Morning team,
Three Watch Thursday Thirty-Three.
Surely this level of alliteration can’t be beaten until Three Watch Thursday Three Hundred and Thirty-Three.
Anyway, lots has happened this week in watches, or maybe I’ve spotted lots as a result of being home on the Easter break.
Many many many pieces of watch media have been consumed with a large fraction coming from Hodinkee (past and present). In order for this to remain a somewhat *varied*1 newsletter, some stories have been saved for future weeks.
So, let’s dive straight in!
Eterna Cal. 740 circa 1936-37
This watch caught my interest this week over on Instagram, not really for the aesthetics or condition, but the mention of a waterproofing patent.
Currently for sale over at Black Bough (retailer of furnishings and watches), this Eterna Cal. 740 features a case made by Schmitz Frères & Co. S.A.
Black Bough does an excellent job of listing this watch and the significance of the case. You can read the full listing here.
The summary is that shaped cases were difficult to waterproof. Cartier released the water-resistant Tank called the Tank Ethanche in 1931 and Omega a water-resistant rectangular watch called the Marine.
This case was patented in 1937 and can be found featured in watches by Cyma, Eterna and Gallet to name a few.
Here we have an example by Eterna, but let’s look at the patent used.
In the figures, the crystal is b, the bezel is d. You can see how screws f and g can be used to tighten the bezel, crystal and caseback/midcase together to make a water-resistant seal in figures 2 and 4.
Figures 5 and 6 provide an alternative direction for this tightening of screws and sealing the movement.
In reality, these cases make use of 4 screws, one on each corner shown in the image below as in figures 1 and 2 of the patent.
Another interesting feature is the use of Staybrite, a stainless steel. With my materials science hat on this is cool, but the cooler thing to me is the play of words.
Stay + Bright (I.e. not rusting) —> Staybrite
I love it.
Anyway, this patent doesn’t completely seal the watch from water as there can still be water ingress through the crown.
I haven’t checked what system is used here, but I have written about the problems involved in making crowns water-resistant here before.
All in all, an interesting watch that caused me to go on an interesting little dive. Hopefully, you enjoyed it.
‘TROPICAL’ SPEEDMASTER 2915-1 – A RECORD-BREAKING OMEGAGA AT PHILLIPS
It’s pretty likely you saw this article by Jose Pereztroika on his Instagram and website last year exposing a Cartier Crash London up for auction at Phillips New York.
Pereztroika’s work is what I would consider investigative journalism in the watch field. The levels of detail gone to in order to expose shady watches are unmatched.
This week news broke of this shady Omega Speedmaster 2915-1 sold in 2021 at Phillips by none other than Pereztroika.
I urge you to go read the article yourselves here.
A few thoughts, firstly hats off at the level of detail. It’s exactly what this subject matter needs.
Secondly, as someone correctly points out in the comments, when considering colours such as the lume, white balances must be corrected. This is my only gripe with the article and it’s purely from a photography perspective. The images with the green-tinted lume are also green-tinted and quite cold. It is difficult to correct white balances to be the same in non-RAW formatted photos, but an acknowledgement of this and an attempt would’ve been interesting to see.
Other than that, brilliantly flowing article.
Given the evidence presented about the inconsistencies, I am inclined to agree with the conclusion that the Omega extracts/archive system is flawed allowing dealers and auctioneers to exploit them for profit.
Whilst it’s true auctions can be shady businesses, I will once again stress that I am in no position to comment on auctions myself as I simply do not know enough.
Thanks for the interesting read Jose. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for what you spot and write about next.
Roger Smith
What a week to be Roger Smith, first spotted on Instagram by @katimepieces sporting a Baltic MR01 Perpetual Edition, then Pocket Watch 2 comes up for auction.
For the rundown on Pocket Watch 2, Tony Traina has you covered over at Hodinkee.
The Baltic MR01 Perpetual is the thing that caught my eye!
It’s well known that Roger Smith doesn’t wear one of his own watches as he doesn’t have time to make one while fulfilling a massive list of orders for clients.
It is also known he regularly sports a Rolex Explorer and his collection has been documented before by Adrian Barker and by Hodinkee.
More recently than these, it is known he has a Christopher Ward.
In the interviews above he says the watches he has are mostly of technical interest to him, the Baltic MR01 is certainly technically interesting in being a very affordable micro-rotor powered watch.
It is worth noting this watch was spotted on a Q&A for Perpetual so he may not now own this watch and it was just provided for the interview, but nonetheless, it’s great to see him supporting all kinds of watchmaking.
You never know…maybe he’ll have a Studi0 Underd0g on the next time he’s live on Instagram!?
And finally, in case you missed it, here’s a link to Hodinkee doing a Talking Watches style video with Kermit the Frog.
It made me smile and I hope it will do the same for you :))
Have a great weekend.
Owen
P.s. Just as I clicked schedule to publish at 10:00 Thursday, this article dropped on Hodinkee. You might recognise some of the imagery *wink* *wink*. I’ll probably cover it in next week’s edition, but if not it’s a solid read and congrats to Tony for making such a comprehensive article.
lol. I’m pretty sure if I was to do some data analysis on all the stories shared in 3-Watch Thursday they’d mostly be from the same sources.
All the drama around frankenwatch Phillips occurrences never ceases to amaze me, great article in there! Oh to have the money to make mistakes like that...