GSTP

[Micheal Doyne]

I am very jealous! But I’ll make do with my GSTP for know, given I don’t have a spare couple of grand.

Out of interest how poor where the lesser WWW? Most the eBay offerings seem to be Omega, where they just more desirable to save with all the radium concerns or where the others mechanically poor to the point of catastrophic failure so only the good ones survive?

[gsimmons]

The “lesser” ones are still good watches just varying desirability. The Omegas and Longines seem to be the most desirable.

[Peter Laidler]

As per Gary above. From our point of view, you could always get Omega an Longines spares so they were long lived. But from memory, Eterna spare parts were pretty much non existent even in the 60's. I had an Eterna with a broken balance staff and searched high and low for a balance staff or staff and wheel assembly to no avail. Even crown/winding stems/winders were nigh-on impossible to source. Eventually had to swop the Eterna movement with a Record movement and....... anyway......

I was told, 3rd hand, that Omega, Jaeger leCoutre, Longines would attend the disposal sales and buy their watches back in order that they didn't flood the market and hi-jack the quality watch market afterwards.

[Micheal Doyne]

Well, on the one hand it looks like my impulse buy was rather over market rate for a GSTP, the crystal is rather orange and enamel face has a distinct crack from 11:10 - 5:50 , oh and the case is pretty scratched. That said is perfectly readable, appears quite solid, and has only gained about 2 seconds over the last 2.5 days. So over all I’m happy.

[browningautorifle]

It was always said that after your basic training, everyone should have been given £20 or so and told to go and buy a wristwatch. That'd save the army buying and maintaining them - and the crunchies losing them

We didn't give them 20 GBP but we did in fact direct them to go to Canex(Naafi) and buy a decent analogue watch. Had to have a sweep hand... I had a recruit that's retired now show up with a digital, very early, that played Scotland The Brave on bagpipes for alarm. He set it for morning inspection...then had an analogue by lunch.

We couldn't issue them to troops as there wasn't enough to issue Snr NCOs. Only officers and Company level...we were a poor army...

Nice watch Micheal...