Bring a Loupe: A Vintage Diver From Zenith, An Over-Jeweled Waltham, Offerings From 'The Crown,' And A Buyer Beware

It’s Friday yet again, which means it’s time to dust off your trusty loupe and mentally spend imaginary money on drool-worthy watches (or, you know, actually buy them—your mileage may vary). Thanks, all, for the kind words of welcome last week for my first outing running the column. The only watch from last week’s Bring a Loupe to sell so far is the gold Connie, which sold for $3,400 (with a 25% buyer’s premium). Rather than resting on the options we already know are still out there, let’s go find some new things, shall we?

This week’s watches include a diver, a Datejust, a 1940s Tudor, and a fun (depending on your point of view, admittedly) example of one of the watches that defined the “Jewel Wars” in watchmaking in the 1960s. Onward to the good stuff!

A Zenith S58 Mk4 Diver, A Secret Favorite

I’m sure we’ve all got our own… well, I’m not even sure what. They’re not secret watches per se, but they’re so generally unfamiliar to even most other enthusiasts that they feel private—a bit like loving a band you only half hope blows up. For a long time, my ultimate private watch was the Favre Leuba Deep Blue, which has since been reissued as the Deep Raider. One of my others has always been the Zenith S58. Plenty about the watch is still unknown; here’s a great thread with some early information, and H’s own Rich Fordon covered the S58 for Rescapement here. As fun as it’d be for someone at Zenith to clarify everything about the model’s history, it’s almost immaterial: the mystery neither adds to nor detracts from the allure of the watch itself.

The specific watch on offer—from a private seller at Omega Forums—is as nice an example as you’re likely to find, and priced better than any other S58 I can find. A black-dialed Mark IV, the dial looks extraordinarily clean, the hands and lume are excellent, and the case has the light wear that’s always surprising on a 60+ year-old sports watch. I’m a bit amazed this watch is still available, to be honest; I hope, for my own sake, it sells soon so I can stop mentally selling things to purchase it.

Waltham 100

It’s not much written about, and, yes, it sounds as silly from here as any other ‘war’ fought in any other industry (looking at you, Pepsi v. Coke), but in the middle of the 20th Century, there was, in mechanical watches, a jewel war.

At the time, there was a far wider variety of options regarding jewels in movements, from simple no- or 1-jewel movements (especially common in kids’ watches) to 7-jewel movements to your expected 17/23/25-jewel movements. To some degree, jewel count in mechanical movements was understood, perhaps akin to like horsepower in cars, or the number of LEDs in a red-light mask, i.e., more was better (even if that wasn’t and isn’t always the case).

To my knowledge, Waltham was the brand that really went hardest during the jewel wars, and things accelerated very quickly. In 1958, Waltham offered a 30-jewel watch. In 1959, you could choose from 49-, 53-, or 65-jewel movements, and by 1960, Waltham had dropped the Centennial, a 100-jewel watch celebrating the company’s first century.

Lest you believe Waltham was uniquely foolish in pursuing such extraneous-jewel tomfoolery, Citizen’s Grand Prix 100 also used 100 jewels, and Clinton actually released a 110-jewel watch. The trick with all of these watches, however, was that the jewel count was basically a marketing ruse. A 1960 ad for the Centennial heralds the watch as having “100 working jewels,” while the 1962 ad notes the same watch has “100 functional jewels.”

What Waltham withheld was that the movement in the Centennial was, in fact, an A. Schild 1700/01 which they up-jeweled with a rotor ring studded with 83 jewels to arrive at a nice, even 100. The language in the advertisement gives away the game: there were, yes, 100 jewels in the movement, though it eventually became hard to argue that the jewels were working, functional, or anything other than a ploy. Eventually, in 1974, ISO 1112 was enacted, which ended the jewel wars by prohibiting companies from cramming excess jewels into movements to deceive customers.

I submit fully that both A) this watch is more of a curiosity than anything, and B) it’s a good reminder to be thoughtful when presented with improvements and advancements in any products, from watches to phones to cars to sweatpants. The example available here—on eBay with a buy it now price of $200—is in great shape, with clear definition still on the lugs, a screw-down caseback, a clean dial, and a relatively rare stainless steel case. It’s an odd watch, the Waltham 100: you can’t help being aware that the company was hoping to sort of hoodwink customers, yet you (or, at least, I) also sort of can’t help but admire the let’s-go-for-it chutzpah.

A Charming Little Tudor ref. 4453

Sterling Vault Auctioneers’ upcoming auction on the 24th has a formidable lineup of watches on offer, including a Breitling 2005, a pair of Speedmasters (a lollipop 2998 and 2915-2 with box and papers), and a vintage Eberhard Scafograf. Any of those are worth paying attention to, but I found myself coming back to this 31mm Tudor again and again.

This watch likely dates from just before Tudor’s “Trial of Destruction” era, though it was precisely the sort of watch that enabled Tudor to make such beat-our-watches-up claims. While the 4453 was not the reference used on the British North Greenland Expedition (that’d be the 7909), the 4453 does have what remains, to me, one of the most charming features found on many Tudors of that time: lug holes on only one side of the case (the non-crown side). I have no sound, logical reason for enjoying lug-holes on only one side of a watch, but I enjoy them immensely. You can almost imagine the stubborn engineer who kept arguing it was somehow better that way.

This watch is, yes, small, and has a fairly simple manual-wind movement. By way of explanation for my salmon-like return to this watch over the past few days, I can only point to the blued hands and lovely dial. While there’s some flaking at the 2 on the dial, the rest of it, for me, is enough to get over that imperfection. Plus, it literally has no bids, and the opening bid is a reasonable £240 or about $325.

A 1989 Rolex Datejust Burl Wood Dial in Steel and White Gold, ref. 16234

To the degree that any watch makes specific claims about the person wearing or hankering for it, I’m a little nervous about picking a Datejust for my second outing in this column. By that I mean, Datejusts aren’t particularly sexy; they’re like admitting your favorite musician is Dean Martin or something. But for no good reason I can understand, when I think the word “watch,” the thing I picture most often in my head is a Datejust. Subs, Daytonas, and GMT Masters may be more popular, and I personally would certainly feel much cooler if those were the Rolex offerings I were naturally drawn to, but at some point, I was seduced by the prosaic, everyman Datejust.

But to paraphrase Orwell, some Datejusts are more equal than others. This particular one—available through Momentum Dubai—is an absolute stunner. The case looks flawless, and the bracelet’s excellent, but the dial is the Whole Show here. I’d be curious if burl-dialed Rolexes are the cilantro of watches—delicious to some, disgusting to others. Regardless, I’m firmly in the “yes please” camp regarding burl dials, though at $47k for such an example, it’ll be a good while before I become someone who both admires and wears such a watch.

Buyer Beware on a Questionable Omega Constellation

Last week, I mentioned how vintage Omega Constellations are minefields; here’s a great example of the ordnance lying in wait for anyone looking for one. Presumably a reference 14381, this Constellation’s got a decent-looking case (for a 65+ year-old watch), and on first glance, the dial seems to be about right. However, the more I look, the more I can’t shake the sense that it’s been redone. 

The minute markers from 55-05 seem just enough off, and the vertical cross-hair seems not to be centered on the O in Automatic. I could chalk those up, maybe, to bad pictures or a worn crystal, but then there’s the fact that the crown has also been replaced (it should feature a decagonal crown). My vote is that the dial has likely been refinished, but I’d love to hear from BAL readers what you think of the watch. The auction ends next Tuesday and, at the time of writing, the watch is up to $580.