New arrival - amazingly it was on my list ...

[tertius]

My first arrival for 2009. Its one I've been looking out for pretty much since I got interested in watches, a Zenith Class Sport El Primero Handwound. Its unbelievably thin for a chrono, perhaps 10 or 11 mm.

Weirdly enough I missed out when this very watch was sold on Timezone a few months ago, but when the new owner advertised it I managed to snap it up. Sadly the exchange rate moved the wrong way in the meantime so it actually cost me more ... oh, well.











I've been banging on about how nice these watches are for a while, now I know I was right ...

Edited for appalling typo

Edited by tertius on Saturday 7th February 19:26

[cableguy]

Thats stunning, Black Face looks

Zenith, very hard to beat for the money IMO.

C.

[Stuart]

Beautiful . If you don't mind me asking, what sort of ballpark figure do these Zeniths achieve on the used market?

[Maxf]

That looks very nice indeed! Not quite the same, but I have a rainbow flyback itch I'm thinking of scratching soon!

[AB]

Ive had such a soft spot for these but you never see much mention of Zenith around the forums etc. I saw one on a brown strap, which I fell in love with not too long ago. If you got change from £3,500 i'll be impressed?

A lovely watch.

[boxster9]

fantastic looking watch. Are these currently avalable to buy new or has it been discontinued. By the way does it have a deployment clasp or tang buckle.

[Peter G]

Best pound for pound watches in the world in my opinion.

Looks stunning, you have good cause to be chuffed!!!

Enjoy

[pastrana72]

That is a fantastic watch, welldone.

One of my fav's too.

[Don1]

I adore my El Primo (Thanks Rich!).... Good work!

[tertius]

AB said:

Ive had such a soft spot for these but you never see much mention of Zenith around the forums etc. I saw one on a brown strap, which I fell in love with not too long ago. If you got change from £3,500 i'll be impressed?

A lovely watch.

Hope that was a typo, because I got an awful lot of change from £3,500.

To answer some of the questions:

- no its not a current model. It was discontinued a few years ago. They turn up occasionally on timezone, and Neil at chronomaster seems to get one once in a while.

- you probably need to budget £1-1.5k for one, a bit more for a trade sale of course. When the pound was so strong a few months back US sales would come in at about £1k, now its nearer 1.5 ... dammit. Unfortunately they aren't that common and a good one with all the papers etc. won't hang around for long.

- it has a single fold Zenith deployant

- and a question not asked: its also available with an auto version of the El P movement and with a silver dial.

[whoami]

Very nice.

[Stuart]

It may well have got dearer as the pound has weakened, but it's still a tremendous amount of watch for £1500 IMHO.

[whoami]

Stuart said:

It may well have got dearer as the pound has weakened, but it's still a tremendous amount of watch for £1500 IMHO.

Just what I was thinking

[boxster9]

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

[whoami]

boxster9 said:

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

Higher.

[tertius]

whoami said:

boxster9 said:

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

Higher.

Well certainly well above Omega, IWC a bit tougher I'd say, esp. the in-house IWCs, I'd probably say about equal?

Anyway thanks for all the kind comments. Unfortunately a few others from the collection are going to have to go to help offset the expenditure. In fact two have gone already.

[Stuart]

tertius said:

whoami said:

boxster9 said:

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

Higher.

Well certainly well above Omega, IWC a bit tougher I'd say, esp. the in-house IWCs, I'd probably say about equal?

Anyway thanks for all the kind comments. Unfortunately a few others from the collection are going to have to go to help offset the expenditure. In fact two have gone already.

If you decide that the Sinn is one of them that needs to go, PM me.

[whoami]

tertius said:

whoami said:

boxster9 said:

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

Higher.

Well certainly well above Omega, IWC a bit tougher I'd say, esp. the in-house IWCs, I'd probably say about equal?

Anyway thanks for all the kind comments. Unfortunately a few others from the collection are going to have to go to help offset the expenditure. In fact two have gone already.

Fair point. I have an IWC Portuguese. It's head and shoulders above the standard IWC offering.

The Zenith is a stunning piece though.

[tertius]

Stuart said:

tertius said:

whoami said:

boxster9 said:

great value for money at £1500

Where does the Zenith brand lie in the scheme of things..compared to say IWC oe Omega?

Edited by boxster9 on Saturday 7th February 20:23

Higher.

Well certainly well above Omega, IWC a bit tougher I'd say, esp. the in-house IWCs, I'd probably say about equal?

Anyway thanks for all the kind comments. Unfortunately a few others from the collection are going to have to go to help offset the expenditure. In fact two have gone already.

If you decide that the Sinn is one of them that needs to go, PM me.

Yup, I think it will be. Its on the short list but I haven't quite decided yet. Proving to be a bit of a difficult decision ... no obvious weakpoints in the collection now.

[Asterix]

Stunning watch. Very good value at that price. Legendary movement.

Zenith have really lost the plot with some of their recent offerings though.