A little cleaning job

[scottjc]

Following Der Amf's enquiries about replacing the case for his Seiko 66, I thought I would share the little story about the watch that arrived yesterday.

This Balboa arrived and, to put it very politely, it was FILTHY!
Full of gunk and DNA, this needed some serious attanetion.



Imagine my delight, however, when I saw that the gasket had done its' job and protected the dial and movement. The dial is still immaculate.


The only problem, however is that the 'A' is missing from the dial. I can see where it was but can only suspect that the dial must have been a 'factory second' as I can't imagine Rado letting a watch leave the factory with this error.


Anyway, after giving the case a good clean, and adding a decent bracelet from my stock, this is what I've ended up with.

[Colin63]

Nice!

[iyonk]

Fantastic!!! Excellent work Sir!

[stewham]

Great cleaning work! Looks like a different watch.

[WWII70]

Sweet restoration (and unique with the missing "A").

Does anything else suggest that it was a factory second and not released for sale (no serial number)? In the world of stamps, imperfect production runs are more valuable than the regular items.

[scottjc]

There is a serial number on the back but that means nothing in the world of Rado as they famously raided their parts bin to put watches together.
Consensus seems to be that the dial alone is a factory second and was added to the watch after sale. I'm not sure about that though, as I would have expected the case to have been restored, or at least cleaned, at the same time.
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[DJW GB]

Nice job Scott . DW.

[FuzzyB]

You Rad-ish guys are amazing! Nice work!

[scottjc]

Thanks for the kind comments. This is a necessary skillset required for collecting vintage watches IMHO.
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[tribe125]

It certainly shows the impregnability of Rado's case materials.