Incidental Pickup

I'm sure I'm not the only one who sprinkles lowball bids here and there on the 'bay, not really expecting anything to come of them. Well, once in a while, one wins. When I get the product in hand, it's usually evenly split between qualified satisfaction and "What was I thinking?"

This one comes down on pretty robustly on the side of the former.

EternaMatic 3000 Chronometer in gold cap


The dial is really impeccable shape, with some nice three dimensionality from the applied markers and the Eterna ball-bearing logo


On its introduction in 1962, the EternaMatic 3000 was the thinnest men's automatic with date complication - 9mm according to my calipers, to the top of the crystal


I'm having a little trouble capturing the satin finish of the dial, so here's a flash pic that gets the point across


Ornate coat of arms on the back tells you this is Eterna's Bee's Knees.


Inside it the in-house Eterna 1466U, ancestor of the best-of-breed ETA 2892, 3.6mm thick. I am a little disappointed it's not marked "Chronometer" but I don't know how systematic Eterna was in this .


Pretty happy when this longshot came in.

nice 👍 and that's a pretty cool caseback too! Unfortunately, the effective rate of my lowball sprinkles on the bay is quite low 🙁

I love it when these things turn out this way! 😀

As I know from your classic "Five most influential automatics..." post
http://forums.watchuseek.com/f2/5-most-influential-important-automatics-428194.html

I don't know if you have reprised it here, but you ought to if you haven't


I'd say that means you are doing it right. These are "fire and forget" bids, intended only to sweep up bargains - if they win often, the bid is too high.


Oh sure. Plus, I'd argue that a chronometer with a landmark movement ain't so plain.

Yeah, I'm not sure why Eterna didn't mark the movements that were designated as chronometers. Mine has nothing special on it either.





This one is a cal. 1429U.
gatorcpa