Dr No[Moderator Omega - Wristscan]
34918
Absolutely on the money regarding the primacy . . .
Jul 19, 2014,17:08 PM
. . . of performance back when the El Primero was released, Magnus. As you may recall, the New Vintage 1969 . . .
[watch credit: Dr No / image credit: Attila Aszodi]
. . . was the sports watch in my collection for a few years, a decision guided by respect for the movement and an appreciation for the aesthetics. The melding of the iconic* A386 dial and Zenith's characteristic shaped case was overwhelmingly attractive to my eyes. It immediately attracted my attention upon release in '09, and after much deliberation and hours of in-store assessment, made its way into my collection.
The first evening of wear was, however, an eye-opening experience. I'd previously only seen it during daylight hours, in a well lit dealership. Walking out of my friend's restaurant onto the street, I gazed . . . and was unable to tell the time. It was 6-ish, just getting dark, and the steel grey hour hand had been figuratively swallowed by the black chrono hours sub-dial. It was at that moment I realized why the original A386 had been fitted with white hands: less pleasing to the eye, but more legible.
An image of Nilo's specimen . . .
. . . to illustrate my point.
Kudos to the designers at Zenith for endowing the current model with hands legible enough to stand out against the darker subdials.
Art
*
iconic may be an overused word, but deserved in this context.