Patina you cannot fake, a bezel scarred by a decade of harbour work, and the paperwork to match — this is what a watch looks like when it is used the way it was drawn.
Strapping on this neo-vintage dive piece dropped me straight into a era of collecting I only ever read about — and mostly missed the first time around.
There is no such thing as a cheap Vaudray, but there is a first one — and the fumé dial on this 38mm three-hander punches several tiers above the ask.
Lot 63 carried a modest estimate and a modest description. Six bidders, eleven minutes, and one very quiet phone line later, the market recalibrated in public.
Eight years after the first prototype, the workshop's in-house caliber lands in a 39.5mm case with a jumping local hour and a genuinely legible 24-hour track.
