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7 hours ago, AndyHull said:

Another of those whodunit watches. This time an Eden-matic 21 jewel automatic joins the club. The amplitude is a little low at around 255 but other than that it seems to have enjoyed its clean and lube session, and a new crystal has brought up the dial quite nicely.

The strap is borrowed from a digital, but I'll pop it on a leather one, once it has settled down and be regulated and adjusted to my satisfaction.

RIMG0577.thumb.JPG.46bc59f9a150e3967d60bc97258efe3e.JPG

I can find very little information about this particular brand, so any clues would be very welcome.

What's  under the  hood?

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Scraping away layers of paint and grime, revealed this 1978 Timex Marlin front loader. Dead as a door nail, and fully wound when it arrived, it is now running well.

RIMG0582.thumb.JPG.05f4c9f5836e28356fe81bbae79b0904.JPG

It obviously still has a few battle scars, and the crown needs some attention, but what would a vintage watch be, without a little age related character.

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20 hours ago, m1ks said:

Bfg866 pin pallet.

I was unfamiliar with the name but bought this because I liked the design over typical jump hour watches. Marked swiss on the dial.

 

I have trouble  reading things  like small numbers  without  reading  glasses  with a standard  analog watch I have no trouble. 

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Today this ThusyT from probably around 1950, with its fair share of age-associated patina and, at 37mm, a big boy for its time. Like this one, the few I’ve seen of this brand seem to have mainly been sold from Italy and whilst the name is recorded in Mikrolisk, the maker is shown as “unknown” but speculated to have been Swiss.

Today’s effort is another example of mismatched jewel counts between dial and movement and despite the “206” on the bridge, is running on a 13’’’ Unitas cal. 176, unfortunately not represented in either R.R. or Lorenz. An alternative version of the 176 is shown in a German archive but with “207” on a substantially different bridge configuration from mine.

Concluding today’s little mystery, a Thusyt watch driven by an AS 1203 movement is featured in a short YouTube video (why??) without dialogue but captioned in Portuguese.

Regards.

ThusyT 2018 v.2.jpg

ThusyT Unitas 176 v.2.jpg

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On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 1:43 AM, m1ks said:

Bfg866 pin pallet.

I was unfamiliar with the name but bought this because I liked the design over typical jump hour watches. Marked swiss on the dial.

 

 

 

Possibly Swiss-made by the Basis Watch Co and then branded for Willy Herman’s London-based Trafalgar Watch Co, distributors of watches at the OMG end of the spectrum. The entrepreneurial Willy and his watches apparently did good business with Messrs. Tesco (other Supermarkets are available).

Regards.

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15 hours ago, balaton said:

 

 

Possibly Swiss-made by the Basis Watch Co and then branded for Willy Herman’s London-based Trafalgar Watch Co, distributors of watches at the OMG end of the spectrum. The entrepreneurial Willy and his watches apparently did good business with Messrs. Tesco (other Supermarkets are available).

Regards.

Thanks, interesting info.

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Another Timex novelty watch, with a cow, and a fly... nope I have no idea why.

RIMG0605.thumb.JPG.b81b5fba3720ddfce80e06f94e996597.JPG

 

This arrived with the battery retaining clip missing, so I had to fabricate one.

RIMG0602.thumb.JPG.7b4dbea665168734cc51998d4c8b33b7.JPG

Rather fittingly, since I had no brass sheet thin enough,  I resorted to a small piece of the lid of a can of sardines, rescued from the trash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiKLDkO-0rQ

 

The paint was sanded off, then the metal was tinned with the soldering iron and cut/filed to shape, so If you see a bunch of flies following me around, there may be a reason for that. They are either after the watch, or more likely, the sardines. :wacko:

CowWatch.gif

Edited by AndyHull
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22 hours ago, AndyHull said:

Another Timex novelty watch, with a cow, and a fly... nope I have no idea why.

RIMG0605.thumb.JPG.b81b5fba3720ddfce80e06f94e996597.JPG

 

This arrived with the battery retaining clip missing, so I had to fabricate one.

RIMG0602.thumb.JPG.7b4dbea665168734cc51998d4c8b33b7.JPG

Rather fittingly, since I had no brass sheet thin enough,  I resorted to a small piece of the lid of a can of sardines, rescued from the trash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiKLDkO-0rQ

 

The paint was sanded off, then the metal was tinned with the soldering iron and cut/filed to shape, so If you see a bunch of flies following me around, there may be a reason for that. They are either after the watch, or more likely, the sardines. :wacko:

CowWatch.gif

All the neighbourhood cats will love you.

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46 minutes ago, yankeedog said:

And , you are not showing us your work???????

Just to prove there was nothing fishy about my last post, I wouldn't want you to think I was skating round the problem, or conning you hook, line and sinker, here are a couple of images trawled from my image stash.

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RIMG0615.thumb.JPG.d49d67bf29bde0bd5abd92109760de15.JPG

.. and some suitable musical accompaniment..

 

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Back to the Eden-matic today.

RIMG0618.thumb.JPG.44e9d8208126423f91f03eec08d9d906.JPG

Its a lot healthier than it was, and running fairly well, but the amplitude is a little on the low side, hovering around 200(°) - 220(°) dial up, and a little worse, dial down. 

image.thumb.png.c2a806e20d0ccc0b136ddeb17492dc28.png

I'll wear it tomorrow and see if it settles down, before sorting out that rather large rate error.

I'm wondering if I need to re-visit the mainspring. 

4fd440497df21_260372b.jpg

I also found out a little more about the maker. It seems that Eden and Eden-matic were brand names of Fabrique d’Horlogerie B. Gisiger-Greder (Gisiger-Greder Watchmakers), from Selzach (in the Solothurn canton north western Switzerland).

More of their brand names here -> http://www.mikrolisk.de/show.php?site=280&suchwort=Gisiger-Greder&searchWhere=all#sucheMarker


The company seems to have vanished sometime after 1975, so presumably yet another victim of the quartz crisis. 

Edited by AndyHull
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I sorted another one of these 19 Jewel Raketa 2609HA based Sekondas a while back.

This latest one was in a job lot, and as well as the usual layers of filth, it was missing its stem and crown.

 

RIMG0628.thumb.JPG.efcd70acff7db7903953b818b35fc32f.JPG

The dial had a bunch of nasty black and grey dots and scratches, the majority of which which were carefully masked with thinned white nail polish.

RIMG0621.thumb.JPG.5e451b22c0f4b89c4c2807ef2e258a12.JPG

 

The crystal still needs a final polish, and the stem is about 1mm too long, but its going nicely.

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40 minutes ago, yankeedog said:

The cockroach  of watches.

I presume by that, you mean that they would survive a nuclear apocalypse, rather than that they are tasty when fried in a wok.

:D

EDIT: I forgot to mention it also needed the winding pinion replaced as there were teeth missing. I also shortened the stem to the correct length, and re-polished the crystal, so it now looks a whole lot better.

I'll finish adjusting and regulating it tomorrow. The Eden-matic (from the same job-lot) is also going nicely. The pair of them can then join the 404 club.

Edited by AndyHull
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