I've started my vintage Zenith collection with some El Primeros. They started showing up 2 weeks ago. This 782 came first. Much cooler in person that I realized. I love it. I wore it to work the first day with a smile on my face. In person the blue really shines. It's a really nice size. It's a little more beat up than I wanted, but it's great to wear. Next was pilot/diver Wow, this things is a monster. This wears BIG and heavy. Maybe it's just the gigantic braclet, which I love. I don't actually find braclets comfortable, but this thing makes such a statement I haven't tried it on a strap yet. Lots of character. As I mentioned in another thread, this is one of the glass bottom models Finally the A3818 Nobody warned me how beautiful this is. WOW WOW WOW. I love the size and the weight is nice, even with a bracelet. The truth is, I afraid to wear this one especially, though I have worn it to work two days. It's hard to find and hard to replace. I kind of want to just keep it safe, but it's so much fun to wear. They all sound fantastic. I love these vintage El Primero tic/toc sound. It would be pretty cool to capture that and share it in this forum Thanks for letting me share. Really, thanks for a great forum. So much good information here and so much good spirit.
Fantastic watches! Oh boy, am I envious or what?? Thanks for sharing and a big congrats to multiple finds!
Two more showed up over the last two weeks. I think that needs to wrap up my vintage Zenith for a while. Aleady spent, for me, a ridiculous amount of money. But couldn't be happier. I think this is my favorite of all of them, even more than the A3818. It's not one with a pilot assigned to it. But it's in amazing shape. Almost too amazing. The only real scratches are around putting on new straps. And finally something simple but colorful The bracelet that came with it is terrible, but what's that amongst friends? I like the color and the sharp angles. I don't think anybody else makes watches like that. I've not seen anybody wear watches like that. So that puts me at five. Only an A386 could make it six, but, hmmm, that probably needs to wait. That gets me to my dilema. I've already asked this before, but now that I have a small fortune in vintage watches, how do I balance wearing them without destroying their value. It would be really cool if I could hand some of these to grandchildren in 20 years in great shape. Or even in 40 years.
Wear them on a rotation along with a couple of beaters that will do for days when you don't need to wear something nice.
Very nice Zenith collection. Congrats! My advice would be wear them all with caution! Since I wear vintage timepieces I have never make scratches on them. I just wear them at the office, not during weekends and safely take them off before washing my hands But I must admit I have one that I never wear...
A fantastic collection ! Although I don't know too much but I like the big Cairelli one, is he a watch dealer or maker from Roma ?
Cairelli was an italian watch dealer. If I am correct, the first CP2 made for Cairelli was the Universal Geneve one using martel watch caliber then when Zenith bought Martel it switched to Zenith Cairelli.
CP2 was the following of CP1 which was a king of "design basis" for watches for military applications. Breitling, Heuer and Leonidas also produced CP1 and/or CP2
Only the Leonidas models was marked CP1 and CP2; Breitling 817 was similar but not marked CP; Heuer AMI was made with the classic case of the Lemania5100 models, different issued mark on caseback... GIGI