Fresh from the showcase here at SwissWatchExpo. Sometimes you find
a watch that is such an incredible bargain, that it can't help, but grab your attention.
We are talking about the incredible Zenith Elite HW - that HW stands for hand wound. I'm sure you
know Zenith as the watch company that premiered the El Primero movement in 1969, one of the
finest automatic chronographs ever made. It's an integrated chronograph that Rolex even adopted in
1988 as their movement for the Daytona, used it until the year 2000. And that's a high beat high
rate. It can calculate tenths of a second on the chronographs that used the El Primero movement
and it's a phenomenal achievement. And certainly the thing that Zenith is best known for now, but
it's an interesting company with a long history. They were founded in Neuchatel in Switzerland,
by a young 22 year old protege, a genius of the watch world at that time, most of the Swiss watch
industry was what they call a cottage industry, where you would have small makers of dials,
small makers of cases, small makers of movements, small makers of crystals, et cetera.
And then the manufacturers were essentially just cobbling all these things together that
were made to their order. Well, he had an idea at Zenith that he wanted to be able to
control complete, quality of every single aspect and have all of those craftsmen in communication
with each other, working close by so that they could really work together to build one of the
best watches out there. And so that's what he did. It was really revolutionary in the world
of Swiss watchmaking. Of course, that's the way everybody does it now, more or less, but Zenith
is still one of the only companies that make everything in-house though their, their movements
are completely developed. In-house the movement in this watch was developed in the 1990s. And it
benefited from the use of not only the old school craftsmanship, but also the computerated design.
They modeled everything before they actually built the movements. They were able to work out all the
kinks and you didn't have this sort of struggles at the beginning, the way a lot of companies do
when they first launched a new movement. So this movement is amazing. It is hand wound
really the highest echelon among collectors know that the Zenith movements are among
the best there are out there. So you might spend a lot more on another watch,
but you, you might not get any better design or finishing or movement quality.
So that's why I say that this watch is such a great bargain. It's a
perfect size for a dress watch. It's 37 millimeter case. It's 18 karat Rose gold. When you look at
the side of it, you can see how the, how the lugs taper down. It sits beautifully on the wrist.
It's a, a thin watch, much thinner than you'd normally get with an automatic movement. You
can see it, it just sits great on the wrist. It's one of the most classic designs. It's not,
a jumbled dial with a lot going on. That makes it cluttered. It really only has a few features
on the dial, but that's part of what makes it so beautiful and elegant. When you look at it here,
you can see that the dial itself, it's a guilloche dial. So it's a lot of hand engraving hand
turning of the parts and are different finishes on different parts of the dial, which is part of what
makes it really interesting. There's a separate Sunray effect on the small seconds chapter at
nine o'clock, and then it's offset by it being at a different plane than the rest of the dial
in the Reserve de Marche that's the power reserve indicator.
You can see it goes up to about 50 hours. We've got it somewhere in the middle here right now,
cause I landed a few times. So that shows you how many hours of power reserve you got it being
a hand way on watch. It's nice to be able to just look down sort of like the gas gauge on your car
and see how much power you've got know instantly, whether you've wound your watch enough or not,
but it has its own Sunray effect on the Reserve de Marche indicator. It has a date aperture
here between four and five and the center of the dial is all guilloche. There's a flatter
track around the outside where the markers are applied. They're all 18 karat Rose gold applied,
and you can see it has the Arabic numerals at 12 four, six, eight, and 10.
It has a dark markers, the other spots.
And then it has a very subtle track printed around the edge as well.
The crown is perfect for a hand wound mechanical watch, really easy to wind, easy to manipulate.
The hands themselves are also 18 carat Rose, gold, really gorgeous. And you can see the case back.
It's a closed case bag. You can't see the movement, but it's got all the
correct hallmarks and everything you'd want to see on it. It's an 18 carat Rose gold Tang buckle
that it came with. And the black alligator strap with the Rose gold
gorgeous combination. Perfect. Really for just about any situation other than jumping in a pool.
I could see this being an everyday watch, but at the price point, there's no substitute for this.
You certainly could spend a lot more money from a lot of other companies,
but I don't think that you'd see a finer executed watch or one with a better movement
or a better dial design or a better lug design. So this one is really represents a fantastic
opportunity. Click on it. Give us a call here at SwissWatchExpo. See if it's still in stock,
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