Pre-Owned Heuer Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer 'MKII' 40991369/AS08619

In life, there are no constants but time and the tides, and no one feels the relationship between time and tide more than fishermen. 

While publications like the Farmers’ Almanac have long attempted to give fishermen insight into the best time to fish, the results have been mixed. And watch companies, eager to dive into the post-war sporting boom of the late 1940s and early 1950s, sought to develop a watch that would be the definitive sportsman’s tool. Such is the case of this watch, the Seafarer, and its time-only ancestor, the Solunar. 

The Seafarer was created at the behest of noted outfitter Abercrombie & Fitch. Though the name might now conjure images of bare abs and cloying cologne, back then the company’s midtown Manhattan store was a sportsman’s Mecca. The company had enough pull with manufacturers to request specially-made products for their customers — thus, when enough A&F customers inquired about a watch that would show the tides, the president of Abercrombie & Fitch turned to Charles-Eduoard Heuer.

The timepiece that resulted from that inquiry, the Solunar, was “the only watch in the world that tells both SOLAR (sun) time, and LUNAR (moon) time”— or so an ad ran upon its release in 1949. However, the Solunar was a niche product, and saw a limited run of just 1,000 pieces before being discontinued.

However, the spirit of the Solunar would live on in the Seafarer. The tidal dial of the Solunar would be married, in true Heuer fashion, with that most versatile of complications: a chronograph. The Seafarer had the hour and minute counters of a standard chrono, but instead of running seconds, the tidal indicator was nestled comfortably in the register at 9 o’clock.

First, a fisherman would set the time (or, in Heuer parlance, “Solar Time”). Then he would set the “Lunar Dial” according to tide tables using the pusher on the left side of the case until the tide markers aligned with the proper time. At midnight, the tide dial would advance.

The Seafarer came in several executions, sharing cases with other chronographs from Heuer’s catalog; produced from the 1950s to the 1970s, surviving examples are relatively rare. We’ve counted ourselves lucky to find just a handful in all our years in business.

This particular Seafarer, a Reference 2443 Mark II, dates to circa the 1950s, and features a smaller hour totalizer than that of its predecessor, the Reference 346. Coming in with what would have been considered an 'oversized' 38mm stainless steel case with dual barrel pushers, an acrylic crystal, an unsigned crown, and a tidal corrector at 9 o’clock, it features a beautiful, heavily patinated white dial with gold-foil 'Arabic' indices and Radium plots, a colorful 30-minute totalizer at 3 o’clock, a 12-hour totalizer at 6 o’clock, the model family’s signature tide indicator at 9 o’clock, and a later Tritium handset. Inside is a modified, hand-wound Valjoux 72 movement with a bridge signed “Abercrombie & Fitch.” Imbued with the enterprising spirit of 20th century exploration and sportsmanship, this is a true collector’s piece.

Seafarers, like the Flying Dutchman, emerge so rarely on the collector circuit, and are many collectors’ white whales — catch this one before it sinks back into the deep!