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LouS
··Mrs Nataf's Other SonRecently, Zenith has made much of the fact that the company owns the rights to 'Pilot' as a name for a watch. In fact, they've built a whole model line around it, some attractive, some not, and some just bizarre. While the marketing machine churns on, it is interesting to see where the name was first used.
This little guy just in from a Swiss connection:
The Pilot line was introduced in the mid-1950s as a steel, shock-protected, antimagnetic everyman's watch with luminescence for night legibility, eventually also acquiring hacking. It exists in numerous versions, including a very few in 18K late in the production run. It is not clear when the model line extinguished, but certainly by the late 1960s it seems to have vanished.
prominently advertised features on the back
call 12-4-P-50-6 inside
the whole flight crew
Probably because it runs a little small (32.5-34mm), it has been ignored by the market, and decent examples can be got for $150 or so.
This little guy just in from a Swiss connection:
The Pilot line was introduced in the mid-1950s as a steel, shock-protected, antimagnetic everyman's watch with luminescence for night legibility, eventually also acquiring hacking. It exists in numerous versions, including a very few in 18K late in the production run. It is not clear when the model line extinguished, but certainly by the late 1960s it seems to have vanished.
prominently advertised features on the back
call 12-4-P-50-6 inside
the whole flight crew
Probably because it runs a little small (32.5-34mm), it has been ignored by the market, and decent examples can be got for $150 or so.
