I’ve had a quite a number of 6105 divers on the bench in the last couple of weeks. I know I’ve posted about them on numerous occasions but there are a couple that I just have to show you. The first is this incredible 6105-8009 from the third month of production, May 1968. I’ve seen some biscuity lume on a couple of these before but I’ve never seen one with such an outstanding tobacco hue to it. The watch came in for a new crystal, a movement service and some conservation work on the minute hand.
As I said I’ve seen a number of 6105’s with beautiful biscuity lume and the one thing they’ve had in common is they’ve all been unearthed in Australia which led me to believe the the hot dry sunny climate was responsible for the change in the lume over a forty year period. This one as all you clued up Seikologists will realised would have been produced for the US market as the case reference ends in 9. This leads me to wonder if to attain the beautiful tobacco coloured lume it spent it’s life in one of the hot dry states? Whatever the reason for it I’d give my eye teeth for an example such as this!
I won’t go through the stripdown process as I’m sure you’ve all seen it numerous times on the blog, but there were no nasty surprises and it all appeared to be in very good order.
The minute hand was addressed whilst the components were being cleaned, some lume had been lost from the centre of it and there was a nasty crack running the length of the compound. I mixed up a batch and tinted it to the best match I could get and lumed the complete back of the hand. This has the benefit of stabilising the crack and keeping as much of the original lume in place as is possible. Conservation not restoration! 🙂
The case was stripped for cleaning and the new crystal. Of note was the fact it had a very early cream coloured crystal gasket, I’ve seen these a few times before but this is the first I’ve seen from the third month of production, I’ve only seen first and second month ones before this. These cream gaskets are alway brittle and dry and this was no exception. It was replaced with a genuine NOS black one.
The case was built up with a genuine NOS 320W10GN crystal which again is a nice touch.
Once the movement had been rebuilt the dial and hands were attached….
….and the movement was recased.
These are the shots I wanted you to see. It’s absolutely gorgeous, the owner is certainly a lucky chap!
I do own one of these tobacco-lumed 6105’s, too. Even in a more outstanding dial an case condition. <But my Bezel's missing. It'll gonna take centuries to find one of these tobacco-lumed Bezels… The Bezels might have been lumed together witch hands and dials in one process. What do you think? Greetings from good old Germany, Markus
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I would have thought the luming process for the dial hands and bezel pip would have been carried out in the same place using the same batches of lume for the 6105-8110 although I have no evidence of this. As time progressed I think this changed as evidenced by the 6309/6306 divers usually having different shade to hands and the dial plots, this was probably due to the hour markers being pad printed instead of filled lume wells on the 6215/6105 divers. Again this is all conjecture but it makes sense in my mind!
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