Gone are the colourful sub-dials and red central chronograph hand and instead, the watch presents an almost monochrome appearance. The real customisation tweaks though have to do with the dial. The case, with a height of 12.45mm, features the familiar alternating polished and satin-brushed surfaces of other El Primero watches but has bespoke satin-brushed pushers to match the lugs. The Collective club has gone for the smaller 38mm steel case as opposed to the 42mm – selecting the same case size as the original 1969 model. What’s different about the Chronomaster El Primero C.01? As fans of Zenith’s El Primero, which incidentally celebrates its 50 th anniversary this year, the founders decided to kick off their members-only club with 50 customised watches of Chronomaster El Primero. Obviously the collector’s club founders – Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin – spotted a niche in this high-tech oasis for good old mechanical watches and created the club Collective. With such a high concentration of IT companies and the looming presence of Apple, it would be fair to deduce that most techie guys in Silicon Valley stick to techie gadgets when it comes to wrist wear. A collector’s club based in Silicon Valley is the latest recipient of a customised Zenith watch for its members. Its advanced design is credited with saving Zenith in the 1980s when the brand was struggling to recover from the effects of the quartz crisis - the industry upheaval caused by the move to quartz watches.Īfter its takeover by its namesake, the American electronics producer The Zenith Radio Corporation in 1971, the new management ordered the disposal of the tooling required to produce the El Primero - but, according to lore, employee Charles Vermot squirrelled away the equipment in the factory attic where it remained for a decade before being brought back into use when mechanical watchmaking underwent its renaissance.įrom 1988 until 2002, El Primero movements were supplied to Rolex which modified them for use in its Cosmograph Daytona model - orders that helped to keep Zenith alive prior to its purchase and reinvigoration by the LVMH group 20 years ago.It’s becoming more and more frequent for watch brands to create special, exclusive editions for bona fide collectors.
The El Primero is available in 23 versions (all based on the original).
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