While many brands have bolstered their historical collections in recent times, few if any brands have done so like Zodiac. The Swiss brand, with its Fossil-owned backing and archives of interesting pieces from the mid-20th century, has built its entire modern identity, and most of its collections, upon its vintage heyday. Previously on ?Vintage Eye,? we?ve covered two of Zodiac?s most popular historical pieces, the skin-diving Sea Wolf and the deep-sea-diving Super Sea Wolf. This week we turn to a lesser known, yet still strikingly retro watch, the mystery-dial Astrographic.

The original Astrographic, known as the Astrographic SST, had a space-age design stemming from 1969 (vintage ad above, via eBay). These watches, first produced in sunburst blue and white most, and commonly using rectangular cases with hooded lugs, were noted for their futuristic features. With stacked transparent disks moved by outer gear trains and printed with rectangles and circles on them to resemble hands, the indicators produce an ethereal “floating” appearance on the dial? thus earning the ?mystery dial? designation. The Astrographic wasn?t the first watch to host this feature, but it likely is the most sporty model to have done so. The “mystery” dial is more frequently seen in dressier watches, many produced by Cartier, like the Rotonde de Cartier Skeleton Mysterious Double Tourbillon Watch, which debuted at SIHH 2018.
Zodiac?s modern Astrographic keeps many of the prim...