That’s a beautiful speedy! I love the colors on that watch! Very cool.


I recently acquired an automatic chronograph as well. I’ve been looking for one of these babies for a few years now.

The minute hand is covering up the brand name. Any guesses as to who made this rare Valjoux 7750 powered beauty?

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
That’s a beautiful speedy! I love the colors on that watch! Very cool.


I recently acquired an automatic chronograph as well. I’ve been looking for one of these babies for a few years now.

The minute hand is covering up the brand name. Any guesses as to who made this rare Valjoux 7750 powered beauty?

Very cool Stick... to me, looks very similar to an older Sinn, but they usually have the day as well as the date.

Been a while since I've posted. Picked up an SBBN015 from a friend.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
The minute hand is covering up the brand name. Any guesses as to who made this rare Valjoux 7750 powered beauty?

The text font looks "very Seiko" to me, but I'm biased and I don't know that Seiko would have used a Valjoux.

Idunno, man.

Now post the pics of that stealth Turtle you've been working on!

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Been a while since I've posted. Picked up an SBBN015 from a friend.

Very nice! I like the Kanji day wheel.

Other than maybe swapping to some sort of oem Seiko second hand that is red or blue and maybe adding a lumed chapter ring my Stealth Turtle project is done.

The king Seiko bezel it had previously was neat but using an oem DLC bezel and Long Island watch fully lumed ceramic insert really matches and works great with the Stargate II dial and DLC case.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tooky13:
Picked up a new (to me) Speedy recently. Always liked the grey dial with the yellow accents and have been on the lookout for a nice one for quite a while. This one, from 2019, came with all the boxes, papers, links, in pristine condition, and at a very fair price. Couldn’t pass it up.

Man that is sexy. I have 4 Speedys and thought I was done but now I will be on the lookout for one of those.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Stealth Turtle project

Nicely done!

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
With all these Swiss and Asian watches, I had lost all hope for American watchmakers since their demise from the quartz crisis.

Well, lookit at what I found!

Yep RGM is the real deal. People have no idea of the investment and difficulty of making a watch movement and making a living from the process. A guy I follow in The Netherlands at a big vintage restoration and teaching shop has been demonstrating the decoration techniques. The machinery is usually from the last century and is difficult to use and learn to use. My hat is off to anyone that has the time and patience to do this sort of work.

Great video!

Thanks,

RMD

Tooky13, I agree with you, it does resemble an older Sinn Chronograph as it certainly has design elements pulling from the Sinn 103 & 203 line.

I believe this one is early to mid 2000’s. These are somewhat rare and are NOT easy to find though they are not expensive at all (if you can find one) considering the movement and build quality.

Hamilton ref 3834




I decided this one is done. The chapter ring is perfect as it matches the design focus of contrasting finishes while retaining a subdued, stealthy overall appearance. The second hand may change but that’s minor.

Ah, it's a Hamilton! Way cool.

Behold, the elusive and rare blue turtle.

So, after catching a glimpse of the Hamilton BelowZero in 'The Martian,' I wound up tracking down one of the more 'budget friendly' versions. The 1000 FT/PVD versions are a bit steeply priced for blue collar budgets. Probably no doubt to its showing in the Martian and the movie Tenet (haven't watched that one). The silver faced, slightly smaller (42mm) with 200m rating was a fraction of what it's larger brother sells for.

I found one on the 'Bay...threw out a pretty conservative bid, thought for sure I'd get sniped at the end, but as luck would have it...I now have it on my wrist...

It's a unique addition to my modest little collection...I certainly don't have anything else that looks like it. Hamilton has a respectable background. Not sure if it'll be a catch & release or not.


Now what I've been pondering: Would an auto designed to work on earth work well on Mars with it's 62% less gravity?.

Hmmm....



Original vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRL2JUNedKk

'Martian' Connection:



Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1OrtWdZbSQ

quote:

Been a while since I've posted. Picked up an SBBN015 from a friend.

Like that very mucho grande

quote:

Originally posted by Boss1:
Now what I've been pondering: Would an auto designed to work on earth work well on Mars with it's 62% less gravity?.

Hmmm....

I have a Sinn 142StS which was touted as the first automatic chronograph in space. That is until it was revealed that an astronaut wore his privately owned Seiko 6139 chrono earlier.
Bottom line is that they work just fine in zero gravity.

I’m a pretty big fan of Hamilton watches. I’m fortunate to own one or two of them and the BelowZero is one watch that I had dismissed for a long time. I wasn’t aware until today that one of those watches was in The Martian. I knew they were in Tenet.

There is an automatic chronograph version of the BelowZero that I like. Unfortunately it is somewhat rare and even more expensive than the already expensive 3 hand version.

The Pan Europ Chronograph is also one that’s grown on me quite a bit. It’s not hard for me to be fond of a vintage style chronograph reissue with a decent WR and a rotating bezel.


I came INCREDIBLY close to becoming a Doxa Sub1200T Searambler owner but by the time I made up my mind it was a few minutes too late.

So, I've been wearing my Orient for the last month. I've come to discover that it keeps the best time of any of my automatic watches, and the competition isn't even close. It's fifteen seconds fast after being corrected over three weeks ago. +5 seconds a week? Are you kidding me? I thought my Glycine was great out of the box at +8 per day. I got it regulated and it stayed pretty accurate to +1/-1 per day for about a month. Then it was back to thirty seconds a day slow in no time.

The lume on the Orient is always glowing, even after going from one lit room to a darkened room at night. I can go to bed at 9, wake up at three or four and instantly tell at a glance what time it is.

I bought it for the reputation and the dial color, but damn if I'm not impressed. I think I've become an Orient fan. I've been dressing around the orange dial, but I need to get something that is equal in performance but with a dial color that doesn't limit me to wearing black. I guess I need to go ahead and actually try a Seiko.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: P220 Smudge,

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:


The text font looks "very Seiko" to me, but I'm biased and I don't know that Seiko would have used a Valjoux.

Never to my knowledge, and I can't imagine it ever would.

Does Seiko have some design shop based in Thailand? They are getting some crazy unique custom “Thailand only” marketed dive watches lately. When you also consider the incredibly interesting Zimbe line of divers from Seiko it seems like Thailand is getting dibs on all the ehh more exotic and daring designs. Some of the watches in the Zimbe line were awesome and shouldn’t have been limited editions that immediately skyrocketed in price.

You could easily make the argument that 3 or 4 of the most beautiful dials Seiko has ever made have all shown up in the Zimbe limited edition of Seiko dive watches. The sky blue & textured dial Marine Master 300 (my personal fav dial), the almost Seamaster like wavy dial Sumo that has a blue to black fade just like the STO turtle & samurai dials, the green and yellow baby Turtle dials are also superb. Making them all super rare, hard to find, and averaging 2-3x the cost of what a normal version would cost (if not more) is lame.


P220 Smudge,
Orient makes great watches. They don’t get noticed or talked about nearly as much as Seiko or the Swiss manufacturers but they have been making exquisite watches for a long time now. They sort of fly under the radar of most of the public but maybe that’s a good thing. It probably keeps them more affordable.

On the subject of Seiko I recommend going to an AD if you have a boutique not too far away and trying on a turtle, samurai, sumo etc and if they have one definitely check out the titanium spring drive diver that’s all blacked out (DLC). It’s so light! Its CRAZY expensive but it’s fun to look at what one of Seiko’s top shelf divers looks and feels like.

You could always figure out what you like and build your own. I was surprised at how easy it is to assemble a Seiko diver from a pile of parts. The only part that’s mildly hard is installing the second hand and that gets easier the more you do it. In some cases it makes a lot of sense to build hour own. There is a rare SKX that comes with a bright yellow dial. It was discontinued and jumped from an average price of $210 up to $550-650 and higher in some cases. I found a few suppliers of oem Seiko parts and built my own version of that watch using all original parts from the same country of origin where the real deal was made so my clone is basically impossible to tell from the real deal. I made it for $249. I decided to use an upgraded movement so my version is easy to spot as a mod watch now but the addition of hacking and hand winding was worth it.

That Sinn is pretty cool Bald1. How has the finish held up? I have an homage to that style watch made by Le Jour and powered by a Valjoux 7750. I had an issue with my chrono hand but the AD stood by their product and fixed it twice and I didn’t have to pay a dime.

quote:

Creatively editing a post by stickman428:
I recommend (...) samurai,

Absolutely, stickman, so do I!