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Veritas99
·When it comes to collecting certain watches, sometimes you just need luck.
In my years-long quest for an A386, it was painfully obvious that luck was the one thing I seemed to be missing. I've managed to lose bidding wars at the last second, learn about listings a day after the watch was sold, and most painfully, I missed a counter-offer by less than 2 minutes while explaining to my wife why the watch was all original. So when I got a late night email last week that an A386 had just showed up on the bay, I was cautiously optimistic. After confirming that most everything was original, I decided I couldn't risk asking for a case number or making an offer and hit buy it now. Fortunately, with a little help from some folks on this board, my luck changed and I now have an original A386 in my collection.
Now, the real reason anyone looks at these posts, the photos:
Here's the beautiful tri-color dial. There are some signs of aging (missing lume, missing paint on subdial hands), but it's in great shape for its age and the blue subdial has no damage. For some unknown reason, the original owner replaced the crystal with a cyclops It's keeping accurate time, but when it goes in for service I'm swapping out for the correct crystal.
Original crown:
A 3019 PHC ticking away inside:
For those that keep track, here's the case back & number. The number puts it in the fourth run and part of the last A386 group to have a D in the sequence.
And for the hardcore aficionados, here's the Type C Spillman case back (there's a SP 1205 in the left). Interestingly, it has a matte finish, while others I've seen have the perlage.
Obligatory wrist shot:
Thanks for reading to the bottom.
In my years-long quest for an A386, it was painfully obvious that luck was the one thing I seemed to be missing. I've managed to lose bidding wars at the last second, learn about listings a day after the watch was sold, and most painfully, I missed a counter-offer by less than 2 minutes while explaining to my wife why the watch was all original. So when I got a late night email last week that an A386 had just showed up on the bay, I was cautiously optimistic. After confirming that most everything was original, I decided I couldn't risk asking for a case number or making an offer and hit buy it now. Fortunately, with a little help from some folks on this board, my luck changed and I now have an original A386 in my collection.
Now, the real reason anyone looks at these posts, the photos:
Here's the beautiful tri-color dial. There are some signs of aging (missing lume, missing paint on subdial hands), but it's in great shape for its age and the blue subdial has no damage. For some unknown reason, the original owner replaced the crystal with a cyclops It's keeping accurate time, but when it goes in for service I'm swapping out for the correct crystal.
Original crown:
A 3019 PHC ticking away inside:
For those that keep track, here's the case back & number. The number puts it in the fourth run and part of the last A386 group to have a D in the sequence.
And for the hardcore aficionados, here's the Type C Spillman case back (there's a SP 1205 in the left). Interestingly, it has a matte finish, while others I've seen have the perlage.
Obligatory wrist shot:
Thanks for reading to the bottom.
