts and coulda been contenders The Replacements had just played a sold out show out in Forest Hills, Queens apparently having lost none of their edge. It’s always somehow reassuring to see that the heroes of one’s youth are still kicking ass even if three members from their heyday have died, become too ill to perform or gone missing. But as long as the formidable Paul Westerberg still roams the earth I hope these guys will keep performing their hits with their characteristic ragged gusto and swagger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZi-dw03fE8

And what hits they were. With a combination of pop sensibilities and punk ethos, The Replacements blew out of Minneapolis in the mid-80s like a bracing, whiskey-soaked wind of Rock on the rocks. Along with the harder-edged but excellent Hüsker Dü (who they aped unsuccessfully early on) and the almighty Prince, it seemed like 1985 was the year that put the Twin Cities on the map musically… if only for that fleeting moment that finds a city du jour that is not New York or LA ever so briefly anointed as the New Happening Place for Music™. It wasn’t to last, of course, and neither were The Replacements. But they made a hell of a heavenly racket while they did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar4bhxR4ZK0

Starting out as drunk punk wannabes, Westerberg was joined by brothers Bob Stinson on guitar and Tommy Stinson on bass with drummer Chris Mars pounding the skins, and the group rapidly developed a winning brand of punk-infused pop that wasn’t afraid to take on the more sentimental side of adolescent angst. Continue reading →

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — September selection

Speaking of Grails: As September winds down to a close it’s my great pleasure to offer on behalf of a friend a very rare and iconic vintage Porsche Design by IWC Ocean 2000. This cult tool watch classic is crafted in all-titanium with a matching super comfortable and innovative bracelet and is the civilian version of a very famous German Navy-issued Bund military watch. At 43mm in diameter it’s the big size model and dates from the mid-1990s. Best of all, it’s in fantastic condition and not only has it been well maintained during its lifetime with the paperwork to prove it but the watch also comes with essentially every item that this IWC Porsche Design Ocean 2000 came with when it was bought new.

This is a rare opportunity to own a complete example of this avant-garde IWC diver with exceptional provenance. And while it’s certainly not inexpensive it is a quality collectible that’s well worth ponying up for if it tickles your fancy, as well a watch that has seen a pronounced increase in value the last few years. As the old saying goes: they’re not making any more of them!

Man's Fine Life

The Return of the Well-Rounded Gentleman