404 Club

[AndyHull]

The Dirty Time Corp "The Beatles" 404 watch was on the bench last night.

The dial paint was starting to flake away around the edges and half of the red was missing from the seconds hand, so a little cosmetic touch up was required to stabilise the dial and freshen up the hand.

Not much else to report. Its a cheap pin lever as expected, and it runs as well as you might imagine following a quick clean and lube, and was still ticking away nicely when I got up this morning.  I presume the dial is a "homage" to the above. As to whether this is a genuine Beatles approved watch, or some blatant cashing in on  Beatlemania, I'm still none the wiser.

This was what it looked like when it arrived.

Edited May 6, 2023 by AndyHull

[Waggy]

Nice work on the dial and hands.

[AndyHull]

4 hours ago, Waggy said:

Nice work on the dial and hands.

Thanks.
I was doing a little digging and found this article about "Dirty Time Company" who's name is stamped on the back of the watch. Sadly it doesn't detail any other watches that "Dirty Time Co" may have produced, so I still don't know whether this is a sanctioned Beatles product, or not. 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-01-me-dougherty1-story.html

 

Quote

Eventually, the phenomenon cooled, but by then Dirty Time Co. had spun off other novelty watches and clocks, including ones featuring Alfred E. Neuman and Ronald McDonald, Jerry Brown and Nixon. The family sold the business in the late 1970s.

My gut feeling is that this is a legit "Dirty Time Co" design, but probably not sanctioned by Apple Records, or the Beatles promotional machine.

Edited May 6, 2023 by AndyHull

[Razz]

I am not exactly sure if this qualifies for the 404 club. I bought this off the bay for US$8.09 (£6.47) with tax and shipping. Knew it was a Winton from pictures of the movement and import code, but all dial lettering long gone. This is filthy and has very worn case. But it is an AS 1287/94 with incabloc shock springs. Not worth the time of day for a professional but for an amateur this seems like a great project. It runs and so we have some numbers to work off of, no complications, and everything is present. The scalloped bezel is kind of cool. It ran for several days, and the mainspring seems intact but now it stops after a few minutes. Anyways here it is...

[AndyHull]

The "Montine of Switzerland"  slim GP 17 Jewel dress watch got a few cosmetic touches last night.

The hands were straightened out,  repainted and re-lumed, and the case back was re-finished, and of course the crystal and strap are also new.

Ignore the slight grubby marks round edge of the new crystal in these pictures. They are caused by the polish I was using, and I did remove them later.

The new lume is actually surprisingly bright, even with a small amount of pigment added to tone down its overly new looking yellow colour. Much more so than the original tritium pips on the dial, which have pretty much lost their luminosity. 

This is what I started with.

Edited May 8, 2023 by AndyHull

[grsnovi]

5 hours ago, AndyHull said:

The "Montine of Switzerland"  slim GP 17 Jewel dress watch got a few cosmetic touches last night.

Looking good Andy!

[Waggy]

15 hours ago, AndyHull said:

The hands were straightened out,  repainted and re-lumed

Great work, especially the hands; re-luming hands is something I need to work on

[spectre6000]

On 5/8/2023 at 6:49 AM, AndyHull said:

slim GP 17 Jewel

Movement shot?

[AndyHull]

I haven't any shots of the thing in pieces, and its not a very exciting mechanism, since it uses the humble ST 96, but here it is.

[RichardHarris123]

1 hour ago, AndyHull said:

I haven't any shots of the thing in pieces, and its not a very exciting mechanism, since it uses the humble ST 96, but here it is.

And you laughed at my checker board. Hehe. 

[AndyHull]

Here is the start of the ST 96 manufacturing process.
 

[AndyHull]

Another guilty ebay pleasure.

I know what you are all thinking, but for two quid plus shipping (the only bidder) I couldn't resist.
Its like caviar and fish and chips.
Sometimes you just can't resist the lure of those cheap guilty pleasures.    Don't tell anybody will you?

Picked up straight from the doormat and dragged out of the scruffy looking jiffy bag, with no other protection, this is the performance I get.

It still had the crystal protector on it, so its basically brand new.

I might give it a service and see if I can get it down to 1sec/day, just for the fun of it, but then again if it 'aint broke, why fix it?

EDIT: I couldn't leave well alone, so rather than strip and clean it, I just lubricated it.

Edited May 11, 2023 by AndyHull

[spectre6000]

Womp womp!

[AndyHull]

A ladies clear plastic watch that isn't a Swatch.


Furthermore it couldn't really be any more "404 club", since I picked it up for £4.04 including shipping, which is a bit of a rarity.

That mechanism looks strangely familiar, and perhaps not in a good way. I'm not expecting quality, just novelty.

 

 

[Waggy]

Another 404 watch, this time a IMADO (?), obtained as part of a lot of 16 so works out to be £1.62, see shots below:

Before front:

And movement:

And glue?!?:

Finished watch:

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, Waggy said:

Another 404 watch, this time a IMADO (?), obtained as part of a lot of 16 so works out to be £1.62, see shots below:

Before front:

And movement:

And glue?!?:

Finished watch:

Russian movement? 

[Waggy]

Not sure, but there was a shim under the balance which a lot if Russian watches have

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 minutes ago, Waggy said:

Not sure, but there was a shim under the balance which a lot if Russian watches have

That's common with Russian watches. But SU   Soviet Union.

[Waggy]

Hmmm could be, I just went back through my disassembly pictures and apart from the SU there are no other markings either under the balance or any where else on the movement that I can see.

[Neverenoughwatches]

12 minutes ago, Waggy said:

Hmmm could be, I just went back through my disassembly pictures and apart from the SU there are no other markings either under the balance or any where else on the movement that I can see.

SU is nearly always on Raketa movements but they made nothing that small. Could try Luch or Chaika they make small ones.  The brass shim is a give away and the marked up left hand thread screw.

23 minutes ago, Waggy said:

Hmmm could be, I just went back through my disassembly pictures and apart from the SU there are no other markings either under the balance or any where else on the movement that I can see.

Chaika make a 1601 calibre but its a single ligne measurement. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Neverenoughwatches

[GuyMontag]

My dresser drawer auction keeps supplying winners. This beauty is a Racine with a Gallet signed movement in a François Borgel stainless steel case.

 

 

 

 

[kd8tzc]

On 5/23/2023 at 5:02 PM, GuyMontag said:

My dresser drawer auction keeps supplying winners. This beauty is a Racine with a Gallet signed movement in a François Borgel stainless steel case.

 

 

 

 

That's beautiful!

[GuyMontag]

2 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

That's beautiful!

Thanks, I've been wearing it for the last week. It's so light and small sometimes I forget I'm wearing it.

[tomh207]

Interesting history and family links with Racine, Gallet and Enicar.  Notice that Racine is Enicar reversed.

 

Tom

[GuyMontag]

10 hours ago, tomh207 said:

Interesting history and family links with Racine, Gallet and Enicar.  Notice that Racine is Enicar reversed.

 

Tom

Right, I think I remember reading that they were cousins (?) but not in business together. I was a little leery working on this one. To date the one movement that has bested me is the Bulova 10AN, which is the same as this Gallet FHF 324. The Bulova I went through two donor movements and I still don't have the original movement working. I gave it a time out and put in a drawer to think about how being mean to me isn't very nice.