Well, my friend, you are a fount of fascinating information! I have never seen any photographs of that gold Polarouter. You should have bought it at any price! It would have made a fascinating pair with your watch. Do you happen to know who owns it now? I do not know how much your watch might be worth. A watch is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. A few years ago on another forum someone once commented that if any of those original SAS Polarouters ever came up for sale his kids would have to pay for their own college educations (in the U.S. that is!). Others on this forum might be more knowledgeable about that. On the other hand, it may just be a mystery until it goes up for sale, and it sounds like yours will not be going up for sale any time soon! Certainly the price would be much higher if you could provide documentation and artifacts pertaining to your father's career with SAS, such as his uniform, photographs, SAS documents with his name on them, etc. Also documents about you, as your father's son, would also be important to keep with the watch, and all of that would greatly enhance the value of the watch.
As for my Polarouters, the black one has serial # 1673xxx and the white one has # 1648xxx, so the white one appears to be older. Of course, it could be that the case is older but in the factory it was not assembled with the other parts and released for sale until after the black one. One never knows with vintage watches. What is the serial number on yours? Also, if you could provide a photograph of the back of your watch, and of the front of the crown, I would greatly appreciate it. My Polarouters both have this flat back design shown in the photo (this is the black one). The design was later changed to a raised polygonal shape that required a special tool of that shape to open. I also attach two photographs of the movement of my black Polarouter. I imagine that yours has the same cal. 138SS. You can clearly see the bumper springs in question.
