*deep breath* First, full disclosure, I'm replying as a dyed-in-the-wool Primero enthusiast, so call this biased if you like. Second, I thought Jeff did a very good job explicating this in the Project 99 writeup. Third, the official birthday of El Primero, celebrated January 10, 1969, honors the presentation of movement prototypes to the press, interestingly not yet with the El Primero moniker. Which movement gets honors as the actual first depends on what first you are referring to: First press conference (Zenith), first international press conference (March 3, 1969 - Buren-Breitling-Hamilton-Heuer), first broad panoply of finished watches (April 1969 - BBHH), first watches commercially available and delivered in local market (Seiko), first watches commercially available and delivered in international market (BBHH). Pick your first.

Not a lot of Primero on this forum, so I hope you will allow me:

Cheers all,
Lou
: Dear all, I know that this should be settled as there's been a lot
: of investigation and, of course, Jeff's magnificent opus on the
: topic, still...
: A couple of weeks ago I was in LVMH Italy's headquarters and had
: the chance to sieve through a very nice Zenith coffee table
: book-format hardcover catalogue, which displayed the most recent
: collection including the Zenith New Vintage 1969 Limited Edition
: (same as Abel's currently selling, for those like me who are not
: into Zeniths ;-)!).

: Now, of course like everybody would've done, they also put pictures
: of the origin of the species, as it were, and pasted a very
: important date at the bottom of the picture: January 1969.
: If memory does not fail me, this would put it as the winner of the
: automatic chrono race, wouldn't it?
: It was very subdued and not in-your-face at all, still the implicit
: claim was there as far as I am concerned. So much stranger if we
: think this would now be an intestine struggle in the LVMH
: group...but not in 1969 of course.

: Has anyone else seen this catalogue or seen any other claim of
: Zenith to have crossed the finish line first?

: Cheers,

: Fabrizio