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Abercrombie & Fitch 1958 Manual Chronograph

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Dimensions 37mm x 14.5 mm X 43.5mm

Prominent figures who patronized the Abercrombie & Fitch Company in its excursion goods days include Amelia Earhart, Katherine Hepburn, Clark Gable,Teddy Roosevelt,John Steinbeck,and Ernest Hemingway.
Their vintage catalogs are a mine of quality, useful items,from canoes, to tents, to shotguns,to fishing rods, and of course, watches.This watch has exactly the same case as the early Seafarer and a very similar dial and is a great looking three-register, twelve-hour Compax Chronograph. A real beauty, the kind of watch that epitomizes vintage. Steel case with circular brushed domed screw-on back, high-domed crystal, and long-faceted luga. This type of case was used by Heuer, LeCoultre, and Ulysses Nardin for their register “sports” type watches-sport meaning pilots, sailors, and horsemen.

The movement is the venerable valjoux 72 nickel-plated three register twelve-hour movement. Signed “Abercrombie & Fitch Co Switzerland serial 453306”. The case interior is signed “ED Heuer & Co, SWISS”. This watch has been fitted with a Heuer Vintage Crown. Now on to the wondrous dial:vertically silver scored with gold-plated rivets in the corners aged to perfection. Signed again : “Abercrombie & Fitch” with “Made in Switzerland” below the register at six p.m. The handset is gold-plated to match the rivets and the Arabic markers, which like the brand name are gilt applied with a black outline, as are the hour pyramid markers running around the outside. The watch came to me fitted with its original crocodile strap signed “Abercrombie & Fitch.” A very pretty watchy from the late ’50s.

John BUZZUFY

John BUZZUFY

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