Talking Watches With “Philip” Moki Martin with Hodinkee, a veteran of the Vietnam war and was part of the under water demolition team and still has the watch which was issued to him in 1965! He also has some other great pieces with connections in his life and the navy. He transition to Seal team 1 from the UWT. A Maui native and natural swimmer and athlete ended up in high risk Aquatic mission in Vietnam. A great video with a chap who had a very interesting life in the war. Tudor Submariner 7926 military issue is one of the watches he wore on missions.
Talking Watches With David Robinson the two time NBA champion basketball player aka “The admiral” a dominant center ever played in basketball. David Predominantly spent most of his basketball career with the Spurs. He won a string of titles a long the watch “rookie of the year,” “Defensive player of the year and league MVP” also scoring champion, rebound leader etc…
He played a big part in winning two NBA championships for the Spurs, also was part of the “dream team” in 1992 in the Olympic games where they took home gold medals with his team mates Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan which was named the dream team. Well established in basketball career.
The nick name cam from when Robinson was in the navy before he started playing basketball, standing 7 feet tale a huge chap. As most basketball players like watches Robinson has a great collection. Audemars Piguet, Franck Muller, Rolex and on.
Hands on With Panerai 305 Submersible 1950 3 Day 47mm Automatic in titanium, this is a great watch always liked the 1950 case with see through caseback which houses the p.9000 movement. The p.9000 cal is used in plenty of modern Panerai’s great work horse movement a lot better than the old ETA movements they used.
I used to have the 3 day smaller version in steel panerai-luminor-312, I wore that a for a good while really enjoyed that piece. The 305 comes in titanium steel as the size would be a big heavy lump in steel, it is currently on a rubber strap but does have interchangeable leather strap. I think Panerai do have an extensive range or straps ans plenty of fantastic aftermarket straps.
This is a larger at 47mm but does not feel so big on the wrist it wears really well on a 7.25 / 7.5 inch wrist which I feel is standard size wrist. The Panerai is part of the submersible range it is water resistant to a decent depth. The Submersible range are a blend of the Panerai’s Radiomir and Marina range.
Overall a great looking and functional watch at second prices being obtainable.
This Carrera Ref: CV2A84 is in my opinion one of the best Carrera models ceramic bezel Black PVD polished titanium, watch houses an automatic Calibre 16 movement with daydate function made of titanium polished steel. I have had a few of these models but really liked the full package of this one, faux brown lume on house markers and hands which glows luminous green in the dark. The technical term from Tag Heuer rhodium plated alternate finishing hour and minute hands with sand superluminova®
Watch comes on brown leather strap with black DLC coated deployment clasp and a black ceramic bezel with brown engraved tachymeter rating. The The Tag is water resistant to 100 metres and a case size of 43mm, power reserve 42 hours with stunning see through caseback, the glass is domed, beveled sapphire crystal with double anti-reflective treatment. This is fantastic everyday watch for the money and looks stunning and priced well too.
Rene Beyer Talking watches with Stephen Pulvirent from Hodinkee another collector from Zurich, Museum curator of The Beyer Clock and Watch Museum which comprises of 250 chronology pieces.
Hands on With the Heuer Camaro one of the 1960’s Vintage model. Heuer’s have some highly collectible pieces with collectors with prices to match, the Camaro as is a fantastic piece and not too pricey so well under the radar. The Heuer Camaro was named after the Chevrolet Camaro which was showcased in 1966, the Camaro offers a very similar style to the infamous Carrera but with a slightly larger cushion-shaped case.
A watch made in Switzerland named after an American muscle car! Apparently Jack Heuer the main man at Heuer said the watch was named after the Chevy Camaro as he was seeking to strengthen Heuer’s position in the USA by putting Heuer brand with USA motor racing seems a sensible idea. Which at the time popularity of the Chevy Camaro in late 60’s and its connection with the pacecar at the Indianapolis 500 in 1967 and 69 made him decided the Camaro name was good and fit for the Heuer brand.
The Heuer Camaro was actually launched in 1968 and was the last series introduced before Heuer focused and switched to the Chronomatic-powered watches of 1969. The Camaro was a manual wind and was never made with an automatic movement, and with Heuer focused on selling its new auto self winding chronograph models, not long after the Camaro went out of production in 1972.
The Camaro had three different movements supplied by Valjoux it was not uncommon back then for watch Brands to use a movement made by someone else Rolex used Valjoux & Zenith Chronograph movement in there flagship Daytona up till 1999 / 2000 the later with Zenith. In around 2000 they decided to launch there own in-house movement for the Daytona. As most big Swiss Watch Brands went down the same route at some point as watches you bought needed to have the full package as well as the brand name, so they needed to use they own movement to make customers feel like they getting there money’s worth.
The Valjoux movements where Valjoux 72 / 92 and 773x Family the descriptions are below:
Valjoux 72 is a three-register, manual-wind chronograph movement
Valjoux 72 models offer no date function with dial layout as follows
Valjoux 7730 is a very interesting movement it forms the basis of today’s Calibre 17 /Valjoux/ ETA 7750/. The 7730 is actually a re-named Venus 188, which is a manual-wind 30-minute chronograph with two registers.
Valjoux upgraded the movement in 1968, calling this the revised cal, The Valjoux 7733, which serves as a base for several modified versions, including:
7733- base 2-register movement.
7734- as above, but with date function.
7736- as above, but with the addition of 12-hour register.
The Camaro is great vintage piece for the money which doubt are a bad buy great all round vintage piece in 1985 the brand changed to Tag Heuer.
The Phillips Daytona Ultimatum Watch auction ended on the 12th May 2018. Not surprisingly Daytona’s went under the hammer for some serious money. The Daytona seems to be vintage classic that shows no slowing down the vintage watch of vintage. All the Daytona’s sold for either between the estimate guide or over suggested higher figure by the auction house. The most expensive was a rare white gold 18k Daytona Ref 6265 “The Unicorn” with black dial and bark finished bracelet. The bracelet is very unusual not like the standard oyster bracelet most Daytona’s have. To press most expensive ever was Paul Newmans Daytona the one he actually wore. The pictures below are courtesy of Phillips auction house.
The “Unicorn” sold for 5,937,500 CHF which about £450,000 Pounds crazy money, not sure I like the bracelet but its rare piece for the true collector and seems no shortage of collectors. The cheapest one I say cheap but it still sold for CHF 106,250 and works out at £79,750 pounds so not really cheap at short of £80,000 pounds on a leather strap, much prefer the bracelet to the leather strap always been a bracelet guy.
You can click on link to see full list of Daytona’s that sold with prices and pictures etc…. Phillips Daytona Ultimatum Auction
Hands on With The Breitling Bentley B05 unitime Ref AB0521U4 flagship steel model by Breitling but does come in precious metals and optional leather strap. This is a beast of a watch 49mm in size that tells the time in loads of cities all at the same time no need to adjust once set. The Breitling Bentley is a huge watch great wrist presence and suppose you have a Bentley car you need to have the watch to boot.
The Breitling is stainless steel but mainly all highly polished to mirror finish which picks up marks and scratches very easily as I found out wearing one, I always prefer satin finish on watches a lot more durable long term. The Bentley is very brash and in your face the outstanding feature over other Bentley models is the instant time in all 24 hour zones in the world great for a frequent traveler or jet setter.
The dial is royal ebony black and movement is Breitlings in-house B05, when changing timezone you turn the crown forward or backward in one-hour increments and it corrects all indications in one smooth action, with the date automatically adjusted to local time. The twenty four hour city bezel indications takes in to account of summer or Daylight Saving Time (DST).
The dial bearing a Breitling wings logo raised raised motif with a sculpted globe accentuating the travel theme, driven by a highly original oscillating weight shaped like a wheel rim with Bentley Logo and visible through the see through caseback. The watch is cosc rated as you would expect for a prestige brand water resistant 100 metres with Antiglare glass both sides. but the price is staggering Rrp £11,320 which is not great selling point nearly £12,000 gets you a lot of Rolex!
Breitling on whole are great watches and very shiny but can be very pricey recently the new CEO has reduced all the Rrp’s across all there range. One thing you can always do is ask for a discount plenty of retailers will discount the watch especially when they get upto 45% off Rrp for the bigger outlets. Most Brands discount except Rolex with steel sports model these days your lucky to actually get one nevermind get some money off!
Hands on with the Rolex Milgauss 116400GV Blue this one a recent acquisition in the past I have had the older version GV model Green sapphire glass Black dial. This model was originally launched at Basel 2014 and I think its the nicest one to press blue dial green sapphire glass. The Milgauss was first introduced in 1956 with reference 6541 which had the trade mark of the Milgauss the unusual shaped lighting strike second hand which stuck with the watch to present day.
The Milgauss case size is 40mm and is very like a Datejust with no date window, bracelet is pretty much the same, this model is known as Z-Blue and the Milgauss itself is designed for working scientists in labs due to most watches being exposed to high magnetic fields which effects time keeping etc… So hence why Rolex designed the Milgauss back in the 1950’s must have been a great need for them back then. The bezel is fixed stainless steel and polished, the dial is electric blue with orange lightening strike secondhand watch looks stunning in the sun. Rrp on this model is £6050 they recently discontinued the non GV models.
But some point they introduced a second iteration without the lighting strike hand and Rolex struggled to sell that version (ref:1019) even resorted to chuck in a deal if you bought a premium model Rolex.
The Milgauss has gone through some changes over the years old models fetching serious money these days a bit like vintage cars are too! The vintage market for a lot items are doing really well it seems people loving vintage. This Milgauss is latest edition which I think is due a re-vamp there was talks a new model was coming more like the older old versions with rotation bezel made of Bakelite possibly rather than a fixed steel bezel.
But Rolex are hell bent on putting the 70 hour power reserve 3235 movement in all the there models its already in the Sea dweller 126600, Rolex Datejusts 41, new Rolex 126710BLNR so watch out for new model soon. The movement is there best most accurate longest power reserve self winding movement they have made.
The only thing to note is new Rolex Sports are getting real hard to obtain from Rolex Authorized dealers popularity of steel models are going through the roof in recent last 2 years Brexit not helped with the pound being so weak.
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