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6 minutes ago, ricardopalamino said:

Also Andy , or anyone else interested ,...you can get a ton of Info on Sweephands vintage Citizen watch blog . Below is a link . 

 

https://sweep-hand.org/

 

Sweephand is a very knowledgeable fellow in all things vintage citizen and is a great guy to swap messages about Citizens with . 

Thanks. An interesting site.

 

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2 hours ago, ricardopalamino said:

It is a nice classic  , clean looking watch .  I agree with your thoughts on becoming a throw away society .

I feel that so many quartz watches that end up in dresser draws are an example and victim of that attitude . 

I vote that you find a new crystal for that puppy .

I don't think I'm going to spring for a crystal, however I will give the glass the full treatment when I have a bit of spare time.


I also need to pop out the movement, and attack things with the air duster,  as there is a tiny, mobile,  irritating dark spec of something floating around under the glass that detracts from the otherwise fairly pristine dial and hands.

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As an introduction of my daily-wear collection I today wear an olden goldie from the early 1970's, Buler Astromaster. I think the Astromaster was produced between 1972-1979.
It has a Baumgartner 582 pin-escapement movement, the first of that type I worked on.
I enjoy it very much and think it´s a bunle of fun for around 100 bucks. According to unknown sources any resemblance with a watch like AP Royal Oak is just an coincidence ;)
 

ASTROMASTER.jpg

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I love the look of that Astromaster! That looks like my kind of watch.

Today I have been wearing an "all show and now substance" number from .. well pretty recently by the look.

Inside there beats the usual Chinesium 32kHz heart. It needed a battery and off it went.

This was from a recent pile of junk that I picked up for buttons from fleabay principally for the leather straps. Mostly the watches are a garish bunch of those weird pseudo chronographs and copper plated frying pans with useless buttons that seem to be all the rage at the moment.

This however was slightly less of a shock to the eyes and no shock whatsoever to the wallet, basically free with a bunch of leather bands and other tat. The band on it looks to have maybe been worn once, and is genuine leather. There is a tiny scratch on the glass, which you can't actually see in the picture. What looks like scratches are actually hairs. Judging by the number of them I think I must be distantly related to some blond neanderthals.  I looked this little guy up on line, and it is actually surprisingly expensive, for what it is (nice strap though).

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Andy, the best watches are those that comes for free...
I have a 70's week, today I air one of my Japanese gems. It's a CITIZEN seven star V2 with an automatic 7700 25 Jewels movement.
It has a crown push quick set day date with Japanese/English display.  One push for date and a double for day, little like playing a vintage flipper.

One just have to love the hour markers popping up 2 mm from the dial.

CITIZEN V2.jpg

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The HMT Rajat 21 jewel automatic got its new "genuine leather" strap today, and it does appear that not all pigs in China are made of cardboard, either that or the cardboard pigs are starring to produce some very convincing faux leather.

With its very prominent hour markers and rounded case, it has a similar look to @HSL's Citizen, which given HMT's Citizen licensed movements and know how, is perhaps unsurprising. This is also a bi-lingual movement, but substitutes Hindi script for the Kanji on the Citizen.

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If you get real close to your screen and take a deep breath, you may be able to just detect the faint whiff of real leather, or perhaps "real leather" essence, time will no doubt tell which of the two it is. 

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Yes it's very similar, an Indian beauty.
I see the HMT has its crown at  3 a clock while the Citizen has it at 4. Otherwise it seem to bee similar 70's stunning hour markers and the same color scheme.
The leather strap makes a huge improvement to the Citizen SS 70's wristband ...

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Baum & Mercier Capeland Automatoc  that I picked up in a watch swap a few months ago . This came with the box and pillow .

At first I just took a cursory look a this watch and thought it nothing special , so I put it away for a sale in the future .

Then one day I had to attend to some business and was trying to decide which watch to wear . Since I rarely dress as formally as I had to for that meeting , I decided to wear a watch that fitted the occasion and opened the box with this watch ,.. and then realized how clean and contemporary looking this watch was, .so I choose to wear it and developed  an appreciation for it .

It doesn't look it because of it's pure round shape , but this watch is a tad over 39mm W/O the crown .

 

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Nice Time piece ricardopalamino!

In the 70's everything had to be extravaganza and high heels. But up in the Swiss alps Longines though about making a comeback from the Quarts attack.
The result is like this clean and crisp golden winged watch, powered with an 6952 movement it has a elaborate complication which shows a date.
Think I have to change the leather strap on this one since it feels a bit stiff, not at all like the smooth touch it used to deliver at earlier use.

 

Longines.jpg

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Very nice indeed. Quality and refinement in spades.

Let me lower the tone a bit. Well we need a little bit of contrast to the previous two beauties.

I popped a similar black band to the one I fitted to the  HMT, on the "Unique" that I resurrected yesterday. This band however is almost certainly made from cardboard cows, so it matches the watch quite well.

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I did a quick image search for the calibres of the Longines and the Baum & Mercier Capeland Automatic, and I must confess, this is a 1970's Trabant parked next to two luxury sedans.

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The brains of the operation in all its one jeweled glory. You can practically hear it ticking from the other end of the street.

Edited by AndyHull
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Happy Thanksgiving all you watch loving' Turkeys.....:stuff:

Today I chose to wear a Tag Here Carrera caliber 16 . This model uses the Valjoux / ETA 7750 movement  .

This just happened to be the first watch I worked on with a 7750 . I opened the back of the watch when I first got it because the rotor would spin when it was hand wound , and I wanted to clean and lubricate the automatic assembly .

Well , a part of the chronograph popped out and I had no Idea where it came from . I was sweating bullets , but I soon found out how much info is available for this caliber . Especially ETA's Swiss Lab walk thru tutorial for this and other models .

 

This version has the likeness of race car driver Juan Manual Fangio featured on the case back . 

I can honestly say that this is one of the best feeling watches on the wrist that I own . It's one of those "You know it when you feel it " Pleasures .

 

The Watch :

 

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Casual Black Friday!
Not far from Longines OLMA were thinking of a clean crisp design too, a tribune to the 50's.
The result was a pimped up version of an 50's OLMA. Long before pimp up my car they began to hammer on a ST96 movement and behold.. (Now it is time for you to put on your sunglasses!)
Here is the result. (Just for fun I added the crystal back to it).

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Slim understated and elegant this 'aint. Then again, I defy you to find me a 1970s digital jump hour that fits the bill for slim and elegant.

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At 11.79mm thick, by the time you add in the strap which is proud of the dial, or should that be display, this thing is almost as thick as three Piaget Altiplano 900P watches stacked one on top of the other.  The case also appears to have had a run in with a welding torch.

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On the plus side.. it err.. more or less tells the time, in a slightly jumbled 1970s quirky fashion. Inside is an EB8800 variant, so it also tells the time fairly loudly.

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Here’s an interesting piece... it belongs to my sister-in-law, who inherited it from an uncle. My brother was unable to find any info on it, so while I’m visiting them I thought I’d post some pics and see what you folks think. It’s badged as an Omega, but there are no other markings on dial or case. Note the faceted crystal too. I’d have photographed the movement, but I’m away from home and tools. Ignore the Timex strap...

Cheers,

Gryf

 

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Edited by Gryf
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No logo on the crown... I looked. I suggested to my brother that this may be a Faux-mega (ha), but he pointed out that the uncle who owned it was known to live large, and to own a fake watch wasn’t in his nature. He also mentioned that the Uncle was well up in the executive ranks of his business, and that this might have been a customized presentation model from the management. All I know is that I can’t find anything remotely like it online. Soo... a puzzlement. He did verify that it’s a spring-wound movement and not quartz. He had a watchmaker inspect it a while back, and it was verified as an Omega.

Gryf

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Speaking of high up in the organisation, this 'ere watch claims to be the "Chancellor". I'm not sure about that, but it does keep reasonable time considering it is powered by a humble EB 8810.

Ignore the over sized strap, I had nothing suitable to hand, and I wanted to give it a test run.

 

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Lost the 70's feeling so here comes something total different...

ORMO by Raisch & Wössner KG, they were located at Pforzheim in Germany, this specimen is powered by an AS 984.
Despite for the 40's massive dial, 35mm in diameter the movement is only 10.5". They probably wanted an heavy feel so they filled the case with a massive stainless steel ring. 
My specimen comes with the scratches and bumps in the dial accumulated from love wear and tear over the watches 70 years old life. I find it just charming.

ORMO.jpg

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I was going to put the "Westclocks Scottish made" on today if it had been reliable enough, but sadly it is not realistically going to make it through a full day of time keeping. You can see it  -> here <- though if you are interested.

Instead, another freebie, this time a "Seconda Xpose".

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This is really a kids or teenagers watch, but it is actually surprisingly well finished. Its one failing is that the dial bezel doesn't rotate. If I were of an age to receive this watch I might feel a little cheated. Even the really cheap pseudo divers have a click bezel. :(

On the plus side, it looks like it would easily survive a muddy off road bike ride, some serious gardening, and even a wet trip round the Scottish hills.

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The velcro strap does however provide a new and interesting way to remove hairs from my rapidly balding wrist.

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