INCOMING x-posted on Instagram @jerxeer. If you've been following my watch collecting journey for long enough, you'll know that I've been hunting for an Evil Clapton (881101/02) for a long time now and missed out on a fantastic example from Japan a couple years ago (@Dre might recall). Fast forward to today, my friend Elias came across this peculiar piece model reference 222102/2 which the previous owner assumed was a 'wrong caseback', and had wanted to polish off the model reference or replace the caseback. Dedicated a fair amount of research with some of the leading UG collectors worldwide (@subregister ; @Diabolik ; @ELV web ; @jordn ) to discover these were the earliest examples of Claptons with serial 2,335,xxx dating to 1963/1964. So far all the examples we've found of the 222102 were in the same range within a thousand meaning probably less than 500 of the these in each dial variation 222102/1 and 222102/2 were made. Again I theorize but a good @subregister guess would be probably less than a 100 of these were ever made before they transitioned the model reference to the more commonly seen 881101. With that said, this is a very special piece and will be staying in the collection for a long time to come.
Love the shout outs, love the patience and, obviously, love the watch. Wear in good health and congratulations on the scoop.
Good eye as usual! Bet you've seen enough of them on Polerouters I see you can relate to that feeling! Yes indeed maybe 10000 out of 100 to finally have the watch in hand. It came directly from the Philippines (hand delivered!!) Cheers @Larry S you have a black hole of treasures in that vault as well. Who knows what you'll pull next..! I actually enjoyed the hours and days put into researching this piece before acquisition - all part of that ownership journey!! Definitely not for the faint of heart..! I do not recommend this to people who are too lazy to do their own homework! Cheers dude! It's all about the community here on OF that has been a big help throughout my UG collecting journey. Once again, special thanks to all you amazing folks at OF who make up this community: