Up for pre-order soon: The Praesidus A-2 Bud & Diz Special Collection

Praesidus has really carved a niche for themselves, focusing in on watch designs that really grab on to the military watch aesthetic of decades gone by. Lending further credence to that are the collaborations they’ve done with military vets, such as on this one. Now they’ve dipped back into that well with the The Praesidus A-2 Bud & Diz Special Collection.

Rather than being something that they put together in a hurry, the brand has been in touch with these vets since 2019, getting to know their stories, and putting together watches that fit these two. Here’s a little bit more information on them, direct from Praesidus:

Bud Anderson, also known as “Triple Ace” is the highest scoring living American fighter ace with 16.25 aerial kills throughout his WW2 campaign over the skies of Europe. Equipped with his legendary P-51 Mustang nicknamed “Old Crow”, he conquered the skies above Germany while protecting bomber squadrons.

Diz Laird, is for his part known as “The Ace of Two Oceans” – having been the only US Navy Ace pilot to have scored kills in both the Atlantic & Pacific oceans – credited with 5.75 Kills. Flying on both the F4F and F6F, Diz escorted bombers over the skies of Japan & Germany throughout the war without ever having been shot down. Diz sadly passed away in August 2022, leaving behind an incredible legacy that we are proud to be honoring through our project.

For this collection, Praesidus based the design off of Bud Anderson’s Korean War A-17 watch. So, rather than just simply fitting to the spec of the era, we’ve got a watch that was used – for its intended purpose – in the era informing these designs. Just to drive that home even more, the first 100 of each version that are produced will have a small piece of an F4F Wildcast or P-51 Mustang embedded into the caseback.

It’s an interesting collection that honors these two gents, and also manages to encapsulate what pilot watches were all about in the era. The pre-order for these watches will open up on August 24, 2023. Pricing will be $315 for an NH35 movement or $565 for a Swiss movement; if you want to get both watches, they’ll come in a special case and pricing is just a hair under double. praesidus.com