Author Archives: tomvox1

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale, July selection

Here’s a cool vintage diver that you won’t see very often, especially not in this kind of condition: a late 1960s/early 70s Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster 1000, also known as the “Baby Panerai”. Why is it called that you might ask? Well, at a nicely proportioned but hardly huge 38mm wide this Depthmaster shares the Oyster-style cushion shape of the Rolex-supplied Panerai cases of Italian naval fame at about 3/4 scale.

NivadaGrenchenDepth-bk_edited-1

It even has screwed spring bars like many PAMs do. Nivada added a nice chunky elapsed time rotating bezel and the Depthmaster 1000 also features a very heavy screwed steel case and very retro semi-Arabics dial with fantastic patina to the thick Tritium figures, plus there’s that cool splash of red to the 1000. And who doesn’t like red on a dial? With its thick, straight lugs and strong but not overpowering wrist presence, the off-brand Nivada Grenchen went and produced something of a design classic with this watch. Perhaps it started as something of an homage but at this late date it has achieved its own cult status. And unlike a Panerai from the 40s or 50s, you don’t have to break the bank to put this icon of vintage style on your wrist.

Check out the complete ad for this killer Depthmaster featuring many more pics and complete description over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner. SOLD

Watch Collector’s Notebook — Rolex Milgauss GV

90% if the time I am a 100% vintage watch guy. They have the vibe and design qualities of days gone by that usually make them much more appealing than their shiny modern counterparts. But once in a while I give in to that new watch temptation and fall for something the manufacturers are offering today. The Rolex Milgauss GV is definitely one of those that turned my head and won my ardent affection.

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Like a lot of marques in recent years, Rolex has very cleverly paid homage to designs from their storied past while giving them a modern interpretation, as well as all the technological upgrades available in this era. One of the most successful of these “heritage” pieces is the newest iteration of their famous Milgauss line. Dating back to the mid-1950s, the golden age of Tool Watch innovation, the Milgauss was originally designed to stand up to the large magnetic fields being generated by nuclear and other emerging technologies in the Post War era. This specially designed anti-magnetic timepiece could stand highly magnetic environments of up to 1000 gauss, hence the name, and it was marketed to scientists and technicians whose watches would normally be severely disrupted by such high levels of magnetism. Apparently this watch-buying segment was perceived as significant enough to lead to a plethora of anti-magnetic watches being created, as not just the Milgauss but also IWC’s Ingenieur and Omega’s original Railmaster made their debuts around this time.

Original 1956 ref. 6541 Milguass

Original 1956 ref. 6541 Milguass (Image from Antiquorum)

Despite or perhaps because of the emergence of those competitors, the market was never very strong for the original lightning-hand Milgauss. But Rolex kept with it and redesigned the watch in the middle to late 1960s. With a cleaner, more conventional design, the new 1019 Milgauss seemed a more versatile wristwatch for the professional man of science, while still retaining it’s antimagnetic powers through the continued use of the Faraday cage design. Again, though, the Milgauss line was a poor seller in the overall Rolex catalogue, probably due to its rather specific purpose and slightly premium price over a standard dress model, as well as its then-large 38mm size and thick case. With demand for mechanical watches lagging overall, Rolex discontinued the Milgauss by the early 1980s.

Ref. 1019 with rare double-signed Tiffany Dial (Image from AQ)

Ref. 1019 with rare double-signed Tiffany Dial (Image from AQ)

However, as with so many of the “unpopular” Rolex of their time — such as the original Explorer II, the Tru-Beat, even the Cosmograph Daytona — their very lack of success and smaller production redounded to their later success once they had been removed from the catalog. Continue reading →

tomvox1’s Watches For Sale — June selection, Pt. II

Got another rare watch on offer this month, this time a classic vintage Breitling sports chronograph with a twist. This one is an unusual Co-Pilot model all kitted out for yacht regatta timing. With fantastic added colors to the unique 15-minute register and a color-coded silver elapsed time bezel this reference 7650 has got “late 1960s funky” written all over it. Add to that the very large and chunky 43mm wide case, the distinctive mint green luminous on the dial and the Dayglow-orange hour, minute and counter hands and you’ve got pop art on the wrist.

Breitling 7650Yacht-4_edited-1

Breitling was a pioneer in oversized special purpose tool watches back in the day, a trend they also helped revive in the modern era, and this Co-Pilot “Yachting” chrono is one of their most distinctive and hard-to-find designs — chances are, you won’t see another on anyone else’s wrist.

Check out my ad for this great watch with many more pictures and info over at Timezone’s Showcase. SOLD 

A little Thursday comedy — Slap Shot (1977)

The Stanley Cup Playoffs may be over (proud of you Rangers, congrats LA) but Slap Shot is forever (clips definitely NSFW).

Sure, 1977 was one of the all-time great years in cinema history with the release of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall, not to mention such crowd pleasers as The Spy Who Loved Me and Smokey and the Bandit. But it also saw the premiere of the best, most profane and funniest hockey film ever.

The late, great Paul Newman, Strother Martin, one of the finest character actors of the 60s & 70s, and director George Roy Hill of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting fame team up to create not just an uproarious sports comedy but a great movie with the backdrop of the Recession in the Rust Belt grounding the hijinks in place and time and giving the rollicking plot a desperate, melancholy undertone. And for the hockey-oriented, the film serves as a knowing commentary on the eternal existential dilemma of the sport: goonism vs. skillful clean play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXBsKnK4G8

Yes, ’77 was a landmark year for Hollywood where popular entertainment also achieved incredible quality and originality. And Slap Shot is a part of that magical run, a little gem among that year’s remarkable cinematic treasure trove.

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — June selection

Got a very cool one on offer this month: a rare original early 1960s Hamilton Ventura. This solid 14k gold watch is one of the iconic designs in the vintage watch world, so much so that the modern incarnation of Hamilton, part of the Hydra-like Swatch Group, makes about a million homage versions. But accept no substitutes — this here Ventura is the real deal with it’s then-cutting edge caliber 505 electrical movement inside the gorgeous body, an innovation that prefigured the tuning fork and quartz revolutions to come.

Ventura-move_edited-1

Ironically, betting the future on their proprietary electrical movement and largely ceasing conventional mechanical watch production essentially doomed the historic watchmaking company from Lancaster, PA. The electric movement, never a particularly precise timekeeper, was quickly rendered obsolete by the Bulova Accutron and the coming of the quartz age and by 1969 the company had ceased all US operations. But they remain one of the legendary names in horology history and the Ventura is a timeless classic. You might say it’s fit for a King.

elvisventura

Check out the complete ad with many more pics and full description of this rare all-original Ventura over at Timezone’s Sales Corner.  SOLD

Earworm of the day — Take It to the Limit by the Eagles

I have been playing this song lately as if it were brand new instead of nearly 40 years old. Between the hooks, the polished perfection of the band and the melancholy wanderlust, it feels like the ideal warm weather driving song. Here’s a primo live performance from ’77 with Randy Meisner singing his classic composition shortly before he quit the band.

Meisner didn’t write many Eagles tunes but “Take It to the Limit” is a beauty. The Eagles get a tough rap in “serious” rock criticism as being somehow too polished and slick, too SoCal for their own good, as if massive popularity somehow made the band unworthy of respect. But maybe all those millions of record buyers knew better than the critics after all. I think with the perspective of time and not hearing their songs every 10 seconds on the radio one can now appreciate just what kind of chops they had. Their lyrics are sharp, the vocal harmonies are Byrds-level good and the hits still sound fresh after all these years due to the super-crisp production. The Eagles gave the people what they wanted and they did it damn well. The next time you’ve got a long road trip go ahead and cue up Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II. Despite the fact that it’s all the same band, the songs are so diverse I bet you’ll keep coming back for more on the way home.

Watch Collector’s Notebook — Tissot “Navigator” World Time

The advent of Rolex’s GMT-Master in 1955 was the culmination of a creative arms race in the Swiss watch industry to come up with unique complications for telling time in two different timezones. The newly-dawned jet airliner age enabled intercontinental travel to explode in popularity and created demand for this complication in a wristwatch . A dual timezone watch, therefore, became a tool for the sophisticated world traveling gentleman or international man of action and was marketed by the manufacturers to exactly that putative clientele. Among the most enduring alternatives to an extra fixed 24-hour hand was the concept of rotating time zone discs or bezels with the names of cities representing the world’s different temporal regions. And among the handsomest and most clever produced during this burst of invention was the original Tissot “Navigator” World Time watch, which debuted in 1953 and therefore predates the GMT-Master by a few years.

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Featuring an oversized 36mm x 44mm beefy lug screwed steel case (sometimes also found in gold top or solid gold) the Navigator achieved its dual time capabilities via an inner rotating world time disc that was calibrated to the 24-hour scale on the face of the watch. Continue reading →

What we’re listening to — Hoodoo Gurus

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about the Hoodoo Gurus but they were one of the most purely fun bands to emerge from the often gloomy 1980s music scene (Depeche Mode they are not). Hailing from Australia and featuring a distinctly surf & garage influenced brand of guitar rock, the Gurus pumped out catchy hit after catchy hit for college radio even if they never quite hit the big time Stateside. The main asset for the HG’s was their chief songwriter and inimitably adenoidal, ever-so-slightly kitschy singer David Faulkner and his well-penned half sincere/half ironic tributes to 60s Americana, Australiana and disposable pop culture in general.

Perhaps the one essential album would be their extra strong sophomore effort, 1985’s Mars Needs Guitars, but really there are one or two great tracks on pretty much every Gurus album. So much so that I’d recommend tracking down the now out-of-print 2-disc CD compilation, Ampology. Because sometimes all you want to do is hear the hits and Ampology distills down the HG’s prodigious output to its essential pop-rock essence just as any well-chosen greatest hits collection should.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmwIZUR1Kl8

Not really a hard rock band but definitely a band that rocks hard without taking itself too seriously, the Hoodoo Gurus are well worth rediscovering and just in time for summer’s tasty waves and beach cookouts, as well. Soon enough you and your mates may well find yourselves singing “Like wow-Wipeout!” at the end of a pleasantly sunburnt day.

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — May selection, Pt. II

The word “rare” gets thrown around a lot when folks are pitching vintage watches. But this circa 1952 Omega Seamaster definitely fits the definition: Jumbo 36mm case (90% are 34mm during this era), rare reference that is extremely hard to find (2521), solid 18 karat pink gold with screwed water resistant case, and Chronometer-certified movement and original signed “waffle” dial (very uncommon for a 1950s Seamaster, as almost all the Chronometers for Omega during this era are in the Constellation line). Run these attributes through the Google and you won’t find many matches. In fact, I’ve yet to see another 2521 in pink gold. So not an inexpensive watch by any means. But, as the old saying goes, find me another.

NOW ON SALE! Rare Vintage Omega ref. 2521 18k Pink Gold JUMBO Seamaster Chronometer — Click here for the Timezone Showcase ad with complete description and many more high res pictures. SOLD