My first vintage watch purchase - 60’s DOXA Cobart F1

Here’s the first vintage watch I ever bought, which sent my down the rabbit hole of collecting. It’s a DOXA Cobart F1, which I found at a small watch repair shop in Toronto while in town on business about six years ago.

The watch, which they told me was NOS, was offered without a strap but came with a paper DOXA hang tag on a red string. I was familiar with the DOXA name because of their dive watches, and so I bought the watch on a whim for $200 Canadian dollars.

At the airport waiting for my flight home I did some research to determine whether the watch was a lucky find or would be chalked up as a “teachable moment” for a novice collector. I found a French advertisement for the watch from 1968 that appeared in a Swiss watch trade publication.  Featuring a blurry black and white photo of a Formula 1 car, the ad copy notes that the image is of legendary champion driver Jim Clark and that it would be used as promotion in shop windows. I later learned that Clark, who was famous for wearing watches by Breitling and Enicar but not DOXA, died in April of the same year the ad was published.  

Today, I still have many unanswered questions about this little known DOXA model, mostly around the Clark connection and whether his tragic death had any impact on its production or marketing. These questions fuelled more research and helped get me hooked on vintage watches.

Reply
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Thats a lovely watch, enjoy it! I would also be interested to see what else you can find out about the watch.

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Super cool! I’d say that’s $200 very well spent.

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Wow this thing is super cool and your example looks really clean! Just have dipped my toes in vintage a little bit I want to get more. I just recently got a 90s tag heuer night diver

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Watchandunwind

Wow this thing is super cool and your example looks really clean! Just have dipped my toes in vintage a little bit I want to get more. I just recently got a 90s tag heuer night diver

Thanks. Night diver is a cool pick up. Enjoy it.

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Gorgeous

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Porthole

Gorgeous

Cheers!