I think I shifted recently from reference collector to movement hunter with my Longines hobsession. The 12.68z was up near the top of the list, and man, I've really enjoyed wearing three hand time-only watches lately. Somewhere along the line I stopped caring as much about the date function, a complication I find the most useful. So the workhorse early Longines are really calling, and I'm out rummaging around when I find this one. You know when you look through Google images and see a watch you're excited about, only most of the time it is from a cached old listing somewhere? Well, this one had just been listed with a seller I'd never looked at, and it turns out to be a tasty one. The watch was advertised as having the original box and warrantied booklet(doesn't mean original to the watch, right?). I excitedly emailed the seller to find out what I could before I contacted Longines. Turns out the original receipt was with the watch, and even the buckle. The receipt was dated '62 and obviously this is a fifties watch so I was eager to hear back from Longines who confirmed the UK agent Baume had received the watch in 1960 so it's very likely the watch, produced in 1956 just moved through inventories until sold in Bradford England in 1962 by a Mr Ward, salesman at Eric Purchon Jewelers who kindly timestamped the receipt with his handwriting over a Queen Elizabeth stamp (that was minted in the fifties). The watch arrived today. If it hadn't been serviced last month I bet it would have passed as NOS, but it's picked up a few minuscule signs of handling. Love the "webbed" lugs and alpha hands. Reference 7035... Seller's pic of the movement, I don't want to open her up quite yet. Thanks for reading, and thank you Longines for not putting a date window on this watch.
Lovely piece and a great caliber. Now you need an earlier one with the older style anchor bridge and sharper lines.
Nicely done. A good specimen of each caliber is the way to collect IMO. I know somebody who used to own every automatic caliber Longines made from WWII to the Quartz Crisis, plus most of the manual winds. He had a few half decent watches. Now they're scattered amongst several forum members.
Lovely; very nice to see what they looked like when they were new. Do you know what reference it is? I have a reference 8035 also from 1960 with the same case design. Congrats!