Here is a lovely military style watch possibly from the 40s or 50s. I bought this in a joblot of 8 vintage watches which I did a video on the unboxing back in 2023. I bought the 8 watches because I wanted a Bulova A11 that was in the pack!
This is a really small watch which is typical of the era but just look at the dial design and patina, I personally think its amazing.
I decided that I would repair this watch and get it running again to then give to a good friend of mine, Mr Ivan Chua who owns Vario Watches in Singapore. Ivan made his passion of vintage watches into a business by making watches that have inspiration from military history.
I produced a video on this restoration which you can see here.
Here is a video of me presenting the watch to Ivan when we met.
When I met Ivan he also gave me a Vario watch a D12 1945 which is a recreation of a Dirty Dozen WW2 watch with a Vario flavour. See my other post on this Vario watch.
Finally here is the finished watch, you will notice the second hand is missing and this was due to me snapping the pivot on the 4th wheel and not having enough time to get a replacement before I met with Ivan. He accepted the watch as it was and said it adds to the watches history!
This is the movement marked as Albert Grossenbacher but it actually turns out to be an ETA1080. It is strange for me at least, to see a watch from Optima that has a Albert Grossenbacher movement that not even one of theirs but an ETA!
Above is a photo of the hairspring, you can see it touching which effected its performance but it was actually an easy tweak to bend that back into position to get the watch running properly.
