THM’s Collector’s Corner With Gregory Selch: 5 Vintage Watches That Are Conversation-Starters
5 min read
In our last episode, vintage watch expert Gregory Selch spilled some beans on vintage watches that didn’t see a peak! And now, it’s time to learn more about hidden treasures from his vintage collection.
THM: Which vintage watch would you like to show us first?
Greg: Yes, I picked five watches today and the first one is a very unusual diver. It's called an Aqua Star and it has a brand name called Bentos. Bentos is a kind of undersea coral or something on those lines. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but this was a watch that was designed strictly for divers. It's a very big watch, and it was marketed by all the dive watch companies like Scuba Pro and more. First of all, Aqua Star was particularly about diving watches. They were made in Geneva. It's a great company and the designer of this particular watch designed the movement to have a stopwatch feature, which is when you press the button, the timing hand goes all the way around and then it counts down as time elapsed. So it's a great feature for diving. If you actually do dive, that is a great feature. So when you press the button, you are actually turning on the timer for one hour elapsed time. So as the hand goes back, nobody's diving for that long. So you can see how long you've been just by looking at your watch. You don't have to set anything. You just look at that second hand. It was so popular that this month Omega hired the designer to get the design, and made a bentos watch. So these are watches that I think are really great. They're not that hard to find. They're usually pretty used. So, you know, try to find one that functions.
THM: Well, that’s quite an interesting diving watch with great functions. Which watch do we have next?
Greg: We have the Universal Geneve Polerouter. I don't think they're extraordinarily rare. But remember that these were designed by Gerald Genta. So they have these beautiful lugs that you see. We call them wire lugs or twisted lugs. And this one has a micro-rotor movement, which was a universal Geneve movement. It has a little wheel inside and actually, Paddock copied it. There was a conflict between them and Paddock had to pay Universal Geneve some money for this design. But these watches are fantastic and they come in so many different styles.
THM: The Universal Geneve watches surely beg for conversation. What’s next?
Greg: Another one from the same brand! This is an 18-karat gold dress watch. But it has the Polerouter ring around the dial. It is what we call a disco Volante, which means a flying saucer in Italian. So it has no lugs. It's just a beautiful manual-wind Universal Geneve with the cross. If you know what you're looking for, you can find these watches and you can collect them yourself.
THM: Do we have another watch that is known by most of our viewers?
Greg: Yes we do! It is an El Primero from the first years that they made these. This is called a Mark one. But this one in particular, which I love, has a lot of patina. A collector wrote to me and said “I just picked this watch up and I was going to restore it and sell it. I just know you like these watches in their original condition. I had to give you a chance to get it. I'll sell it to you for what I bought it for, which was amazing.” It was a gift for me and I bought it. It needed a service, obviously, but it runs fantastically. For me, what's special about a watch like this is that it can serve as a reference for other people. When you see a watch and you think, is that the way? Is that supposed to look like that? How did it look when it was new? Well, if you find one with enough patina to know that it was never replaced or redone, that can give you some clues on how it was supposed to look originally.
THM: Which is the last watch from your exquisite collection?
Greg: The last watch is this Favre Leuba. I think it's called a Sea Chief. And it's got a great patina. It's got a great texture dial with a diamond texture. Obviously, it's got the lyre lugs that we love. I don't know who designed it but it looks fantastic. You know, in India, Favre Leubas can be found, but usually very redone and very polished. But if you can find an original one, especially with some texture dial, these are fantastic Swiss watches. I highly recommend them.
Stay tuned as we bring you more insights into the vintage watch world. If you haven’t already seen the previous episodes, head over to our YouTube channel and dive deeper into the vintage era with Gregory Selch!
