Hi everyone...Can anyone suggest collectors or dealers who sell vintage parts? I'm in the hunt for an S. 58 dial and often find myself in need of other hard-to-find parts. Any advice appreciated!
Also, maybe consider paying more upfront or wait for a longer time to have complete/genuine watches in good shape. Cheaper and easier in the long run, you will also have fully original stuff which could appreciate over time and is easy to unload anyway. Seems obvious, but lots of people are fixated on having good deals and buy fixer-uppers; everybody tried, everybody got burned. If you aren't a pro (and even if you are), you will end up with a stack of costly unfinishable and hard to sell projects, or cobbled together iffy pieces.
Update: parts too expensive so project has been shelved. Too bad there isn't a greater supply of vintage Zenith parts; really impedes the ability to bring these back to life.
The price of zenith spare parts isn't cheap and would I be you, I would spare money over the long run to buy a very nice condition model
As you know I have lots of parts although dwindling. But I myself try to buy perfect watches and pay premium for them. Some parts are easy to source, but not cheap. A absolute genuine crown for a 386 now is reaching £700! Buy the best you can or if you like fixer uppers then be prepared to hunt and pay
Yes, I know of your parts cache! Very impressive. I think this paucity of parts is keeping a lot of collectors from buying Zenith, which is too bad...
Well it is Zeniths fault for when they went through changes in the 80's lots of stuff was scrapped. But other brands like Longines 13zn, Ug 281-3-5 are all difficult to source parts for.