As the official timepiece of the French Olympic team and later a favorite of Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s dive team for its build quality and precise timekeeping, the Nautic-Ski became a best-seller for the brand and a French design icon.
The distinction between foreign materials and aged original materials should drive decisions about how – or whether – to restore a watch dial.
What do those numbers and the graph mean? Is the watch a good runner? Has it really been serviced as the seller claims and if so, how well?
This collector’s guide will take you through all the Rolex Explorer II references so that you can understand the details of each generation of this iconic watch.
“Whoa… What is that beauty?” asked Allen as I entered the woody, half-lit inner sanctum of BTD HQ; be-masked and reeking of hand sanitizer. The sanitizer stench was soon overpowered by the heady aroma of cigar smoke and reclaimed barn wood. I was wearing my 1962 Seiko Crown Special and Allen’s comment confirmed what I… Read more »
“Bonjour,” he said warmly as he rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of hairy wrists, and began carefully loading the bag with my items. It was then, at that moment on that winter day of 1999 while the warm wind blew outside, that I first saw a Lip watch.
An exhaustive collector guide to the Cartier Tank.
One aspect of watch history that is both misunderstood and misrepresented is Seiko’s internal competition from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Let’s say you want to obtain a vintage mechanical steel 36mm Rolex Datejust, and let’s say that you’re ok with a leather strap over a bracelet, and let’s say you’re bargain hunting. If that’s you, read on.
Alarm Watches Seiko introduced their ‘Bell-Matic’ range in 1966 but the history of the mechanical alarm watch begins more than 20 years earlier. Vulcain had been working since the early 1940s to perfect a movement that could chime an alarm loud enough to be heard, but not so violently that it interfered with the delicate… Read more »