Post pics of your watches ***Please NO QUOTING PHOTOS***

Moar new shoes! Distressed leather Nato.



Cheapest way to get that new watch feelz. 14 quid from an Italian crowd on the Bay. Can't go wrong.

No worries E, here ya go. Very supple strap I have to say, nice hardware too and they deliver fast and registered with it. Big selection and not just Natos.

Took a pic of the above Hampden's movement to show want I mean about the nice quality of it.



A 15jewel "Diadem" originally fitted to ladies pocket watches. Gold set and screwed jewels, fine regulation, nice bit of plate finishing and decoration too. The Americans seemed to really go in for this at the time. The europeans were usually much less blingy. You can see the dirt on it though.

And while I was at it I took a snap of the Zenith Pilots movement. Cool thing about these is it's under a glass inner cover.



Really fills the case, which means you can run a bigger balance wheel which makes for more accuracy. Frosted gilt finish, plain but effective. Nice finishing on the edges of the plates. Breguet overcoil spring, snail cam regulator, indirectly driven centre second gear wheel at "7 o'clock". It was considered a complication in them days. The hand flutters more than the later direct seconds layout. This style of Zenith movement regularly won chronometer competitions back then. Their best result in such a competition in the 50's with their 135 calibre IIRC was also very similar in layout to this. The last time this got a proper service with balance work and such, it was running well under chronometer rating. +/- two seconds per day. Not bad for an oul fart. Sadly it's not like that these days. In dire need of a fettling, but if I put this in the post I'd likely need daily injections of horse tranquillisers until it returned.

It looks like standard 70's mineral glass DT. Yep it will polish out, though requires more elbow grease than acrylic using brasso or polywatch. If you want to do it yourself I can do up a how to for you. You need a special finishing paste, but it's cheap as chips. Like a fiver on the Bay. The other option is a replacement crystal and because it's circular and flat that would be easy peasy to source a generic. However I'd personally not go that route as it's not exactly fecked going by the photo and the guy fitting it might screw up.

Oh and BTW, very cool looking watch DT. Not a cheap watch when first in the shops. By any means. Rolex money effectively.

If they have another one the same, that would be the route I'd be taking myself DT. Once I'd have been surprised to hear that they had two of such a thing, but in the last couple of years I've bumped into a fair few sellers who seemed to be liquidating old stock from ex jewellers/watchmakers, newly retired or even closed down in the economic downturn?

Lots of parts, non working watches and near NOS stuff coming onto the market. A lot more 1970/80's stuff compared to the usual background level too. One example was a Longines Beta 21 quartz. previously known from one low res photo and considered a one off, before last xmas three such examples all NOS came to light from three separate Swiss dealers. Five overall, all NOS last year.