but all is not lost! I'm sure that most guys here would think WTF?, what a piece of crap. Not me. For some reason, vintage diamonds (divers) in the rough appeal to me. So when I had an opportunity to pick up this fairly rare Blandford Squale Supermatic at a great price, I jumped on it. Once you get past the obvious flaws, it's actually not that bad. The first thing that you notice is the incorrect upper crown. This is the winding and hand setting crown - something that I have never seen before. The second are the hands. My first reaction was that they were incorrect, and that I was going to have to track down a fat Squale set. The third is the inner bezel ring. It looks as if someone intentionally scratched out the triangle at 12. I contacted Squale about the crown and bezel ring, and they are going to get back to me. Squale provides excellent customer service, and surprisingly, often have NOS parts available. As for the hands, believe it or not, after doing some research, I think that they are original. Also, the lume matches the markers perfectly. I found an identical (same case, movement, dial, and bezel) Exactus branded example with the very same hands. However, the blue dial Blandford version did use the typical Squale hand set. My dial may have started off black, but has faded into a nice brownish-bronze. On the plus side, the ETA 2783 movement is keeping very good time.
It's pretty obvious that someone wore the hell out of this watch (check out the stretch on the non-original bracelet), and certainly wasn't concerned about knocking it around. Makes me wonder who owned it, where it originally came from, and if it was used to dive with. I'll never know, but am enjoying wearing it as is. Would like to get that crown replaced though...
As always, thanks for looking.
