A badass posterchild for how the original purpose-built tools were the best designs. The Zenith A. Cairelli CP-2 was born as an order of just 2,500 watches for the Italian Air Force, with an estimated 500 sold to the public as civilian or unissued models, such as this example. According to a nice reference guide on Revolution Watch, “CP” is Italian for “Cronometro de polso” or “wrist chronometer”, with this “type 2” version upsized to 43 mm of unadulterated tool watch goodness. Thick chamfered lugs, rotating tritium lume bezel, matte black dial with tritium Arabic numerals, and generously tritium filled ladder hands with one of the coolest chrono sweep hands in the business. The watch is perfectly balanced, supremely legible, and just oozes vintage presence. It’s easy to see why these are perennial collector favorite, with this example sitting near the top in terms of condition and attractiveness.

Reference: Cronometro Tipo CP-2 A. Cairelli-Roma

Case: The 43 x 52 x 13 mm stainless steel case is in excellent, believed to be unpolished condition with minimal scratches present, most notably on the backs of lugs from an apparent strap changing. The caseback engravings are perfectly crisp and legible and this serves as a true time capsule.

Dial: The matte black dial is one of my favorite in all of vintage chronographs with the prefect vintage formula of warmly patinated tritium over matte black dial. It is extremely legible, balanced, stoic and pretty damn perfect. The dial and hands are free of any notable imperfections with some small dust and surface scratches notable on the acrylic crystal. The dial and hands uniformly react and quickly fade after UV exposure.

Movement: Further adding to the cool factor is the use of the manually wound Martel / Zenith 146 DP movement. Both Zenith and Universal Geneve seemed to collaborate with Martel on movements in this era, ultimately resulting in Zenith’s acquisition of Martel. The watch is winding, setting, and operating perfectly at approximately -5 s/d, averaged across 6 positions.

Strap: The watch is presented on black leather strap in very good condition measuring 115 x 75 and even comes with Zenith signed buckle.