Here is my current collection. I was fortunate this year and picked up two of my grails: Speedmaster 376.0822 and just before the end of the year a near perfect example of a Gallet Excel-O-Graph by Racine. In addition, I added several nice Omegas, a couple of Hamilton Autos and I even won a LeJour Chronograph from ATG Vintage Watches.
This year I will be looking for a nice Navitimer 806, a 1962 Rolex 5513, a Breitling Co-Pilot, a Zenith De Luca, a Movado Super Sub and a Speedy CK2998.
In addition, I will hopefully be adding some interesting dive watches: Omega SM300 - 120, BP FF (Homage ?), etc.
This is an expensive list, but if I can get 1 or 2 I will be a very good year.
State of my Collection January 2008
Gallet Excel-O-Graph by Racine
Gallet
Excel-O-Graph by Racine
DIAL - Red, White and Blue 3 register Chronograph with inner rotating slide rule bezel. Gold hand and lumed indices.
CASE - Gold with Stainless Steel screw down back and coin edge gold bezel. Triple-signed 52 lug to lug; 43mm w/o crown and 13mm thick.
MOVEMENT - Gallet & Co Excelsior Park 4.0 Swiss 17-jewel unadjusted flat hairspring incabloc shock resistant manual wind movement
I grabbed this one from a fellow collector and buddy in alabama. It's a gallet by racine excel-o-graph. Uses the long forgotten about exclusior park mechanical integrated chronograph movement. This movement i know little about since it's so far few and between to find any info and many examples of it. What i do know is some consider it comparable or even better than the famous valjoux 72, although owning both movements i prefer the valjoux 72 just a slight bit more. It's a slow ticker, by my ear i'm thinking in the 18000 vps range. Although i haven't measured it nor have i done any real research on it to get an exact beat rate. So that is more of a guesstimate.
What is cool about this one is it is one of a very few slide rule watches. In the days before calculators and computers, the only option for an engineer or pilot was a slide rule. They were integrated into watch bezel setups mainly for pilots, but i imagine anyone with a use for a slide rule would have found it quite useful. This particular watch was owned by edwin m. Grover (r.i.p.) of alaska...whom my buddy who did the research on the original owner, when he owned this watch, found out mr. Grover had passed on to a better place. Mr. Grover was a pilot and a bush pilot at that in alaska. He was also a piainter by trade and orginally came from arizona if i remember right? He even had his a.o.p.a. Number (professional organization of pilots)engraved on the watch back...along with his name and social security number.....these were the days before identity theft, and i imagine if your plane crashede and you died in the wilderness...if someone found you the watch with your info would make it easy to track back who you were. Remember no dna back in those days either.
Anyways on to the watch.....it's definitely a gold filled case with a ss screwdown case back. Gold filled means a stainless steel or brass case overlayed with a thick layer of 10kt or 14kt gold. Gold filled or capped is much better than gold plating. In plating the thickness of the gold is a few microns, in capped or filled the thickness is more like a few sheets of paper, so that translatess to many more years of wear before the gold cap is worn down enough to see the base metal of the case. Gold filled was the manufacturers way of making "gold" watches affordable for the working class. Later plating made even the poorest of the poor working class able to afford a "gold" watch. Hence the reason plating has survived all these years.
this watch is what we call a "tool" watch meaning it has a definite tool purpose. Most of these legendary excel-o-graphs i have seen were made in stainless steel, but i imagine this version was made for those who wanted to have a tool watch and in gold as well to impress the ladies, lol? ?:)
This watch is a monster....i haven't measured it's lug to lug length nor have i measured it's diameter, but i know it is without a doubt the largest watch i have ever owned. It makes my large 44mm watches look tiny. This watch is odd in that in the 60's watches weren't popular in large case sizes...most from this era are in the 33mm-36mm range. This one i would dare to say is near 48mm? Although i'm guessing until i actually get off my duff and measure it's dimensions. It certainly has a serious prescence on the wrist. No way can someone not notice this hunk of gold and dial on your wrist. Actually though the reasoning for the large dial and case size is so it could be read easily and accurately. Imagine being on a bush plane flying at low attitudes in the weather and trying to see the calculation on your slide rule bezel on a 36mm watch while bouncing all over the place...it would be pretty damn hard to almost impossible. If you've been on a small enough prop plane you know how everything shakes violently back and forth.
Oh the picture shows the hunk of pimp nugget gold bracelet that came on this watch. All i can say is yikes!!! Man that thing had to come off and let me tell you it was a bear. My bergeon 6111, and 6767 strap tools were useless. It ended up taking a .5 mm watchmaker screwdriver to get it free from the pimp tryanny.:) i took a few pictures of the watch before being pimp free and after and the pimp bracelet as well.
To end with....i find this watch to be quite interesting and i actually enjoy the wild life it had in alaska. Noramlly i don't care for engravings as i don't like to think i have a dead man's watch, but in this case i enjoy the history beihind it and find it fitrs the time piece well. For comparison i would say it would have competed with the breitling navitimer and heuer calculator, as models from other brands with similar setup and features.
Original poat by jhb - Jesse
Case Diameter:
43 mm
Case Height:
13 mm
Lug to Lug:
52 mm
Lug Width:
22 mm
Movement:
Gallet & Co Excelsior Park 4.0 Swiss 17-jewel unadjusted flat hairspring incabloc shock resistant manual wind movement
My search was started … These watches don’t come by very often, but soon I located one for sale on the internet. I jumped into action with calls and emails to those in the know. They all said pass it up - it is not a good example and way over priced.
I was still trying to convince myself that it was OK when I spoke with Chuck Maddox who told me to be patient and things will work out. Jeff echoed Chuck words so I passed the watch.
During the next few weeks I spent some time on the net just searching the phrase “Excel-O-Graph.” It was then that I came across a post that was telling the story of how he came across his EOG. I took a chance, emailed him that I was in the market to buy one and if he ever wanted to sell his I would be very interested.
Jesse returned my email and now the watch is in my collection. An interesting note is that Jesse was one of the original posters that I read at the beginning of my search. His initials are jhb.
About the watch: It was owned by an Alaskan Bush pilot. He engraved his name, SSN and APOA number on the back of this watch.
He had a custom bracelet made for this watch, complete with a gold nugget motif and raised Alaskan flags on both sides.
It is mint in every aspect with Original box and instructions and one of my personal favorites.
I am dedicating this page to the late Chuck Maddox. His dedication to the watch collecting community will never be matched and his personal guidance to me on this particular watch and my Speedy Grail will never be forgotten -- He is greatly missed.
