Hello all, Starting my time off here with a big request, I guess. I hope I'm not running afoul of any rules or norms. These things happen when you join a new forum with it's own standards, but I did my best to read a lot first. In my personal search for a Railmaster to transition from my grandfather's railroad grade pocket watch collection to my own wrist watch collection, I came across a number of PAF pieces and references to them online. I tried to do as much research as I could, but it seems there's a number of variations in dials and casebacks and some resources, like Hodinkee's article from almost a decade ago, aren't available anymore. I came across a Seamaster PAF from an online private seller. He has a letter from the auction he bought it at and an extract from the archives but it seems like if anything its a less common case back that I'm not used to. The condition is not the best, but I want to see if it seems legitimate before I start seriously considering. Pictures below. Thanks ahead of the help.
Hello and welcome. While the watch you question might certainly be considered of military vintage, it is not a vintage Railmaster. To me at least, vintage Railmasters are direct descendants of the 1953 RAF 2777-1 and include Railmasters reference 2777-2, 2914 and 135.004. These watches are unique in that they have special antimagnetic double cases (also called a Faraday Cage) to help eliminate magnetic effects (ie railroad machinery) on time pieces. The OP example does not appear to be antimag but perhaps was supplied to some branch of PAF personnel. Honestly, it sometimes seems that the amount of currently available vintage PAF watches dwarfs the number of wrists in their fledgling Air Force.
Perfect answer, thank you gemini4. In looking at all the things like dials and case and condition, I made the stupid mistake of neglecting thinking about the movement not being the 135.004. Maybe in part because I didn't see the movement until today after looking at this for a week. Case closed, no pun intended. Thanks!