Military 5512 Restoration

[ahantel]

Hi all,

A little story here for your Sunday. I started collecting watches about 10 months ago at the ripe old age of 28. Got myself a 105.012 Speedy right before that market went crazy and I thought I was set an settled for a bit. Medical residents in the US have a lot of debt and don't make that much :). I was fortunate enough to have a family friend call me up out of the blue in December (after he and I had talked about my getting into watches) to say the he had an old watch sitting in a drawer that he wanted to give me for my names day (an Orthodox Christian celebration of the saint you were named after). He's one of the more interesting people I've known and he spent much of his time in the military from 1960 to the late seventies.

I started talking to him about the watch, happy just that he was so kind, no matter what it ended up being. Then my ears perked up when he said Rolex, followed by Submariner. Even more so when he said that his mother bought it for him in Florida in 1961, right before being shipped out to Guantanamo Bay. There he would serve as a Marine on reconnaissance missions to Cuba, swimming from submarines onto the island during the now famous missile crisis. The watch would continue on his wrist has he was a dive instructor for the Marines and eventually a master parachutist in Vietnam, completing 127 jumps.



After expressing a bevy of thanks, I talked to him about the likely worth of the watch. Since his military days he has become an ascetic, religious man and simply wanted the watch to go to someone who would appreciate it (he has no children so no one directly to pass it to) and wouldn't be dissuaded.

Here is the watch as it arrived. I had (and likely still have) a lot to learn about Subs in general and even more about early 5512's as they were, and continue to be, way outside my price range.





As you can see, the watch was as expected, worn as a tool for 30 years and then dispatched into a drawer after serving its purpose. After some services in the past the watch was without bezel/insert and had a replaced set of hands, crown, and crystal. Sadly it was polished as well. Luckily though, through all the dives and jumps, the dial retained all its gilt and silver depth-rating as well as gloss and patinated markers.

I decided to try and bring it back to health with the help of the "watchfam" and obtained a nice fat insert and bezel, tropic crystal, twin lock crown (I understand the "mark" system of bezels calls for a long 5 but this kissing-4 worked beautifully with the character of the watch and thought it would be best). After scouring the internet and instagram for several months I was lucky enough to find a set of original, gilded radium hands that happened to perfectly match the patina of the dial. Many thanks to @oldblackmachines , @metersfist , @kkevalll , and Mark Dub for the parts and advice.

Hearing about the good work of Bob and Phillip Ridley I decided to send the watch to them for a proper piecing together and servicing. As many of you know both their customer and watch service is outstanding and they were as excited to work on the watch as I was to have it restored. As you can tell from the finished pictures below, I recommend them wholeheartedly for anything from a basic service to a more complex job like mine. Even the turnaround time was faster than expected.









If you're looking for a more complete version of this story and many other ones about the lives behind the watch, head over to watchpatina.com where @boxandpapers wrote about this initially and recently added a nice follow up. He also supplied some of the pictures attached, the Ridley's supplied the rest. Check out more pictures of this watch (and a few others) on instagram @t_swiss_t .

Thanks for reading, hope you all have a great Sunday after Arsenal leapfrogged Hotspur

Andrew