Watches N+1…

Got my son a Save the Ocean Turtle for his 18 th and he loves it
Very nice

Can anyone explain the appeal of a Nato strap, especially on an expensive or ‘classy’ watch? They must be horribly bulky, for one thing. Is it anything to do with playing at soldiers/divers?

The appeal is they’re safe, practical, comfortable, affordable and they let you easily change the look of a watch. I agree they can add bulk but that’s more of a problem with taller tool-type watches where the double layer under the back makes them sit up high rather than conforming to the wrist, conversely they can actually work really well with a more formal watch which often tends to be slimmer. I must confess I’m not a big fan of the tucked end next to the wrist though, especially with thicker straps, I more often than not wear them single-pass which (mostly) avoids that problem.

bulky? no. they are comfy, durable, low cost, suit tool watch, waterproof, quick drying, sweat proof, breathable, washable and very easy to swap. Personally I really like them. I like a metal bracelet too and my PO lives on its as its smarter, but a nato is a fun strap.

I have been wearing my pelagos on the rubber strap all week. not bad but not for me. My wife straight away said as I felt, rubber makes the watch looks cheap (she has never said that about a NATO) but mainly its just a bit sweaty. comfortable otherwise but by the end of the day its not a good feel. seat belt nato it is going back to.

Failedengineer, we discussed the NATO strap thing near the top of page 33. I agree with you. Single pass is better, but I far prefer the 2 piece nylon one near the top of 35. All the benefits that neilnevill listed, but without all the stupid folded back ends.

Personal choice though innit. 👍

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Bit late to the party. Just got my 1950s Chrono back from the menders. Working perfectly now. Going to treat it to a new strap. Owned it for 30 years now myself.

hmm. that didn’t work as I’d hoped.

Yay!

The chrono is lovely.

Wait4me – who is the maker of the chrono? It’s very lovely.

It looks like a chronograph swiss with a dealers name. they were made for the tourist market with various brand names. probably a Landeron movement.

That sounds about right. I know very little about it. Markings just say SHD. Google throws up little information except for the odd watch that has been on eBay and the like. Read an article on chronographs of that era recently and crux of it was you can get something like that which looks quite different to modern watches for not huge money. I love it but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find people that will work on it when required. Thankfully found an enthusiast who doesn’t charge the earth.

Ebay have a £1 max selling fee offer until tomorrow evening so before I list a couple of watches I thought I’d see if there’s any interest here. The first one is a Seiko 6306-7001 from January 1979 –

I’ve owned this one for around five years and it was serviced by my good self when I bought it. I knew it had worn barrel arbour bushings so in January this year I serviced it again and fitted jewels in place of the bushings. Pictures here. Solid link oyster bracelet is included and has a genuine Seiko clasp fitted. Most on Ebay are over a grand, I’m after £700 firm.

Next up is an Avia Marino chronograph from the late 60’s –

I bought this one last July and like the Seiko it was serviced as soon as it arrived. A new mainspring was fitted along with new crown and case back gaskets but not the pusher gaskets as they’re a press in type and I haven’t invested the £200-odd on the tool to remove them yet. The hand winding Landeron 248 movement is running nicely with strong amplitude and it’ll come with the tropic style strap in the pic. I should also mention that the crystal has been given a light buff with Polywatch since the pictures were taken. £800 takes it and more pictures are here.

I like the Avia. Got a look of an Omega Moonwatch about it. Good luck with the sale.

Cheers! It’s actually the arrival of a Moonwatch that has brought about my decision to sell.

I promise this isn’t a stealth ad, but can anyone hazard a guess as to what this might be worth

It’s an oris F1 7563 automatic watch, sapphire crystal, chronograph, auto matic movement, stainless strap, excellent condition . Bought in 2007, I think I still have the box and papers somewhere. Its not the Williams branded one.

And if I did want to sell It, where would be the best place, ebay?

can anyone hazard a guess as to what this might be worth

Not personally, but try Chrono24 for an idea of what people are asking for. The search found just Williams, I know nothing about how much (or if) it not being Williams would affect the value. You could sell there too but I’ve never used them so no personal recommendation.

Chrono24

Thanks for that, the prices on chrono24 look pretty strong compared to some recent sold prices on eBay.

Re. NATO/ZULU straps – I’ve been wearing them on various watches for some years now, and it has bugger-all to do with playing at anything! As others have pointed out, they’re cheap enough to almost buy in bulk, in a variety of different colours, so you can almost change the look every day of the week, but even more than that, the flexibility means they’re comfy, and the material makes them easy to keep clean – bracelets are terrible for accumulating dead skin, hair and sweat, and many people never bother to clean them; I was having this conversation with my goldsmith mate Friday evening in the pub, because he frequently has to work on watches with broken bracelets which have become totally gunked up, one he had recently was full of some tar-like material that the ultrasonic cleaner wouldn’t shift, neither would acetone, he had to poke it out with a broken piercing saw blade!
Also, the rubber straps don’t breathe, and get sweaty, I’ve just had to take the one off my Tuna, because it’s now starting to cause a rash on my wrist, something a NATO/ZULU has never done.
If you want to make snarky remarks about playing at divers, well I’ve got three dive watches, and I can’t bloody swim! The actual reason I like them, and it’s a point I’ve made any number of times, is they’re built to be tough for a hostile environment, and that environment makes it necessary for the dial to have maximum clarity and readability.
I don’t work in a nice cosy office, haven’t done for years, a watch able to take knocks against machinery is important, a dress watch would get trashed.
Plus I don’t like dress watch aesthetics, simples.

the prices on chrono24 look pretty strong compared to some recent sold prices on eBay

Yeah, treat with suspicion, they’ll be speculative to a degree, plus most are dealer asking price. Keep an eye on them for a few weeks to see if they actually seem to shift or get revised downwards.

Those chronos are very nice, both of them, enjoy!

My strap journey continues. I have to admit I have found the Pelagos to sit nicely on my wrist on the rubber strap, lower and more central with less tendency to want to roll out on to the outside of my wrist. However I’ve found the rubber to be a bit sweaty after a few hours and felt it didn’t look quite as good as the fabric NATO, particularly the sapphire blue seatbelt. So I decided to try a 2 piece fabric. Not wanting to have to hunt and hunt for the right colour (I had a quick look, struggled to find anything, gave up) I thought I’d have a go at converting a NATO. Well I was at mum’s today to sweep her chimney and go through some of my late dad’s stuff with my brother, I took one of my cheap NATOS with me and when we had our jobs done we got to work with scissors, matches and sewing machine and a few minutes later I had a prototype to try. hope the photos work…

Obviously with no material under the watch it now sits lower on the wrist, good. I have also done 2 things to help it sit on the top of my wrist not roll to the outside. Firstly I made sure the 12 o’clock side of the strap was a bit longer than it was allowed by the natos, and hence moved the buckly round to the inside of my wrist, secondly I used the 3rd keeper from the nato to make a floating keeper. I’m hoping this will work to mean i don’t need to fold the excess strap over so i don’t have the extra layer under my wrist. I could have worked out the length of the 6 o’clock side more carefully an reduced the excess flap…but i was just rusing through a prototype so ..I forgot, and then added the 3rd keeper instead.

One thing I dislike about many 2 piece straps, is the gap they leave at the case. Now the Pelagos is a particularly thick case and the lugs are ‘deep’, sweeping down, with the spring bar holes well down at the tip. I’d already mentioned how the OEM rubber overcomes that by using the bracelet end links, but I don’t like that look so much. The cheap rubber was curved to fill the lug space and did it well so I thought I’d try something with my prototype fabric 2 piece. To avoid the big gap below (12 o’clock side)

I tried adding an extra piece of fabric above he spring bar, inside the fold, for the 6 o’clock piece. This is how it looks.

Sorry about the multiple posts. I am having an oddity that i get sometimes. Once I’ve pasted the image link into the window I can no longer type anything more! I have to submit the post at that point, completely close STW and then when i reopen, I can add a new post.

only been wearing it for the time its taken to make these posts but as a prototype its very promising. Sril a bit of gap to the case, I could probably afford a larger packer piece that wraps right around the spring bar , not jut sits above it. The watch is still trying to roll to the outside of my wrist a little more than on the rubber, but i think its better than the straight nato. I’ll try this prototype for a few days and next time I visit mum we will try mk2.

I have my dad’s old incabloc anti magnetic (non chrono) I must get it refurbished

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incabloc_shock_protection_system

Incabloc isn’t the name of the watch maker, it’s a shock protector for the movement. Quite an interesting read.

Tried a few NATO’s but could never really get on with them – hated the ‘bulk’ of the extra strap both under the watch and on the strap itself.

I have fairly wide/flat but skinny wrists. That means a 42mm Speedy sits nice and flat on my wrist and looks alright, but anything that sits at the side of my wrists sticks out and looks ridiculous.

A speedmaster on a nice patina’d leather nato does look amazing, though.

Inspired by posting images of my watch I had another fish for information on its history. Found a watch that was sold previously and had some background. Nice website with some attractive vintage watches for sale. Though I reckon mine is more of a looker than this one!

SHD Landeron 149 Chronographe£SOLD

Inspired by this thread, I started looking at watches with 7+ day reserves (mechanical/ auto), and am quite looking the look of some of the latest Orises.
The ProPilot Calibre 111 is a 10-day mechanical watch, with small seconds and date:

…and the ProPilot Worldtimer looks excellent – you turn the bezel to switch timezones:

I quite like a NATO but only the thinnest and cheapest ones due to the bulk. They aren’t as durable as the premium NATO’s but at only £3 a pop they can be treated as consumables. I tried the Omega NATO that came with my Speedmaster but it was back onto the bracelet within minutes.

Current favourite strap is the Erikas MN. Not cheap (copies are starting to appear which are cheaper) but low profile and as secure as a NATO.

The World timer for definate. That dial is lovely.

Them Erikas straps. Was thinking straps are small beans compared to the watch, but… Wow, yeah, they are quite pricey!

Them Erikas straps. Was thinking straps are small beans compared to the watch, but… Wow, yeah, they are quite pricey!

They’re a ridiculous price. Bang on about the rounded edges, allergy friendly latex-free spandex and Swiss-dyed superior European nylon hand-made in your atelier in Valencia all you want, I’m not paying €65 for a stretchy strap.

75 euro!
If I take out my calculator, adjust for tax differences, consider import duties and handling fee, realise we’re still in the euro zone and discount that, but then plug in the current exchange rate, that makes it…..

75 quid!

These are excellent NATOs, best I’ve seen for reasonable money, excellent stainless steel hardware, the second keeper floats too, which is very handy.

https://www.watchgecko.com/zuludiver-178-swiss-style-nato-strap

Black Bay on RubberBee earlier.

Bought a 20mm blue/grey edged (George’s Straps) for my Diver One.
I think it was meant to be.

Question for the experts here… My first gen Aqua Terra is a lovely watch on the whole, but the clasp really bugs me. It’s puny, and has broken a couple of times already. Omega itself replaced it for the second gen (8500) Aqua Terra, but it’s amazing it made it through their QC process.

Is there any way to hack or upgrade it with something more solid and reliable, either from another Omega or elsewhere?

Is there any way to hack or upgrade it with something more solid and reliable, either from another Omega or elsewhere?

I can’t be sure but that strap looks to have standard spring bar fittings. If so <£7 so will get you a decent milled clasp from AliExpress.

Something like this

Ooooh, great find – thanks!

That diver one is a nice watch.

derek, that strap suits itvery well, great colour match!

rob, i do like the original smiley red black bays

nicko, I can’t see your photo. it may be possible to fit the omega clasps from the seamaster or PO. they have versions with glidelock style micro adjust now, not cheap though!