For sale is my Aristo Aviator Vintage 4H451 limited edition watch. I bought this from Gnomon in September 2023 and warranty is through them. This is a rather standard 38.5mm pilot’s or officer’s style watch with lume painted on the hands and indices. The case is mostly brushed, but with a high polish bezel that dresses the watch up nicely. Worn on leather and it is a very nice, casual watch that goes well with everything from jeans and a tee-shirt to business formal. I am also including a Milanese mesh bracelet as those are always my preferences, which also matches the versatile nature of the watch and in my opinion dresses it up a bit more.

The real reason to own this watch is the German-made Durowe movement. Aristo found a number of late 1960s Durowe handwound movements (best guess is 1969 production) and built 50 of these watches around them, with this one being number 21. The movement was fully cleaned and reassembled (but not regulated) by Aristo and is warranted by Gnomon. I used the warranty immediately after purchase as the watch ran 40 seconds per day fast and Gnomon reimbursed me for having a local watchmaker regulate the watch, which now keeps excellent time, though I cannot measure its precise rate as I don’t have a working timegrapher and haven’t yet worn it more than one day at a time.

The watch is very slim, as would be expected from a hand-wound mechanical watch and slides easily under a dress shirt cuff. While stylistically this would also work as a field watch, the vintage movement and vintage case design with only 30 meter water resistance meant that I treated it as a dress or casual, but not a field or sport watch.

The movement is not fancy and lacks decoration, but is, in my opinion, beautiful to look at. This looks, handles and feels in all ways like a vintage watch, only without the risks that come with buying a 50+ year old watch with unknown service history. Also, as this watch has a NOS (new old stock) German-made movement, the “Made in Germany” label on the dial is truly accurate.

Gnomon still has a few of these left at $770, but I am selling this very lightly used AND REGULATED copy for $500, and will deduct $50 if you don’t want either the leather strap or the bracelet, or deduct $100 if you want the watch head only.

$400

The price includes PayPal goods and services fee as well as shipping within the Continental United States (+25 for Alaska or Hawaii).

LOW-BALL OFFERS WILL BE IGNORED