Yesterday I received a watch that has been lost in the mail for nearly a month and a half. It was a humble Zenith AutoSport that I bought because I hadn't ever seen that particular dial before, either on the 'net or in the Zenith literature, and despite the case having been polished smooth of its sunburst texture. I didn't have tremendous hopes for it - more a curiosity than anything else.

The AutoSports were an early 70s C-cased version of the Sporto, Zenith's everyman's activity watch. They had automatic versions of Zenith's workhorse movements, the 25x2 PC series. Some of them had amusing target dials.



The one in question had an anthracite dial.



The finish was much shinier than in the seller's pics, and In the manner of shiny dark dials, it did interesting things in the light



But what really raised a grin was the dial texture, something that really did not grab the eye in the seller's pics. I decided it was worth getting the macro lens out.





Really, a much finer thing than I expected - maybe one of the finest Zenith dials of the era.

Here with a stablemate

 

Plain Jane. Nothing special about the movement either. The case is aggressively overpolished - it should have a brushed radial finish.

Sorry! Hard to show restraint though, as I've been more than six weeks waiting for this thing. I think everyone at the US Customs office must have worn it for a day before they boxed it back up and sent it on.