Ghost Position - is it normal in new watches?

[brunomartins]

Hello!

I use to practice only with manual wind without date or other features so far. So I never work with new movements and other complexities.

But my question is more comprehensive regarding movements.

I noticed in some new watches like Squale Superblue that it has a ghost position.

I am almost sure that this is because this a version of another model (more expensive) with date feature, so it seems they just use the same movement (and same stem) and the "ghost" position appears. It's really annoying and kind painful to push a brand new watch stem with this characteristic. But apparently safe.

I would like to know from your experience if this though is valid.

 

 

[RichardHarris123]

I don't know for sure but I think your reasoning is correct.  I  have a watch with only the hour and minute hands but the movement should have sub seconds.  The brand probably bought a job lot of movement and adapted them for their purpose. 

[Marc]

You may well find out that it's less of a "ghost" position than you think. The Sellita SW200-1 comes with a date complication. It's probably not cost effective to remove it for non-date watches so you may well find that under the dial on the non-date version of the watch is a fully intact date complication, the only difference being the date window in the dial.

[Neverenoughwatches]

1 hour ago, Marc said:

You may well find out that it's less of a "ghost" position than you think. The Sellita SW200-1 comes with a date complication. It's probably not cost effective to remove it for non-date watches so you may well find that under the dial on the non-date version of the watch is a fully intact date complication, the only difference being the date window in the dial.

Yep i remember reading something ages ago about ghost calender rings, they're there but you dont see them . Like ghosts, coincidentally my home is full of them  

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, brunomartins said:

I am almost sure that this is because this a version of another model (more expensive) with date feature, so it seems they just use the same movement (and same stem) and the "ghost" position appears. It's really annoying and kind painful to push a brand new watch stem with this characteristic. But apparently safe.

2 hours ago, Marc said:

You may well find out that it's less of a "ghost" position than you think. The Sellita SW200-1 comes with a date complication.

I think you'll find this is probably quite common with a lot of watch companies. It's cheaper to buy one movement than several movements. I have the websites of the company that manufactures the movement and you'll find that the 200 – one comes in two versions.

So this version as your so-called ghost position but that's for setting the date

Then there's this version which is what you would like to have only two positions

But there are problems with this description there showing. The reason for the problem is if I download the tech sheet for the one without the calendar I get the tech sheet for both of them. That's because in real life there's only one movement. You have a movement that has a calendar or you have a movement that does not. Sometimes when they do not they might even have a disk there that's just blank I've seen that we take the dial often there's a calendar disc.

https://sellita.ch/index.php/en/movements

 

 

[brunomartins]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

I think you'll find this is probably quite common with a lot of watch companies. It's cheaper to buy one movement than several movements. I have the websites of the company that manufactures the movement and you'll find that the 200 – one comes in two versions.

So this version as your so-called ghost position but that's for setting the date

Then there's this version which is what you would like to have only two positions

But there are problems with this description there showing. The reason for the problem is if I download the tech sheet for the one without the calendar I get the tech sheet for both of them. That's because in real life there's only one movement. You have a movement that has a calendar or you have a movement that does not. Sometimes when they do not they might even have a disk there that's just blank I've seen that we take the dial often there's a calendar disc.

https://sellita.ch/index.php/en/movements

 

 

I think this is understandable for small/medium brands that want to deliver quality but need to be financially sustainable. But I also found this in a nice cosc tag heuer once.

Regarding the date disc actually exists, I tried to hear the clicks of rounding the covered date dial in the “ghost pos” but I couldn’t hear, maybe they disengage something to avoid any issue.

[spectre6000]

My daily wear watch has just such a "ghost position" with an ETA 2824-2 (essentially the same movement). I tracked down the crown detent spring that eliminates that middle position a while back, and when I finally get around to servicing the movement I'll remove the date complication parts and replace the spring to eliminate the ghost position. I think the part was something like $8 (I could be way more than wrong, memory is very fallible, and that is not the sort of amount that one thinks much of), but that's for the ETA movement. Supposedly the Sellitas are so substantially similar that parts interchange in some places, but I don't know if this is one of them and don't have a Sellita to hand to where I'd be able to test the theory.