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My grandfather had a small watch business in NYC in the 50s & 60s. Someone who worked for him moved on to Zodiac, and so my dad bought me a Sea Wolf at cost for HS graduation. I've had it since. If I knew how long I was gonna keep it (and how much I would spend getting it repaired) I woulda taken better care of it early on. Kinda like Mickey Mantle.

But to make a long story short, by the 80s the face and hands were in poor condition from water damage even though the watch ran fine. On a whim during a ski trip to Switzerland in 1990 I went into a watch shop in Geneva and asked if the watch could get a face-lift, so to speak. "Yes, of course." It arrived about 2 months later and looked great. A week after that the luminous inserts in the hands fell out. So back to Switzerland it went and after another 2 months came back looking like this - not original, but close enough.

I wear it a lot and get compliments on it all the time. No one believes it's 40+ years old.

That's a great story, PRC.  It's good to have a watch that connects back through time to a younger you.  The watch looks great!
TJW

Thanks.

A tidbit - it always ran a little fast until it came back from the face-lift, then it ran a bit slow. The mainspring was replaced ("heart transplant") about 10 years ago, since then it's been right on the money.