Don’t take offense, but for me it’s kinda… ugly? Sure it’ll be harder to replace, but would you really want to replace it? Explorer II is a true GADA and one of very few watches I could see being my one-watch ‘collection’.

I would hold one this one. I owned big block 20 years ago when nobody wanted them and regretted selling it. Replaced it with the 79260 which was the next generation (some had Tiger on the dial) and while that case is more like a modern Daytona, there is something special about this big block, flat sided cases. Your jeweller is correct, it’s not all that difficult to find a new EXP2. Not easy to find one of these .