After all, Congress had prohibited the funding of the Contras in 1983 (but Reagan found a way around that). It has been suggested that the Contras were funded also by ***e sales and even that they were responsible for the development of Crack in Southern California, but again, you can read about that elsewhere. What we have found for you today is a replica Rado Integral watches called the Seiko Fieldmaster. It is commonly referred to as the Contra watch, because this was the watch worn by Contras in the early 1980s. It features a very interesting design of two small, 28mm analog instruments (a quartz watch and standard compass) sitting atop each other. It also came with a digital alarm tool and map guide. By turning the compass case, it can be removed and replaced by either the alarm or map guide, really a very useful design.
We have featured a lot of military replica Rado Integral watches here on Hodinkee, with the majority of them coming from World War II and the various conflicts of the 1950s and 60. It is rare to find a military piece closely associated with a skirmish of the 1980s (we'll call it a skirmish, others would call it a conflict, still others, a ghost-war). We are talking about the Contra War, which was launched in Nicaragua via a $20million loan from former Hollywood star Ronald Reagan. We aren't going to give you too much of a history lesson, Wikipedia can take care of that. But we will give you the basics. After the fall of dictator Anastasio Debayle in 1979 at the hands of the Sandinistas (yes the inspiration for the epic Clash album), the US Government realized they had a problem on their hands. The Sandinistas had the help of the USSR and Cuba, in fact the Soviets had given them over $1billion in aid. To stop the growth of their Socialist agenda, the US backed the Contras (essentially composed of anyone against replica Rado Integral watches the Sandinistas) at times very underhandedly.
