Another watch from the Aquastar stable, this time it’s the Grand-Air…
(Click pictures to enlarge)
It’s safe to say that when compared to the Regate, Benthos and Deepstar, the Grand-Air is one of the more affordable models and a great route into the vintage Aquastar brand.
The subject of this post is actually the second generation model, the first being one of Aquastar’s earliest watches sharing the majority its styling with the early Regate, 63 and Aquastarlet models.
This brochure from 1962 shows all the models together.
The first generation model was available with either a champagne or grey dial and like the Regate and 63, was also sold under licence by Duward in Spain and Lorenz in Italy.
As seems typical with many of the Aquastar models, there were also a few ‘oddities’ produced along the way, including manually wound versions (powered by either the A. Schild 1802 or 1686 calibre) and this curious ‘Corsair’ model which was made in both dial colours and featured the same caseback and A. Schild 1701 calibre as the regular Grand-Air.
The second generation model was in comparison, more straight forward. Made in two production runs, the first powered by the A. Schild cal, 1903 and featuring a dial with applied markers and date frame.
The second, and I’m assuming later, powered by the A. Schild cal. 2063 of which two variants were produced, one with the lumed hour markers and date frame directly on the dial, and the second with applied hour markers and white hands.
I bought the watch in this post a few years ago, but when it arrived I was a bit disappointed as the dial was worse than it looked in the pictures. The hour markers had been clumsily repainted, and the movement too had several issues; the date didn’t change and the crown/stem pulled straight out, so it found itself squarely on the ‘rainy day’ pile. However, when lockdown hit last year and I had a bit more spare time, I took a second look at it and decided to give it a chance.
Turning the watch over, the first thing any vintage Aquastar enthusiast will notice is that the caseback doesn’t have the normal ‘star’ pattern, having instead engraved Aquastar branding and a traditional slotted caseback.
Inside is the expected A. Schild 2063 calibre, a 25 jewel automatic with date quickset and a beat rate of 21,600 bph. Produced between 1969 and 1976, that also handily dates the watch to the same period.
As evidenced by the gold plated automatic winding bridge, parts had obviously been swapped out at some time which is never a great start. Thankfully, I have quite a few A. Schild parts donors which provided everything needed to fix the problems with the setting, date and automatic winding mechanisms. So, after a routine service, the movement was back up and running and it was on to the cosmetic issues.
The dial had lost some of the lacquer coating around the edge and the ‘Swiss Made’ lettering from the bottom of the dial which was unfortunate. The hour markers had been painted over with black paint, all of which needed to be removed, new indexes painted onto the dial and two coats of lume applied over the top. The hands were also relumed to match, the case cleaned and a new crystal and caseback gasket fitted to finish the job.
Considering the starting point, it’s a decent result, but I’ll be keeping a lookout for a better dial on my travels around the net.
Rich.
