So here's the scoop...

[pdoukas]

Sorry folks, there was a lot of beer and meat involved last night, and I'm paying for it today. Good times......living the dream.....lol!!

I love some of the stories on here! I find it really cool when someone finds a watch and there's a backstory with some history. It makes you wonder, what was going on when the original owner was wearing the watch.

I don't have much of a backstory yet, but i hope to have more soon. Here's what happened:

About a week ago I got wind of an estate auction in Maryland. There was a 1966ish Omega Seamaster300 listed and no one had too much interest in it. I did a little fiscal research and decided I was going to go after it because of all of the Seamasters of that era I had seen, this one looked really clean. The problem is all I could rely on was pictures, and the word of the auctioneer. He told me that it was in great shape with the original band and running. In my mind, I was thinking, worst case scenario, its been serviced a few times but at least the dial and hands seem original with really nice patina. Case looked thick so maybe one polish at some point in time.

Boy was I wrong.......and yet, excited like you couldn't believe. I started perusing the rest of the estate listing and noticed a lot of Vietnam era memorabilia. I called the auctioneer and surfed the Internet and this is what I found out. The owner was the late LTC George Aikemen Finter. He died in Vietnam in 1970 while on an aerial recon mission. His remains and possessions were sent home and his wife left them boxed until..........February 2013. She had actually passed away years ago and the last remaining daughter was a bit of a hoarder. She passed away in February. When I found all of this out I decided to go after his memorial burial flag with the letters of condolence from President Nixon, General Westmorland, and others. I also decided decided to go after a lot that contained all of his correspondences and pictures of him while he was in Vietnam. I wanted to add as much history to the watch as possible. Maybe there was a picture of him wearing, who knows......but it'll be fun going through all of it. On top of the Seamaster, he had a few other neat watches. He had a Jaeger LeCoulture Memovox, but the case looked a little corroded around the crystal. But he also had an Angelus Chronodato that he picked up when he was a young officer while stationed in Germany. That one I picked up because it looked really cool and all my "quick" research told me that they made their own movements and were ahead of the time when they came up with the triple date chrono. Cool poop huh!

Well, I'm waiting anxiously for these items to get to me, but as soon as they I'm going to determine what I have. In the meantime, here are the pictures from the story. Oh, and for the record, the auction was literally held in a barn!

Pete