In-coming : MK1 Burgundy

Well, just received this e-mail for an independent brand piece that I ordered some months ago, and am awaiting its arrival from Australia to Malaysia. This should be interesting!

The Next Addition : Mondaine Stop2Go

I'm not really a fan of quartz watches, but there was one that had caught my fancy for a couple of years and well, to cut a long story short, I just pulled the trigger. The watch had to travel from abroad so it may take a bit of time.

The watch in question was the Mondaine Stop2Go. Having lived in Europe for a couple of years, I always found the Mondaine clocks at railway stations to be a novelty, especially with the 58+2 seconds unique mechanism to synchronise the time for all stations.

Well, the Stop2Go was a mini-version of the railway clocks and came in classic white, and modern black. It's a simple watch but I can't find one readily available in Malaysia; so I'm ordering one in its DLC form, to take a closer look. Keep your eyes peeled for the review when the watch arrives in due course.

Straps Unstrapped

I love this game sometimes, most times. I have flipped many watches, and met many cool collectors over the years. And a few subsequent non-watch-related businesses have been struck, pursuant to a simple watch sale at times.

Today was one of those days. I just met a pretty cool chap i.e. Mr Chin, whom was a Pam collector. Readers would know that I got a couple of pre-owned straps and bracelet, along with my pre-owned PAM0005 some time ago. I wasn't really a fan of the bracelet (pretty heavy paired to the watch), the vintage leather strap, and rubber strap that came with the watch. 

So I purchased a thick hornback strap from Zergun that was the right fit, by my reckoning, with the watch and was happy as bird.

Well, apparently Mr Chin had been looking for the particular style of bracelet that I had, came over to inspect and pick it up, and was a really cool chap. He's in the real estate business specialising in Mont Kiara; so if any readers had a need for a realtor in this part of town, drop me an e-mail and I'll link you up with this cool chap.

This watch hobby really does open up doors to meet many cool collectors in the scene!

Parcel from Reader : Rubber B Strap

So a couple of weeks back, a reader asked if I was interested to take over his order of Rubber B strap. He had purchased it for his SD4000, tried it on, but sold off his SD4000 so he was willing to let it go for only RM700. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me at some 30% discount, but the catch was that he was located at Korea. Anyway, we e-mailed to and fro, and the parcel just arrived!

Flieger Type A Modifications Plan - addendum 3 & final

Continuation from http://andywristwatches.blogspot.my/2016/06/flieger-type-modifications-plan_24.html :

With my modification plans in place, I began to look through the offers from fellow readers. There were offers of Archimede, Laco, Steinhart, and Stowa. I opted for the Archimede Pilot 42 Heritage as the base for the modification.

After all, if Watchuseek moderator had an Archimede Pilot Original, then the watch should be good enough for the rest of us. Note that the crown in the Pilot Original was different from the Pilot 42 Heritage above. I prefer the Pilot Original crown.

The seller informed that the watch was hardly-worn, in rotation with his other watches. There were some scratches on the case, but since I meant to polish the blasted case anyway, that was not a point of contention. The sapphire crystal was in good nick with no chips whatsoever (since this was the view that one would be looking at when wearing the watch, this was an essential part in my books) and movement looked clean and nice; but again, I meant to send the watch for a full service with my watch smith so I wasn't too concerned about it. As long as there was an ETA 2824-2 movement ticking in there, I could have it serviced and lubed like new again.

Archimede box was just a simple affair. And the watch in question was in the exact same outlook as the picture above, plus a few battle scars made over the last 2 years. I contacted my watch smith and reiterated on the plans that I had for the said watch. I then couriered the watch over.

The ETA 2824-2 was a pretty standard and robust Swiss movement, and normal servicing was recommended every 5 years or so. Since my watch smith was a family friend and doesn't charge me an arm and a leg (my Dad used to be a watch smith too and when he retired from the industry, he practically gave his friend all his watch repair tools, spare parts and furnishings for free; so his friend kind of reciprocate whenever I needed repairs or servicing of my watches), I prefer for the movement to be done up too. These pictures from the Net shows how a standard 2824-2 movement was disassembled and cleaned.

The caseback, crown, and seal were tested for WR of 50m, which was good enough since this was a pilot watch and I don't meant to do swimming with it. The movement looked like new after being re-assembled.

I also wanted to relume the dial but so he did not cater to this, so I have to leave this part of the project to another time and place.

When the courier came back to me, the watch was looking like new. The polished case made it looked more attractive and premium, and the contrast against the sterile dial was very evident compared to its previous blasted case reiteration.

Note that the crown was not a current 42 Heritage crown, but that of the Pilot Original series.

It was paired to a Rios 1931 hand-made calf leather strap from Germany; but as per my previous post, I had plans to change it to a carbon fibre design strap to update the watch to current times. I had already made an order for the intended strap and it arrived this very morning.

Under direct lighting, the carbon fibre design strap was a looker by itself. Matched with a pair of butterfly deployment clasp, the double white-stitched strap truly transformed the overall look and feel of an otherwise very traditional Flieger design.

At darker areas without direct lighting, the strap looked like a normal black leather strap so it was versatile in that aspect.

And therein concludes the mini-modification adventure that I started with this Flieger example. It would now go into rotation with the other watches in my collection and should see many more years of productive use. 

Pictures : Seiko Turtle Pepsi SRP779 ("Turtle Reissue")

"The new SRP Prospex series is probably one of the most accurate re-issues, up to now. It's probably an indication of how right Seiko's designers were in the 1970s, when designing the original 63XX series. The new Seiko Prospex SRP series looks as purposeful as when it first entered the market, 39 years ago. The cushion-shaped case (so-called turtle case) of these models is the central vintage element that defines them - and tends to make them so attractive, especially among Seiko aficionados. This cushion-shaped case measures 44.3mm wide with a lug-to-lug height of approximately 46mm. The watch is 14mm thick, and it has a lug-width of 22mm. It's a large watch, for sure, but it's not oversized. Cushion-shaped cases tend to wear a lot smaller on the wrist than their dimensions suggest."

For my Turtle Reissue, I have upgraded the original flimsy and el-cheapo rubber strap to a vulcanised (vanilla-scented) premium diver strap, which is very comfortable and holds the weight of the watch better. Which do you think was the better choice- the Tangerine Orange strap or Navy Blue strap?

I would opine that the Turtle Reissue makes a good addition to one's collection, and I may be hunting for the Turtle Reissue Padi Edition next.

An Interesting Proposition : Rolex Sea-Dweller 1665 (1978)

Update : Spoken to the seller and watch was on hold, as he was based overseas and would meet at RSC to verify the 1665. I may liquidate some watches for funds towards this vintage piece, so look out for good deals coming your way vide this blog. Cheers.

I receive a no. of e-mails from time to time, and one of the more interesting one that came over earlier the week warranted a mention here, as per the following :

I Googled online and saw that the grandfather (SD1665) of the current SD116600 was a rather handsome piece. And since it was a vintage piece that was no longer in production; it would make quite a conversation piece too. The seller confirmed that it was NOT a double red, otherwise the would have been a bonus. He would only send me the pictures if I was really interested, so I took a look at pictures online to see what I should be expecting for a rather nice example of the SD1665.

I would probably have to flip my SD116600 to raise some cash towards the SD1665, if I was to take up on the offer. The SD116600 retails at RM38k; and a 2014 example on MWF recently took but a mere 2 days to sell at RM31k. Mine is newer and without a scratch, so I probably could get around that figure or northwards.

What do you think- would you let go off the avant-garde SD116600 for a vintage SD1665?