18 Sep 2013, 03:39
I really may have to spend a good portion of my declining years to stamping out the use of "NOS" as a term for condition. It doesn't tell you anything implicit about the watch, except that it was purchased from the factory with the intent to resell it to the public, but, for some reason, was never sold, and relegated to storage (I think in the UK they call it "dead stock"). There's no way to know how the watch was stored or handled in the meantime. I think a better term, if you wish to unambiguously express the perfection of condition (both functionally and cosmetically), is "Mint". The coin collectors among us might argue that a bit (as they recognize ten degrees of mint condition), but, with a watch, it's either in the shape it was in when it left the factory, or it isn't....
Anyway, to answer the question at hand...probably not. Case seals, no matter how perfectly installed, have a finite lifetime (typically 2 to 5 years), by virtue of what they're made of. Rubber is amazing stuff, but it is an organic substance, and eventually begins to break down and harden. Once that happens, the water-tight integrity of the case is compromised to some degree. I see this all the time on Pulsars, where the case seal has either turned into black goo (not common), or hardened to the brittleness of ceramic (almost the rule). Either way, no chance the case will pass the "hydro" test.