Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

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mawnansmiff

Lifer
Oct 14, 2015
7,681
8,284
Sunny Cornwall, UK.
Wonder if our own @mawnansmiff will be having a punt?
"The watch has an auction estimate of £2,000 - £4,000".

I'd wager it goes for 10x that and then some.

Personally I'd rather have the desk set......not got one of those :rolleyes:

Jay.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
This thread prompted me to get all my quartz watches going again, and I’ve developed a better appreciation for quartz watches.

They don’t seem to ever go bad. Ones I have forty or more years old fire right up with a new dollar or two battery. They don’t appear to ever need cleaning, oiled or adjusted, and the older higher quality quartz watches had jewels and regulators,

My worst quartz watch keeps much better time than my best railroad chronometers and without winding.

The case and band don’t know or care if there’s a little machine ticking inside or a quartz movement. The better quartz watches have screw down backs removed by the same pronged tool used to remove mechanical watch backs.

The cheaper fashion quartz watches have snap on backs. New crown and case back gaskets are dirt cheap.

Often a snap back case comes off with a pocketknife but once you buy this $7 tool you’ll use this forevermore.

IMG_7297.jpeg

Most snap off case backs snap back on after a battery change and new gaskets but not all.

This $20 press snaps them all back on.

IMG_7299.jpeg

Seiko is going to win the watch wars, I think.

For forty dollars retail your ten or twenty year old Seiko automatic can get a brand new, improved NH35 movement, if your watch is sentimental.

IMG_7300.jpeg

But if your quartz watch is sentimental the movement can be replaced for even less, and it should last longer.

IMG_7301.jpeg

My 1979 Seiko movement Montgomery Wards LeGant runs to a few seconds a month. Every five years or so the second hand starts skipping two seconds at a time, and it needs another battery, maybe a gasket. It has a screw back and jewels and even a tiny regulator.

Remind me not to start a watch company.:)

Seiko is ahead of that game.
 
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ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
19,000
13,038
Covington, Louisiana
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This thread prompted me to get all my quartz watches going again, and I’ve developed a better appreciation for quartz watches.

They don’t seem to ever go bad. Ones I have forty or more years old fire right up with a new dollar or two battery. They don’t appear to ever need cleaning, oiled or adjusted, and the older higher quality quartz watches had jewels and regulators,

My worst quartz watch keeps much better time than my best railroad chronometers and without winding.

The case and band don’t know or care if there’s a little machine ticking inside or a quartz movement. The better quartz watches have screw down backs removed by the same pronged tool used to remove mechanical watch backs.

The cheaper fashion quartz watches have snap on backs. New crown and case back gaskets are dirt cheap.

Often a snap back case comes off with a pocketknife but once you buy this $7 tool you’ll use this forevermore.

View attachment 292794

Most snap off case backs snap back on after a battery change and new gaskets but not all.

This $20 press snaps them all back on.

View attachment 292795

Seiko is going to win the watch wars, I think.

For forty dollars retail your ten or twenty year old Seiko automatic can get a brand new, improved NH35 movement, if your watch is sentimental.

View attachment 292797

But if your quartz watch is sentimental the movement can be replaced for even less, and it should last longer.

View attachment 292798

My 1979 Seiko movement Montgomery Wards LeGant runs to a few seconds a month.

Remind me not to start a watch company.:)

Seiko is ahead of that game.
My local shop, Maryland Watch Works looked at my son-in-laws Seiko SKX, which started running very fast. They could attempt to regulate it for around $250 OR put in an NH35 movement for $180. He opted for the NH35....
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
My local shop, Maryland Watch Works looked at my son-in-laws Seiko SKX, which started running very fast. They could attempt to regulate it for around $250 OR put in an NH35 movement for $180. He opted for the NH35....

They have to pay the overhead and the watchmaker.

The absolute miracle is an NH35 is $40 retail price to your door. The jewelers get a discount.

The Seiko automatics can run ten, twenty, even fifty years without service.

The new movements should be better!

About ten or so years ago the Swiss slowed down their 2824 to six beats a second and unlike the Seiko it’s not all metal, and serviceable. Seiko still clobbers them on price, and likely time between service.

My railroad grade watches were required to be within four seconds a day and they usually beat that by half, in six positions.

The mill run NH35 is laser regulated and most are within ten seconds a day. They don’t beat a railroad watch but they are plenty, and more than good enough.

And minus the automatic winder and Incabloc, they really are about the same gizmo.

Just amazing, I think.

My $18 Indian rebuilt Citizen arrived today.

Let’s see how accurate a rebuilt Japanese automatic can be, done by watchmakers using universally available tools.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
My $18 Citizen came and the looks of it are impressive.

The Indian watchmaker replaced the strap with a new leather one, polished the case and back perfectly, refinished the dial to new, put on a new crown, date wheel and new crystal, and the only thing that looks used is the day feature.

When new these were rated plus or minus 30 seconds a day and usually beat that by half.

Let’s see how well he rebuilt the movement.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
There is more information on the internet than I can imagine about my $18 Indian watch.

If it’s geniune, it’s a Citizen Eagle 7 made in June 1981, with a Citizen 8205 21 jewel Japanese Miyota automatic movement, by the case back numbers. The Eagle 7 was a competitor to the Seiko 5.

IMG_7303.jpeg

But since it’s from India, the odds are it‘s a specie of counterfeit Eagle 7, believe it or not.

The Chinese have factories that turn out stone counterfeits of the movement, with fake markings.

Years ago Citizen sold scrap Eagle 7 parts to Indian matchmakers from their factory in India.

To my $18 watch’s credit it’s not a total fake is the day wheel is aged, as are the hands. The dial is also beautiful and has the proper two tone reflection. But those could be scrap parts, put in a scrap 1981 case with a counterfeit Chinese movement. There were Indian clone movements made under license, too.

It’s running like a Swiss watch (pun intended) and a few days will tell if it’s accurate.

People should not spend serious money over the internet for a watch.

I’ve bought one of the most faked watches in the world, for $18, postpaid from India.
 

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DanWil84

Lifer
Mar 8, 2021
1,691
12,663
40
The Netherlands (Europe)
My daily d(r)iver for almost 17 years now. Let me down once but was quickly fixed under service warranty. Love the look, love the comfort of the bracelet, love the movement, love the lumen for at night. It has a few scratches, a ding on the bezel, but I wouldnt trade it for a present day Omega diver. I once contemplated to trade it up (watch+cash offcourse) to a white gold De Ville with a browngrey meteorite-ish dial, but in the end that wouldnt suit me.

20240302_212907.jpg
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
18 hours of wearing and my Citizen is within a second or two fast of where I set it yesterday. And I tested the lume last night, and while the dial looks perfect, the lume simply doesn’t glow at all, and the watch just sits there all red and funky and disco era looking like it was 1981, and the years have degraded the lume.

No need to look a good running $18 watch in the movement, you know.:)

But the hands are old, and the old day wheel has English and Japanese characters as it ought to have for a 1981 Japanese made Eagle 7 Citizen 8215, that’s been refurbished.

Sometimes a 1981 Indian refurbished watch is just a watch.:)

From what I read buying these ultra cheap old Indian refurbished watches is a total crap shoot, and all the sellers guarantee is two minutes a day accuracy.

Mine could quit running well in a week or a month or a year.

But I could not replace the nice brand new 18mm leather strap for $18, much less mail it around the world.

How Dey Do Dat?
 
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Grangerous

Lifer
Dec 8, 2020
3,465
14,335
East Coast USA
After suffering PAD, this rekindling of my decades old Watch Obsession is just brutal.
1709484918878.jpeg
From low left clockwise… my vintage 1999 Sub with its two new grandkids, BB58 on Brown Leather and BB58 Blue on a bracelet.
1709485064902.jpeg
If you favor the 5 digit Rolex of old as I do and eschew the glitzy, shiny large-cased ceramic Rolex models of today, then I believe that Tudor is filing the space Rolex has left behind. Tudor today is what Rolex used to be. Tool watches rather than high-priced jewelry.
1709485439304.jpeg
Tudor is thriving by reviving, in its own way, the dimensions of the 14060 / 14060M Submariner. A pleasure to wear on the wrist at 39mm by 47 by 11.8. My wrist is 19cm / 7.5”

The old-school dimensions appeal to a Codger like me. Actually, the bigger is better watch craze is on its way out and good riddance. What’s old is new again.

After recently purchasing the black gilt BB58, I had to also obtain the Blue.

On edit: it’s kinda… Granger Blue. 👊😎
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
What fascinates me so much about watches, is that during the fifties the Swiss perfected the automatic wrist watch and after that, when a Rolex is regulated within a second a day there’s no more room to improve one.

It’s a time counter. They must all have exactly the same parts, if purely mechanical.

And the Rolex, isn’t made from scratch on a bench. It’s a factory watch, too. If a part breaks or needs replacing they all have parts numbers in a catalog.

I’ve never seen one, or talked with anyone who owns one, but Seiko makes an ultra high end watch.

The Seiko spring drive has a mainspring, with a rotor winder, but the escapement is a quartz movement with a regulator, that runs from an electrical power reserve.

It matches the accuracy of a Rolex, within a second a day.

If I had to say what is the entry level of a truly fine watch, of heirloom quality, my nod goes to the Orient Star line.

It has an in house made movement they don’t sell to other makers, it’s all top notch polished and detailed, and about $400 to $1,000, street price.

$450

IMG_7306.jpeg

The next step up is Omega

$4,000

IMG_7305.jpeg
 

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
For my 35th birthday in 1993 my mother bought me a Tudor Monarch exactly like this one

IMG_7312.jpeg

By far it’s my highest quality modern watch. Everything that’s gold on it is solid 14k gold. Essentially it’s a Rolex oyster with a quartz movement.

And it’s the one and only quartz watch I’ve ever owned that died, when it was about ten years old. For $250 I had the movement replaced by a jeweler who mailed it off for repair. The replacement has been working about twenty years.

To change batteries requires a special die, that is about $20 online.

Odds are it has a $50 Swiss Rhoda movement.


I don’t wear it much because I don’t want it beat up.
 
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ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
19,000
13,038
Covington, Louisiana
postimg.cc
What fascinates me so much about watches, is that during the fifties the Swiss perfected the automatic wrist watch and after that, when a Rolex is regulated within a second a day there’s no more room to improve one.

It’s a time counter. They must all have exactly the same parts, if purely mechanical.

And the Rolex, isn’t made from scratch on a bench. It’s a factory watch, too. If a part breaks or needs replacing they all have parts numbers in a catalog.

I’ve never seen one, or talked with anyone who owns one, but Seiko makes an ultra high end watch.

The Seiko spring drive has a mainspring, with a rotor winder, but the escapement is a quartz movement with a regulator, that runs from an electrical power reserve.

It matches the accuracy of a Rolex, within a second a day.

If I had to say what is the entry level of a truly fine watch, of heirloom quality, my nod goes to the Orient Star line.

It has an in house made movement they don’t sell to other makers, it’s all top notch polished and detailed, and about $400 to $1,000, street price.

$450

View attachment 293113

The next step up is Omega

$4,000

View attachment 293119
Longines slots nicely just below Omega, in the $2500-$3000 range, part of the Swatch family
 
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