Congratulations, John, on this great acquisition.

I am on vacation with the family this week, and must admit since reading your message and seeing this find, every time I see a pawn shop or small, local jewelry store, I wonder what might be inside. We tend to think that everything goes onto eBay now, but your story proves that there are still merchants with the rare old watches, just sitting in the display cases.

In terms of production, the range of serial numbers suggests a relatively small batch, spanning approximately 500 serial numbers. Of course, we never know whether all 500 numbers would have been used, and of course the "survival rate" -- which suggests how many watches are still alive today -- is another mystery. Over the years, we have probably seen around 20 of these 741603 GMTs (but that's just a rough guess).

Jeff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: Thanks for the info on the watch. After I made the post I
: remembered Jeff's "Master Reference Table" at
: http://www.onthedash.com/Guide/Master_Reference.php4 . This led
: me to the mid '70s also.

: Mark, you mentioned the known serial numbers. Do these numbers lead
: you to any conclusions about the production numbers for this
: model? I certainly have not seen many in the US but if they were
: made for the Swiss etc market perhaps they are more common in
: Europe?

: JohnCote