Howdy! Lou suggested I start hanging out on this site for its vintage Zenith flavor, so here I am! I got a nice condition El Primero A385 early in 2012 but only now have it back. Case work was mostly refreshing the sharp edges and brushed finishes. The movement, however, was dealt with roughly by previous owners. All is well now! Enjoy! -Daniel
...and boy are those edges sharp! Some virtuoso casework there on an underappreciated reference. Welcome Daniel, nice to have you aboard, thanks for posting.
Ouf! So much Zenith! And I thought I might get time to casually peruse the rest of the site... Before: As you can see, it was in decent cosmetic shape to begin with. Not great, but good enough for my first proper El Primero. I had a blue TV case before that was nice but not the svelte, elegant, deliciously wearable piece that the A385 is. Nice.
Thanks for sharing those pictures. That really is work of the highest order and you've now got a beautiful watch.
That case must have been one seriously complicated pain in the ass to do for whichever watchmaker took care of it, just the amount of variation from polished to radial brushing to straight brushing... damn. Looks awesome now, do you have some before pics?
Only just noticed btw, the hands on that A385 are exactly the same as the hands Rolex use on the current SS Daytona... I guess they borrowed more than just the El Primero movement.