404 Club

[Bearman]

Evening all, here's my latest 404 club success. An Accurist LED watch. Came to me as part of a job lot. A little grubby and missing battery cover, though still had the original bracelet.

After some gentle cleaning popped some batteries in shorting the top of one of the batteries to the case and was amazed it burst into life. Easy fix. After a couple of months I managed to find a replacement battery cover from a donor and it's been working ever since.

If there's any LED watch experts out there I'd love to know who made the module. I guess it wasn't a cheap watch back then either, probably hundreds in 1970s money.

I just love the red led's, I don't think they make them like this anymore.

 

[AndyHull]

Possibly a National Semiconductor or TI module. There is nothing in the images to give the game away. 
Usually there are some clues on the circuit board, but you would need to disassemble the module to see, which is not without risk.
Its fairly early as the circuit is on a ceramic substrate with printed silvered traces, and the later ones typically used copper clad fibreglass or even cheaper srbp (synthetic resin bonded paper) PCB construction. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by AndyHull

[spectre6000]

That's probably the watch Douglas Adams wrote about at the beginning of the first Hitchhiker book. 

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, spectre6000 said:

That's probably the watch Douglas Adams wrote about at the beginning of the first Hitchhiker book. 

Arthur Dent thought his was useful. Classic book and tv series.

[tomh207]

3 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Arthur Dent thought his was useful. Classic book and tv series.

Remember, time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, tomh207 said:

Remember, time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so

My lunchtimes are usually double, and my missus occasionally thinks thats an illusion. " haven't you just eaten honey "   " erm no this is my first plateful sweetheart "

[Bearman]

On 9/17/2022 at 8:50 PM, AndyHull said:

Possibly a National Semiconductor or TI module. There is nothing in the images to give the game away. 
Usually there are some clues on the circuit board, but you would need to disassemble the module to see, which is not without risk.
Its fairly early as the circuit is on a ceramic substrate with printed silvered traces, and the later ones typically used copper clad fibreglass or even cheaper srbp (synthetic resin bonded paper) PCB construction. 

Thanks Andy, I would put money on it being a National Semiconductor module. I have seen similar but they had stickers saying as such. I did look into trying to dissemble it and thought the better of it. It seemed very firmly in the case. 

I'm going to have to dig out a copy of the hitchhikers guide now. Hadn't read it in some years.

[AndyHull]

Three for 99p - The 1977 Marlin was the one I was interested in, but the Pulsar looks wearable too. Not sure what the W&W contains. Time will tell.

[Neverenoughwatches]

23 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

Three for 99p - The 1977 Marlin was the one I was interested in, but the Pulsar looks wearable too. Not sure what the W&W contains. Time will tell.

Haha Andy you're the 404 king  mate. Nice Timex . Dying to see you set that bench up, you still doing the tourist guide ?

[AndyHull]

18 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

you still doing the tourist guide ?

Yup. Today was St Andrews. A quick stop off at the start of Old Course for pictures and then on to the front of the Old Course Hotel where there was a collection of Netherlands registered super cars.

Somewhere around 25 of them, and if we guestimate that the average price was north of 100 grand a pop, there must have been easily a cool 2.5 million in shiny poser mobiles in the car park, not including the scattering of other fancy price machines that belonged to the hotel guests. From there we took a quick round of the town and sat outside in a cafe next to the bookshop and had coffee in the warm windless sunshine.

Not bad for late September on the east coast in Scotland.

[Neverenoughwatches]

11 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

Yup. Today was St Andrews. A quick stop off at the start of Old Course for pictures and then on to the front of the Old Course Hotel where there was a collection of Netherlands registered super cars.

Somewhere around 25 of them, and if we guestimate that the average price was north of 100 grand a pop, there must have been easily a cool 2.5 million in shiny poser mobiles in the car park, not including the scattering of other fancy price machines that belonged to the hotel guests. From there we took a quick round of the town and sat outside in a cafe next to the bookshop and had coffee in the warm windless sunshine.

Not bad for late September on the east coast in Scotland.

Sounds like a great day Andy

[Bearman]

Here's three more freshly arrived for the 404 club. Sold as non runners. Thankfully all seem to be running, just needing a clean and buffing. The Montine's stem was loose and was helpfully attached with sticky tape. Got lucky here as it appears the screw was loose and soon had this remedied.

 

 

[KarlvonKoln]

Had decent luck with the $1 watch bin at my local flea market.  The one on the left, the Benrus 3-Star Self Winding, was presumed to be a non-runner, as it had no crown.  I used a small screwdriver to test it, and it wound up and ran so I bought it.  It will need a thorough cleaning as the rotor is gummed up and hardly turns.

The one on the right is a Rivera by Avalon.  It was presumed a non-runner, but I noticed the second hand and minute hand were locked together.  At home, I uncased it and raised the second hand slightly, and it took off running immediately. 

The Benrus I may sell after I have serviced it.  But the Rivera I may keep because I am a sucker for the color combination of black and gold.

Edited October 7, 2022 by KarlvonKoln

[spectre6000]

You have a flea market with a $1 watch bin??? Lucky...

[KarlvonKoln]

4 minutes ago, spectre6000 said:

You have a flea market with a $1 watch bin??? Lucky...

Only lucky to find these in it.  And lucky to sometimes find other decent vintage watches in it.  Usually the $1 bin is full of dirt cheap off-brand quartz watches the like of which you might find in a crane game or other vending machine.  If the vendor doesn't recognize the name or doesn't think it's genuine, he'll dump it in the $1 bin.
In my defense, before buying something I feel is worth more, I'll say to him that I found it in the $1 bin and it seems decent, are you sure?  And he will look at it, and if the crystal is all scratched up or it has no crown or doesn't run and he doesn't want to fool with it, then he usually says "Yep, I'm sure - $1".  And I think he knows I often put in enough work on these that any profit I may make is very slim.

[AndyHull]

Swatch Irony - probably one of these...

Since the pictures were terrible I was the only bidder. It may be a paper weight of course, but I paid next to nothing, with free postage.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

Swatch Irony - probably one of these...

Since the pictures were terrible I was the only bidder. It may be a paper weight of course, but I paid next to nothing, with free postage.

 

Haha. Sometimes selling folk just have crappy cameras or phones. Most buyers don't even give them a second look. But if it sells for a quid or two it's worth a gamble. Picked up a 15 quid gamble the other day a good brand but tatty. Inside to my great surprise  it had housed a low volume made  DD movement ☺

[Neverenoughwatches]

Hi all . So here we have a bunch of 175s thats 12 watches for 21 quid. This is the new Dirty Dozen, very dirty and pretty sad. All art deco , love that style and eranot checked any of them as yet but 4 have stems missing and 3 without a crystal but i have a shed load of fancies so fingers crossed.  It's going to be an interesting evening and I'll be happy if just one has some life. Good test for tge new scope as well.

[AndyHull]

Well the Swatch arrived, and once the battery was replaced, it works (of course). Under the fluorescent light of my magnifier it has a distinctly pinkish hue, but under normal lighting it is almost exactly the same red as the Swiss Army knife, and in the sellers pictures it is distinctly purple. Very odd. 

18 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

... I'll be happy if just one has some life...

I'd put the odds around 80% success rate for each of them. That's roughly what I've been batting.

Edited October 18, 2022 by AndyHull

[Neverenoughwatches]

48 minutes ago, AndyHull said:

Well the Swatch arrived, and once the battery was replaced, it works (of course). Under the fluorescent light of my magnifier it has a distinctly pinkish hue, but under normal lighting it is almost exactly the same red as the Swiss Army knife, and in the sellers pictures it is distinctly purple. Very odd. 

I'd put the odds around 80% success rate for each of them. That's roughly what I've been batting.

Interesting Andy, only 3 have a running balance .The only real solid potential is labelled meyer and studelisa on the movement, solomax inside the caseback and Medana on the dial. Was a quality watch in its day looking at it with some toughness. All quite old , one has a 1942 service mark inside. There is an awful lot of work between them needing hairsprings staffs regulator pins, stems, escape wheels etc etc. Its all good practice  and learning  to be had from them regardless of their outcomes

[AndyHull]

I have picked up a couple of these "Soviet" or more precisely "Tevios" Persestroika era watches over the last couple of years.

Both are sporting Raketa USSR era jewelled quartz movements.

One looks to be more or less unworn condition, and features a rather intrusive hologram on the dial, which makes reading the time slightly awkward.

The other looks as clean, and unworn, though it is missing its strap and oddly is also missing two screws in the movement. I will replace the screws once I find a suitable donor in my parts stash.

[AndyHull]

 

Today I've ben working on a 21 Jewel Peseux 320 based Accurist, probably from the early 1950s, with a number of issues including a broken stem. It rocked in at just under half of the 404 club entry requirements.

Its now all back together and keeping reasonably good time, all be it a little fast.  I'll regulate it more exactly if it makes it through the next 24 hours without any issues.

The dial has a little bit of cosmetic damage (not my doing), and there was plenty of evidence of earlier attempts to work on it in the past, including that rather obvious skid mark on the top of the balance cock.

I managed to slightly improve the dial, however it will never be perfect, but since it is a Peseux 320 for one pound ninety nine pence, can live with that.

The band claims to be "Burberry" and "Genuine leather", but I have my doubts about both claims, however it was the only 17mm strap I had left in my stash. I may change it later, but for now, it stays.

Edited October 23, 2022 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

I'm SporTicus!

Today's fine specimen is a "Sporticus" stopwatch.

That hurdler doesn't really appear to be enjoying himself does he?

This is probably an early BFG 611 caliber and was pretty shabby when it arrived, with no crystal, no bow, a bent hand, and not running, but that is par for the course in the 404 club I guess.

It is all straightened out and running fine now, and even sporting some shiny new "glass". Fitting this required some acetone as somebody had previously superglued in an acrylic crystal, remnants of which were still firmly wedged in place around the bezel. Acetone is pretty good for removing superglue.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

Another 404 club pocket watch is on the bench tonight.

Above we have the "as purchased" pics. Pretty filthy, even for the stuff I pick up,  you have to admit.

This is the pin lever Swiss movement, interestingly it has an exhibition case back, so you can see the lovely filth works inside.

It needed a mainspring, which surprisingly I had in my stash, and also a deep clean and a fair bit of screw rust and green cheese removal and much brass plate cleaning, all by hand I might add.

It is now running really nicely, and hopefully will be re-assembled and a new glass fitted tomorrow evening, but here is a quick taster of what is to come.

The nickel case incidentally polished up bright as a new pin.

Edited October 28, 2022 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

Here is "The Walpam" all back together. I still need to do a little tidying up around the crystal.

Some quick on line research suggests the watch was sold somewhere between 1900 and 1910 from Walter Pamment's  Jewellers, 137 Askew Road, London, W12 9AU

Interestingly the property appears to have been built around 1900, and if you feel the urge to rent it today, you rent a shop close by do so for around £50,000.00 per annum.

That price does seem a little steep, when you think that it probably cost a great deal less than that to build the place in 1900 

Here is the view through the exhibition case back.

All in all a very worthy member of the 404 club I would suggest.

Edited October 29, 2022 by AndyHull