Latest acquisition.. Movado Kingmatic, now a gentleman

anilv · November 12, 2018

I have a fondness for Movado, especially Kingmatics. I had previously bought on off ebay but that had a bad main-plate https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/2439-fellow-wrt-what-are-you-repairing-currently/?tab=comments#comment-24655 . I ended up buying a donor movement from a guy in Spain and the watch was back in service.

Whilst browsing ebay I cam across this example. Advertised as not running with missing automatic weight. I got it for USD 40. Usually I would have steered away from it as parts for these movements are difficult to come by but I figured I had a good chance to get it running as I had a mostly complete movement with a good balance and more importantly an automatic weight!

Pic from the ebay listing as below.

Sellers pic of the dial..dial has patina but it can be re-sued as its pretty even, a bit of degradation around the edges. Date-disc looks home-made though!

Movement is pretty grotty..These movements have a nice silverish plating which is part of the allure.. hopefully this will clean up.

Broken crystal... simple enough to fix.

Well the watch arrived and first impression is good. The balance staff is good but it wont tick.. the train is stuck. When I try to set the time I hit a dead spot, looks like a teeth is missing somewhere. Then I removed the balance but the pallet fork doesn't swing. On close inspection it seems to be broken. Hmmm.. so far I'm still ok as these parts are available on my donor movement.

Well I ended up using the following from the donor movement. The cannon-pinion (missing a tooth), pallet fork (broken pivot), clickspring (wasn't original), automatic weight (missing), dial (better condition) and date-disc (better condition). The dial was signed 'Gentleman' instead of 'Kingmatic' and has a slight defect in the 'gentleman' but it looks nicer. The crown on this watch is original but worn through. I'm hoping that the autowind can cope!

The movement plates were cleaned but this is the best I could achieve. The silver plating is quite thin and aggressive polishing can wear through. The bent lug will stay as it wont be so noticeable with a leather strap. Personally, I think this is one of the best looking automatic weights around!

The automatic module makes a nice 'zzzz' sound when it spins.. part of the charm of its watch.

Mechanically its pretty straight forward with no surprises. The only thing a bit different from other automatics is the mainspring does not slip. Instead there is a clutch built into the ratchet wheel and the crown wheel winds through a spring-loaded secondary wheel.

Anilv