Eterna hand-wind

[anilv]

While Eterna is famous for its contribution to automatic winding, being the leader in a fully rotating automatic winding weight as opposed to the 'bumper' automatic, like any other swiss watches they started their wristwatch era with normal hand-winding watched.

I found this watch on the net for a pittance,

 

Movement shot..

What I like about it..

-unusual movement (Eterna 1020), winding stuff is 'under' the barrel bridge' resulting in a nice clean appearance.

-stainless steel case

-interesting dial (although in poor shape)

-gold hands.. sign of a quality watch.

-and it came with it's own organ donor (below)...albeit it is a 1020S .. the 'S' denoting sweep-seconds. Most of the parts are interchangeable so its nice to have.

 

The case cleaned up well and the movement responded to a cleaning and oiling by springing into life. Only thing I needed from the donor was a case screw (half-cut type). I really like the middle case as its surprisingly thin and elegant. I'm looking for a different crystal as the one I fitted is not the correct low-dome type. The correct crystal will only emphasis the slimness of this watch. I also refitted the dial after loosening/removing some oxidation... I don't plan to re-finish it as honestly its not worth the money and I can live with it as it is. One thing I noticed is that the plating on the main plates are silverish, similar to vintage Movado.. its a bit worn now but it would have looked really good back in the day.

I didn't take any pictures of the cleaning movement as it is a pretty straightforward mechanism. Here are some pics of it back together and on my wrist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A truly undervalued watch. Hope you enjoyed this.

Anil

 

[ramrod]

i like. it's got a story behind it, for sure. that is a very interesting movement - it's like a full bridge on the old pocketwatches. everything is hidden. real clean looking. who knows? maybe you'll find another dial someday.  that dial is probably too far gone to restore?

[Cad101]

I don't mind the dial its part of the watches history. You really can pick up some bargains on the bay because people tend to overlook nice watches that look old and grubby but if you don't mind them there's nothing wrong with that and  giving that old distressed looking watch its life back always makes you feel better.

[anilv]

Well Ramrod,

Pretty much any dial can be restored... but its only original once!

Looking at the dial it seems to be paint on gilt.. darker in the middle. Pretty much impossible toreplicate. A redial would only be plain paint with the eterna script pad printed on top.

I think that leaving it as it is gives a hint as to how dials were done in the past.

Anilv

[bobm12]

Nice find and great job, Anil! Straight forward mechanism maybe, but solid as a rock...there is watch there for a while!

Cheers,

Bob