Here’s a new watch arrival, an 18 karat gold Carrera, Reference 1158 S (third execution) from 1973. My acquisition of this chronograph involved many of the elements that I enjoy most about the watch collecting hobby — a favorite version of a favorite model, in superb (nearly-new) condition; some interesting provenance; an acquisition that involved a bit of a chase and help from some friends; and a skilled watchmaker who breathed life back into this 52 year-old watch. This watch has quickly become an all-time favorite watch; in this posting, I’ll share its story.
Shakespeare favored the five-act structure for his plays, with the acts comprised of Exposition, where the characters are introduced; Rising Action, as the protagonist faces obstacles and complications, Climax, where the conflict reaches its peak and we see a turning point, Falling Action, as events begin to move toward their resolution, and Resolution, where conflicts are resolved and the play reaches its conclusion.
Act One – The Watch and the Watchmaker (1973)
After producing relatively few 18 karat gold chronographs over the preceding decades, circa 1970 Heuer introduced a model that proved to be very popular, the Reference 1158. Using the same C-shape case geometry as the slightly earlier stainless steel model (Reference 1153), the 18 karat gold model (Reference 1158) came with three different dials – the “S” model (below, left), with a silver / white dial; the “CH” model (below, center), with a champagne dial; and the “CHN” (below, right), which has a champagne dial with black registers.
Within each of the three dial variations, we see different executions, as Heuer changed details like the style of the hands (polished or brushed), the use of numerals on the hour recorder (four numerals or 12), the number range on the tachymeter scale (50 to 200 or 60 to 500), and even the color of the date disk (silver or black).
In total, we see eight primary executions of the Reference 1158 Carrera, produced over the period from 1970 into the early 1980s. See our posting The Definitive Guide to the 18 Karat Gold Carrera (Reference 1158) for additional information about the different versions of the Reference 1158 Carrera. See all the Reference 1158 Carreras on this OnTheDash index page.
The watch that is the subject of this posting is the third execution (Mark 3) of the Reference 1158 S (silver / white dial).
These Mark 3 models have brushed gold hands (rather than the previous polished ones), the numerals 3-6-9-12 on the hour recorder (rather than the later numerals 1-through-12), and the “slow” tachymeter scale, marked for the range from 50 to 200 units per hour (rather than the alternative 60 to 500 scale).
This watch has the serial number 225846 and the case-back is engraved, “Gianni Sartori / per 25 annos di servizio / 1948 – 1973 / Sportex SA / Arongo”, indicating that the watch was given to Gianni Sartori in 1973, to mark his 25 years of service to the Sportex watch company.
Oddly enough, there have been two Swiss watch companies that operated under the name, “Sportex”. The first, Compagnie des Montres Sportex, was founded in 1928 in La Chaux-de-Fonds and specialized in chronographs and stopwatches for sports. The company also produced precision chronometers, winning the First Prize in the 1932 Neuchatel Observatory competition. In 1941, Sportex was acquired by Leonidas; in 1964, Leonidas itself was acquired by Heuer.
The second Swiss watch company to carry the “Sportex” name was founded in 1926 in the Canton of Ticino and moved to Arogno (also in Ticino) in 1934. This second Sportex specialized in the production of low-cost stopwatches and by the end of the 1960s, Sportex was producing over 80,000 stopwatches per year. Heuer-Leonidas acquired this Sportex in 1970, with the acquisition making Heuer-Leonidas the largest manufacturer of sports stopwatches in the world.
Brochures and catalogs from the 1970s show the Sportex line of “economical” stopwatches, always priced well below the comparable Heuer models.
For a history of the two Sportex companies, see Joel Pynson’s excellent posting, The true story of Sportex Watches.
Sometimes gifts just don’t work out well. Gianni Sartori was a watchmaker at Sportex and not wanting to wear the big gold watch while working at his bench, it seems that Gianni put the Carrera in his safe, where it remained for 50 years. The watch was on its original Corfam strap, on the red velvet holder, in the red box that Heuer used in the early 1970s. Over the years, the strap took the shape of the holder.
While the Reference 1158 used an 18 karat gold case, Heuer used a gold-plated buckle on the Corfam straps, and these buckles have not held up well. They are marked “Plaque G”, with the sun logo and the word, “Swiss.”
Act Two – A Jeweler Selling a Watch . . . and It Doesn’t Go Well
In 2024, Vanni Pesciallo, a jeweler in Balerna, a small town around 15 miles from Arogno, purchased the watch from the family of Gianni Sartori. In late October 2024, Vanni listed the watch for sale on the Swiss auction site, Ricardo. Several of the usual vintage Heuer enthusiasts spotted the auction, and with the bidding not moving above the 9,990 CHF opening price for several days, we wondered whether this one might stay under the radar. Perhaps this could happen with a first-time watch seller, living in a small town.
The auction ended on November 1, 2024, and with only a few minutes remaining on the clock, bidding finally picked up, and the watch sold for 13,800 CHF. Yes, I was an under-bidder, left far behind in those last few minutes of bidding.
A few hours after the end of this auction on Ricardo, things took a different twist when this Carrera was listed for sale in one of the vintage Heuer groups on Facebook. In response to several inquiries, the seller indicating that the winner on Ricardo had indicated that he would not be able to buy the watch.
This seemed to be the perfect playbook for fraud – a weak auction on Ricardo; perhaps some shilling toward the end to suggest a high price; and the watch immediately listed for sale in a Facebook group, at the price we had seen on Ricardo. Those of us watching these Ricardo and Facebook listings were suspicious, especially with a seller who was unknown and had no references in the watch world.
This had to be a scam, right?
Act Three — From Balerna to Atlanta, Via Geneva
I studied the Ricardo listing; I studied the Facebook listing; I studied the photos of the watch; and I studied the seller, Vanni Pesciallo. And I slowly convinced myself that the seller actually had this watch, and had simply encountered some bad luck with the defaulting Ricardo bidder.
I contacted Vanni through Facebook Messenger, and he was always responsive in providing information about the watch and the specific photos that I requested. Photos of the movement – no problem. Photos of the serial number – no problem. Additional photos of the dial – no problem. I Googled the name of the seller, and read some nice reviews of his jewelry shop in Balerna. He designed custom jewelry; customers said that he was a wonderful man; the more I read, the more I convinced myself that he had this watch and would sell it.
Three weeks after the end of the Ricardo auction, Vanni and I reached an agreement on the price of the watch. We also came to an agreement on the terms on which I would buy the watch – I would wire half the purchase price immediately; I would wire the second half when he had delivered the watch to my friend in Geneva, a well-known watch dealer. Yes, I trusted Vanni, but if I was going to get ripped off in this transaction, it would be better to lose 50 cents on the dollar than the entire dollar. Vanni would trust me to make the second payment.
On January 17, 2025, Vanni delivered the watch to my friend in Geneva; I sent the second payment; and a few days later, the watch arrived in Atlanta.
Act Four — 52 Years Later, It’s First Servicing . . . by a 15 Year-Old Watchmaker
The watch arrived with two issues which required that it be serviced before I could wear it. First, the lack of any markings by a watchmaker inside the caseback (and the lack of any scratches on the movement) suggested that the watch had never been serviced. At a minimum, fresh oil would be required in order for the watch to be used.
Of greater concern was the fact that the hour and minute hands were out of registration [see photo above], meaning that when the hour hand was exactly on an hour marker, the minute hand was in the range of the 20 minute marker, rather than being at 12 o’clock. A couple of friends suggested that this registration issue was probably a minor problem, requiring only a simple adjustment.
There were also two elements of the watch that I did not want to service. A quick look at the movement (and checking the time required for the date change at midnight) showed that the Calibre 11 movement was in its original form, not having been upgraded to 11-I or Calibre 12 specifications. For this watch, I prefer originality to timekeeping reliability, so decided not to have the movement updated to Calibre 11-i or Calibre 12 specifications.
In the seller’s photos, it was also clear that the 18 karat gold case showed considerable tarnish. The tarnish was not as heavy as I expected, and the case had a pleasant look, at least to my eye.
Vintage collectors divide into two camps on the tarnish issue, with some preferring to use a polishing cloth or other type of cleaning to remove the tarnish and others preferring to leave the tarnish, as is. The moment I saw the watch, I decided that I would leave the tarnish in place. The tarnish gave the yellow gold a rich, warm tone, and was uniform across the case, except that the tarnish produced a reddish ring around the top bezel. Yes, some collectors see tarnish as degradation that happens over the years, but in this instance, I liked the look of the aging.
Since the retirement of my two favorite watchmakers around five years ago, I have been bouncing between a couple of other watchmakers to work on vintage chronographs. Recently, I had seen some postings and an interview about the watchmaking wunderkind, Owen Berger (age 15), and I asked my friend John Cote whether he thought that Owen would do a good job on this watch. John has been collecting watches his entire life, and I knew that Owen had serviced some of his vintage chronographs.
John was enthusiastic about Owen’s talent as a watchmaker, and also emphasized that Owen does well at respecting and preserving the originality of our vintage treasures. Owen is known to be a vintage Heuer enthusiast, and has worked on over a dozen Calibre 11 / 12 / 15 chronographs. Eric Wind, perhaps the leading seller of vintage chronographs in the United States, also spoke highly of Owen. (You can see some of Owen’s work on his Instagram feed — @WhiteWhaleWatches on Instagram.)
Beyond John’s glowing recommendation, there was something that I really liked about sending this watch, received by a veteran watchmaker upon his retirement, to a very young watchmaker, just embarking on his watchmaking career. There was some nice symmetry to Owen, age 15, taking a watchmaker’s watch from 1973, and preparing it to be worn, 52 years later.
With that, I sent the watch to Owen, and received it back, ready to wear, a few days later. That’s right, a few days, not a few weeks, months or even years.
Act Five — On My Wrist
I won’t turn this posting into a “Week on the Wrist” type of review. Suffice it to say that this watch has been nothing short of spectacular on my wrist since I received it back from Owen.
The Look – I won’t even consider naming a “best” watch of the silver / white (“S”), champagne (“CH”) and champagne with black registers (“CHN”) versions of the Reference 1158. No doubt, the choice between these three dials is a matter of personal preference. My preference – at least this past week – has been for the silver / white “S” dial.
We often hear about dials that change color when viewed at different angles and under different types of light, but it’s difficult to think of a dial that has more dramatic swings than this one. Rotating the dial is like turning the end of a kaleidoscope, as the dial moves from a bright white or ivory, through the beige and tan range, and even to camel and khaki in lower light. All the while, the dial’s metallic finish gives it a strong texture, as vertical lines appear and disappear.
Tarnish or patina is also a matter of personal preference, but to my eye the tarnish on this gold case gives the watch a rich, warm appearance, contrasting especially well with the white dial. With the “moody” look of the dial, and the way that the tarnish can come and go at different angles, this Carrera combines the “fire” of the case and “ice” of the dial in dramatic fashion. After wearing this one for a few days, the run-of-the-mill yellow gold watches look rather pale. Tarnish? Yes please.
Regarding the strap, I am keeping the original Corfam strap and gold-plated buckle in the box, and have put the watch on a newer leather racing strap, with an 18 karat gold buckle that Abel Court made a few years ago.
The Feel – Some vintage watch collectors are critical of the Caliber 11 series of movements, referring to their occasional rough feel and the relatively heavy touch required to operate the chronograph.
While we are usually left to imagine what these movements might have felt like when they left the factory 50 years ago, after the years in the safe and a few days in Owen Berger’s caring hands, this watch offers the time capsule experience of how the Calibre 11 chronographs felt when new.
The winding is easy and clean; you can reliably set the time with good precision; and the chronograph pushers (start / stop / reset) have just the right feel, heavier than some chronographs of the period, but still quick and crisp.
The running report has been excellent, with the watch gaining approximately five seconds per day, over the course of the last week.
Thanks
Thanks to the amazing cast of characters that brought this story to its happy ending. In order of appearance — To Vanni, the unknown seller who is now my friend. To Roy Davidoff, the best informal escrow agent that a buyer could ever ask for. To Chama, for the last-mile delivery. To Owen Berger, for your amazing work on this watch. To John Cote and Eric Wind, for recommending Owen for this role.
And finally, thanks to Abel Court for sending me this 18 karat gold buckle some years ago . . . it’s the cherry on top of this wonderful sundae.
Jeff Stein
February 26, 2025
