Hello Butch,
Thanks for your excellent web site and your interest in Zodiac watches, I enjoyed perusing the information and photos there. I looked the site up today after re-connecting with my Zodiac after many years.
I have a Zodiac "Glorious" Automatic that I purchased in 1960 for under $100. At the time, I was a brand new second lieutenant in the USAF and a navigator flying KC-97G air refueling tankers stationed in the Azores off the coast of Portugal. I took the proceeds of my winnings in a poker game and walked confidently into the Base Exchange and acquired this beautiful watch that had caught my eye weeks earlier. I enjoyed the extravagance of tossing down almost one half of a months pay to buy that watch.
Until the purchase, I was wearing my "work watch", a standard issue Air Force hack watch. The hack watch was either very good at precision time keeping, or it was completely awful. I had begun to experience "awful" and urgently needed improvement. Aerial navigation at that time relied heavily on celestial navigation, the sextant "shooting" of sun, stars, and moon to fix your position above the earth. Navigators computed the location (or height) of these heavenly bodies with reference to GMT from sets of books containing exhaustive tables of data that would predict elevation heights for specific earth locations for a specific time of day. It was essential to have a "spot-on" time hack when timing of sextant shooting was in progress for accuracy-sake. I fondly recall the excellence of the Zodiac in maintaining time over periods of weeks. I would daily check it against WWV only to discover that no adjustment was needed. Wonderful.
A few years later, I went through USAF pilot training and was obligated to return to the "hack watch" use by the powers-that-be for fear of magnetic interference with delicate airplane instruments. So I reluctantly put my Zodiac away in a jewelry case where it has been for almost 45 years. Due to a "misplaced" watch, I dug out the jewelry case last night and reunited with my Zodiac. I wound the watch and was rewarded with smooth movement of the second hand! I set it and some twelve hours later found it on the dot. So, I am wearing it today and enjoying the light weight and low profile of the watch. Zodiacs Forever!
Jack Stitzel
Hi I have my Uncles Glorious datagraphic that has been completly restored. He was in the USAF and picked it up in Saudi Arabia when he was doing aircraft maintenance training there. Any chance you can post a photo. I have not seen my model on this site and I am wondering if it is military version that was only available to the service.Thanks RG
You can post YOUR picture in here. Use the Attachments option when entering a message to upload your picture.
Zodiac Glorious datagraphic.
This has been totally rebuilt by RGM Lancaster Pa. Keeps excellent time now. The watch originally had a magnifier lense and they found a replacement. No markings on the case back. Signed Zodiac stem. Was this a "special " for the Air corps ( Air force ? RG
Special? Can you give us a picture of the case back, inside and out?
Butch I prefer not to open the case after an expensive restoration. The case back has NO markings on it and is a pleasant brushed finish. It is a self winding watch with a low reserve.. by that I mean if you don't wear it every day it will stop in about 12 -16 hours. It keeps very good time after the restoration. I have not found the right setting on the winder to keep it going !
In College I found that the hands were radioactive and I decided not to wear it. So it sat in a box until I decided that its radioactive half life was in the spot where it was OK to bring out again.
I don't think it is special but I have not seen one like it. I have it on a leather strap with deployment buckle and it a nice looking watch after a lot of TLC by an experienced watch shop. This is my only Zodiac!
Well, it certainly is a nice looking piece.