Certina DS-3 Super PH1000M

Here’s my Certina DS-3 Super PH1000M. A tall name for a tall watch: this monster is just under 19mm thick!

‘DS’ was used by Certina to identify their line of watches with a revolutionary ‘Double Safety’ method of putting the movement in the watch case. The DS watches had a plastic movement holder which allowed for better shock absorption on top of the Incabloc shock protection of the movement itself.

With it’s 1000M waterproof, these were the watch of choice for the Australian Navy.

This one has a pristine black dial with it’s lume beautifully aged to a patina yellow matching the sword hands.

Bezel is a 60 click uni-directional, which should be pushed to move it. The bezel spring on mine has worn out and needs to be replaced, as it moves too easy.

As I understood, the DS3 and DS2 versions of the Super PH1000M are identical in shape and dimension, both with automatic hacking movement, but the DS3 a quick set date.

I will add some additional info on the  quartz DS3 seen in some of the pictures at a later time.

Tudor Submariner 79090

This here is my Tudor Submariner. I bought this watch as I’ve had a hankering for a Rolex Submariner 1680 for the longest time, and, before shelling out the big money wanted to find out if it’ll be worth it.

When I first got it I was very much underwhelmed…the watch is smallish, very light and it came with the original Tudor/Rolex folded bracelet, which is very flimsy. Still in it’s original length it was also way to big for my wrists and since they are pretty valuable, I didn’t want to shorten it (not easy to do) in case I’d ever sell it. I was also not sold on the sliding bezel instead of a clicking one…I got me an aftermarket solid link bracelet instead and gave it another try.

Well, it’s still light and small, but once on the wrist it’s pretty much a perfect watch.

The dial is super clean and very easy to read. The high top plexi is great, the cyclops doesn’t bother me at all and is actually very useful – never understood what the negative comments were all about.

So how ’bout the 1680 then? Will I get one? Still not sure, but until then, I’m sure I’ll enjoy this Tudor very much!

 

White bezel ScubaPro 500 Automatic

Finally, I’m back with a dive watch: the ScubaPro 500 with white bezel.

Still a great watch – I had the black bezel version before, reviewed here.

I got this white bezel version from a guy local to me who got it in the late ’70s and actually did use it for diving. It seems the white bezel versions are more rare than the black ones, and what makes this one even more rare, is that it is fitted with an original ScubaPro bracelet with the ‘S’ logo on the clasp and nice fitting end links.

I also noticed that, same as the one I had previously, there are no lines at the 5min markers on the dial.

Doing some research I came to the conclusion at least two dial variations exist:

1. Applied logo with lines at the 5min marker (painted marker)

2. Painted logo without lines at the 5min marker (painted marker)

Omega flightmaster cal.910

Long time since I’ve posted on here…hope to put some new momentum in this blog.

Here’s a chrono I’ve added to the stables: the Omega flightmaster. Yes, without a capital ‘F’, as Omega did on the dial and caseback.

There is a lot going on with the design of this watch, but I feel it’s still very well balanced. The crowns and pushers on the left hand side of the case are for your usual time setting and chrono features, while the crowns on the right hand side move the internal bezel and the (12h) GMT hand (the blue one).

The crowns and pushers are also cleverly colour coded: the internal bezel is black, so the crown which is used to rotate it has a black dot on it. Similar for the blue GMT hand, which has a blue dot.

The chrono pushers are dual colour: red and yellow. Why? The chrono hands on mine are all yellow (optional), where the standard hands were red. The yellow option hands were available for airline pilots where red light was used in the cabin.

There were two variations of this pilot watch: the first 910 which was replaced by the 911.

Difference between them are in the movement, case and bracelet. While the 910 has a 24h indicator at 9, this is replaced in the 911 with a running seconds hand. The case of the 911 is also a lot thicker and also the bracelet style changed slightly.

So, mine is a 910 with the correct 1159 bracelet and the optional yellow hands. The sub dials have turned to a lovely brown patina. I love it!

Favre Leuba Deep Blue Super Compressor

Here’s a special Favre Leuba Deep Blue. There’s another post about a different case style of Deep Blue here.

This one’s a bit special with it’s lugless Super Compressor case. The case may look familiar with it’s tension ring for the glass, but in fact it is a bit smaller than the usual single crown, external bezel case in the same style (in fact, there’s also a Deep Blue in the bigger case). Still good size though by today’s standards at 45mm top to bottom and 40mm wide. The bigger model is a whopping 50mm top to bottom and 42mm wide.

The dial is a beautiful blue-green brushed finish with hands that stand out from the crowd – look at that minute hand!

So what makes this one special then? First off: the internal rotating bezel, which can be turned by the crown at two. But even more special is the fact both crowns are screw down! I have never seen another Super Compressor with twin screw down crowns.

Both crowns have the Favre Leuba hourglass emblem on them. A very nice watch, and definitely not one you’ll come across often!

 

Heuer Super Professional 1000m

My favorite combo: Heuer AND a dive watch: the Heuer Super Professional 1000m.

Heuer made two 1000m divers: the Professional (which shares it’s case with Squale, Auricoste, Blancpain and others) and this Super Professional. Both were continued well into the TAG era but these can be seen as the last of the real Heuer’s.

The Super Professional shares a unique design feature with some of greatest divers out there: a monobloc case. To minimise the number of places where water can enter into the case, the is no removable caseback. So the watch needs to be serviced by removing first bezel, glass, then crown and then lift out the movement. Some other famous divers designed this way were the Omega Ploprof, Omega 1000m and ofcourse, the Jenny Caribbean, the very first 1000m diver.

The Super Professional could be ordered with a ‘dive kit’. This kit includes two rubber bracelets on top of the metal bracelet fitted, a diving table and a strap removal tool. Not a lot of extras, but it still nearly doubled the original selling price of the watch. This also means there are not many out there which include this kit (mine unfortunately as well).

Omega PloProf 600m

The Omega PloProf! For who ever is into vintage dive watches like me, the PloProf is part of those must have watches. Distinctive design (even Omega acknowledged that in the add for the watch: ugly on the surface, but deep down it’s beautiful) and lots of provenance. Designed especially for divers and diving, and nothing else! Designed for and with J-J Cousteau – the most famous diver ever (apat from Dirk Pitt maybe), these were double the price of a Rolex Submariner when new. So it shouldn’t be a surprise these are costly still today and pretty rare!

Mine was fitted with an original Omega signed orange Isofrane strap and buckle. With it’s bright orange colour it sets the watch even more apart than it would on the original choice of bracelets.

My experience with the watch: it’s smaller (but still big) and more wearable than you would think! Which is a good thing, as these ain’t exactly cheap and so it’s actually possible to enjoy them on the wrist 🙂

Germano & Walter Nettuno – pt 2

Here’s an interesting find…after I sold my pre-production Nettuno, I found another one and couldn’t resist. They’re just such cool, big chunks of steel!

This one is yet another pre-production piece, but this one slightly different, this time with a carbonfibre dial.

What makes this one interesting is it’s serial#…it’s #1! I’ve never seen any others with this dial, so it could well be the only one out there…

Heuer Autavia cal.15 ‘racing’ dial

This is the ‘mysterious’ cal.15 Autavia with racing dial in the cal.11 case…for a long time there have been questions about this model’s authenticity. Hopefully this will now clear when I tell you how I came to find this watch…

This one came up for sale locally, very very cheap, but unfortunately, I was just too late and the owner sold it immediately.
To my luck, the new owner decided to flip it a couple days later, so with a hefty premium (over his price, but still a good deal for such a nice Autavia) I consider myself lucky.

The watch is in superb condition…except the original owner engraved his name on the side of the case.
But this is also a bit of ‘our’ luck, as this way I could trace the owner back and ask some questions about the authenticity and history of the watch.

The owner (now in his mid ’70s) bought it to dive and it has been used under water (!), but has never leaked and the movement is super nice.
He also told me it came on a rubber strap, and that’s one of the reasons he got it (for the diving).
It’s the original dial – not a service dial put in later.
Unfortunately he didn’t remember if the watch came in a blue or red box, but it was long gone anyway…
The watch was bought at a local dealer in the south of Belgium in 1979 or 1980. So this is in line with the picture of the display at Tag Heuer made during the 1st Heuer summit by Abel, where TH state it’s a ’78 model.

Also, when digging up some posts about these Autavia’s, the previous discoveries all had a 270xxx serial. Mine is a late 269xxx, so it must have been a close batch.

Hopefully this additional info clears some of the mystries of these Autavia’s.

Zodiac SeaWolf SST 36.000

I’m a big fan of dual crown, internal bezel divers; the Super Compressor watches from the 60’s and 70’s are amongst my favorite divers.

However, here’s a different kind of dual crown diver: the Zodiac SeaWolf SST 36.000.

These SeaWolf’s case design is nicknamed ‘coffin case’; look at the shape and it’ll be obvious.

As with all dual case divers, one crown operates the internal bezel and the other sets the movement. In this case, the movement is Zodiac’s own high beat 36.000 bph movement with day date feature: by pressing the crown, the date will quickset, day is set by turning the hands 24hours. This movement, since it is so accurate also featured hacking seconds, to ensure the time could be set very precise.

What’s also pretty special about this one is the dial: majority of the of these are black dial. The black hads give a very nice contrast against the silver dial. And it seems silver dials were not very popular on divers back in the day, which makes these survivers all the rarer.

Also a nice feature of the dial is the applied markers, which have a very cool wedge shape.