Tag Archives: Collecting

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

Just when I though I couldn’t sneak one more watch into the month of May I get something that demands to be seen immediately. And for a change of pace it’s not another big ol’ sport diver either. Instead, it’s a classic Rolex Air-King with a special twist — a very rare “Winn-Dixie 10 Yrs Safe Driver” double name dial. This presentation watch from the great American supermarket chain dates to the early 1980s and the handsome Winn-Dixie logoed silver sunburst dial makes it a great addition to any co-branded Rolex collection and about as cool as an Air-King gets.

Whether you’re looking for something a bit more than a run of the mill AK or a way to get into double name Rolex dials at the entry level, this Winn-Dixie Air King has got the funk and the flair on the wrist to turn heads and start a conversation. And isn’t that a big part of what we want in a watch, really?

Check out the full ad including complete description and many more pictures plus a special price over at Vintage Rolex Forum’s Market section. SOLD

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

Closing out the merry month of May with another classic diver, this one a 1970s Scubapro 500. Sold by the legendary diving equipment manufacturer, the Scubapro 500 has become an icon to vintage dive watch enthusiasts. And this is a very fine and honest one-owner example with desirable automatic movement, lovely Mint original dial, unpolished case and original matte black elapsed-time insert with Tritium triangle secured in the big, chunky unidirectional ratcheting bezel.

Overall, this classic diver shows use but is in Very Good to Excellent vintage condition with just the right amount of tool watch WABI. And its robust ETA 2784 automatic movement with quickset date has just been completely overhauled, giving you peace of mind and years’ more faithful service.

An unmistakably masculine look with plenty of wrist presence and tremendous build quality, the Scubapro 500 makes a rugged and stylish companion for all of life’s adventures. In fact it’s such a cool watch that I’m sorely tempted to keep it for myself — so grab this great vintage diver before I change my mind.

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

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

The hits keep on coming in May with this stone classic Rolex reference 5513 Submariner. With an “L” serial prefix, this watch represents the last of the line for plastic crystal Subs and the end of the road for the legendary 5513 reference. Dating from circa 1988 this beauty features a stunning gloss finish/white gold surround dial with only the handsome biscuity patina to the original Tritium luminous plots giving away its age.

With important period correct details like a valuable original 93150 bracelet with correct 580 end pieces and original bezel insert with Tritium pearl intact, this Submariner is a great way to get into the world of Vintage Rolex. And as the 5513 reference gets bumped back another iteration on the family tree by the new Ceramic Subs, this outstanding last series example is no doubt destined to become even more collectible, which seems to happen to all the historical Rolex models as time passes. Putting the cherry on top of the sundae, this classic plastic no-date Sub has just been fully overhauled by my watchmaker for years more of faithful service. Strap it on and see how good it feels to go through your life with a Vintage Rolex on your wrist!

You can view the full ad for this sexy Sub over at Vintage Rolex Forum’s Market section — check out the full description, many more pictures plus a special discount for buyers over there. SOLD

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

What better way to kick off May than with a special selection of cool vintage watches! First up, as I mentioned briefly in my previous post on affordable vintage Divers, the highly regarded Swiss brand Fortis was one of the many manufacturers to utilize the iconic big size twin crown Super Compressor case in the 1960s & 70s. And with their classic Marinemaster they did it in a most innovative way: they added an actual dive table printed on the dial in highly legible red and white to be used in conjunction with the inner rotating bezel. With this ingenious calibration a diver could now calculate his safe intervals for surfacing and resting based on how long and how far down he had gone right there on his wrist!

Now, you can find reissue Marinemasters made from NOS parts with Luminova dials and hands all day long. But finding the genuine vintage article from the 1970s with Tritium luminous in unpolished condition and correct crosshatch crowns? Well, that’s something else again. Best of all, this Fortis Marinemaster has just been fully serviced and is ready for years more of enjoyment for its new owner. No, it doesn’t quite fall into the “bargain” diver category. But it’s really not that expensive relative to how hard it is to find an all-original Marinemaster. Some things in life are so cool they’re definitely worth stretching a little for.

Check out the full ad for this mega-cool Marinemaster with complete description and many more pictures over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner. SOLD

Watch Collector’s Notebook — Big fun in the shallow end of the Vintage Diver pool

Once again I want to talk about vintage watches that won’t break the bank and that deliver a lot of stylistic bang for the buck. And for the guy who likes a rugged, retro look there are some great values in the vintage dive watch market. Having owned a bunch of these bargain beauties I can tell you that there is still a lot of fun to be had out there for well under a grand.

For example, take this stunning 1970s Elgin automatic diver: big all-steel screwed case at 41 x 45mm and obviously a mega-cool blue-orange “roulette”-style layout on the dial and hands. If you want a watch that pops on the wrist, you’re looking at it. Plus, it has a very intriguing and robust A. Schild full-rotor automatic caliber 1913 under the hood where one quickly advances the date by repeatedly pushing in the crown. You don’t see that very often and I’m not sure of its overall effect on water resistance — I imagine there is a pretty good gasket system in that crown & tube assembly. But in any event, it’s a pretty bloody cool way to quickset the date! Best of all, all that style and eccentricity will only set you back around $750.

The world of Super-Compressor divers, a profoundly influential late 1950s design innovation that continues to be used today, offers plenty of variety and choice, from the psychedelic to the downright elegant. Continue reading →

Watch Collector’s Notebook — IWC’s original Yacht Club, an avant garde answer to the Datejust

One of my favorite vintage brands and one which I also feel is consistently undervalued is the International Watch Company of Schaffhausen, better known as simply IWC. Back in the day, every IWC watch had an in-house movement and their manual wind and automatic calibers were some of the best, most reliable and accurate machines on the market. With their bespoke Pelleton winding system, which was developed by the marque’s famed technical director Albert Pelleton in the early 1950s, IWC offered a solid alternative, if not also an implicit challenge, to Rolex’s longtime dominance of full rotor automatic technology. IWC continued to develop their 85x auto calibers for nearly two decades until they reached what many experts consider the pinnacle with their legendary 8541B movement. And it is the 8541B that you find in IWC’s other implicit challenge to Rolex, the beautifully designed Yacht Club model.

Debuting right at the dawn of the funky 1970s when the Swiss watch industry would go somewhat design mad chasing rapidly changing tastes and fashions, the Yacht Club manages to be at once cutting edge and traditional. Making full use of the sweeping lines of the “C”-shape case, variations of which are also found in contemporaneous Omega Constellations and Heuer’s automatic Carrera, the Yacht Club’s heavy steel case is a perfectly proportioned 36mm X 44mm. That’s much bigger than the rather medium-sized C-shape Connie and obviously not as big as Heuer’s macho racing chronograph, so where it ends up is exactly in the same size bracket as Rolex’s evergreen, the Datejust. And that’s really the best analog and probably the exact watch IWC were gunning for. For if the Datejust was the icon of a never-changing design standard, the Yacht Club aimed to offer the same sort of elegance but with a bit of an avant garde twist for the modern man.

Hence the lugs sweep inward toward the bracelet rather than projecting out in a relatively straight line like the DJ, giving the dial extra prominence and pop. And what beautiful dials the Yacht Clubs had, from the classic beauty of starburst silver to moody, manly gray to my personal favorite, an astonishing blue that changes in hue ever so subtly depending on the angle at which its viewed. Note also the classy way the date discs are not one-size-fits-all for the colored dials but rather reverse printed with white numerals on the matching color background of the dial. Nice touch! The hands are luminous with black inlay and very easy to read and there is something that really appeals about the applied IWC logo of this period. I like it better than the earlier printed full script “International Watch Co.” alone and much more than the later boring printed block lettering, which still adorns their dials today.

The Yacht Club was also a departure for IWC in that prior to its introduction they produced only a few special models with a screw back case design, such as the anti-magnetic Ingenieur and the diver-centric Aquatimer. Continue reading →

tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — January selection

OK, I’ve left it late in January but I have two great vintage Omega divers on offer that deserve special mention. The first is that evergreen dive watch classic, the big and bold PloProf 600 meter.

With its massive 55mm wide x 44mm long asymmetrical case, idiosyncratic but purposeful crown left design and ingenious red bezel-lock button, the PloProf looks unlike any other watch. It was originally created for professional deep sea divers and the great Jacques Cousteau himself was known to favor it. And if you’ve got the wrist and bold temperament for this big blue behemoth you too can become a member of the storied PloProf club.

Click here for the full ad with complete description and many more pictures over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner — SOLD

The second Omega diver I’ve got falls more into the cult classic category: A 1970 f300 120 meter Chronometer with the Accutron-derived tuning fork movement humming away under the hood.

This is a rare variation with non-integrated bracelet case, so unlike with most of these Omega tuning fork divers you can affix a conventional strap or bracelet, a big plus in my opinion. If not quite as big as the PloProf this all-steel f300 diver is a wonderfully robust 41mm wide and features a beautiful two-tone silver “bullseye” dial. Better yet, it’s just gone on sale.

Click here for the complete ad with detainled description and many more photos over at OmegaForums.com’s Private Sales Forum — SOLD

tomvox1’s New Year’s Watch Sale — A brace of classic alarm watches

Before there was your smartphone to keep you on the ball there were high-end wristwatches with alarm complications for men on the go. I happen to have on offer two of the most classic Swiss wrist alarms ever designed in the analog age and at heavily marked down sales prices to boot. So don’t be late for your New Year’s date — these timepieces will make sure you arrive at your assignations in style and fashionably on time. Why not make promptness your New Year’s resolution and let a classy vintage wristwatch help you do it?

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox is one of the all-time classic alarm wristwatches, so much so that the venerable high end Swiss manufacture still makes the model to this very day, though they call it the “Réveil” for extra snob appeal. This Memo is the Jumbo version at 37mm in diameter and was destined for the American market, as you can tell by the “LeCoultre”-only dial signature. This means that JLC in Switzerland supplied the movement, in this case the workhorse caliber 815 bumper automatic, and then LeCoultre USA used the domestic Star Watch Company to case the watch thereby saving the import duties they would have paid had they simply shipped over the complete watch.

This particular example dates from the mid-1960s or thereabouts and features a front-loading all steel monocoque case for maximum water resistance. The alarm and its turntable disc are wound and controlled by the top crown and the time by the bottom. This watch is all original down to the oh-so-vintage silver dial with original Tritium lume dots & hands and the classic JLC movement has been fully serviced for years more faithful service. It even comes on its original hard-to-find JB Champion bracelet!

Check out the complete ad for this classic and stylish LeCoultre Memovox over at Timezone.com’s Sales Corner — SOLD

The second watch I have on sale to usher in the New Year is this wonderful all original Vulcain Cricket in uncommon stainless steel water resistant case. The Cricket has been renowned as the “watch of presidents” ever since Vulcain shrewdly gave one to Harry Truman in the late 1940s. They’ve been giving them to U.S. presidents ever since and if they’re good enough for the leaders of the free world they’re well up to the job of keeping you from being late to work. This late 50s/early 60s example features a beautiful original four-quadrant guilloché dial with contrasting pattern in silver-white with lovely pyramidal & bar markers. It also has a very cool and complicated dual-barrel proprietary caliber 120 movement that is operated by the one crown with two-way winding action and the pusher at “2” (and is best explained off site by the invaluable Ranfft.de pink pages for wristwatch movements). It has also been fully serviced and the alarm on this little beauty is loud enough to wake you after even the most Champagne-drenched New Year’s Eve party. Bottoms up!

Click here to view the complete ad for this stunning vintage Cricket with many more pictures and complete description over at Watchuseek’s Private Sales board — SOLD

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!

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