It has been a while. A few years ago my son treated himself with a Burberry watch and now the strap had issue's. It had a bad spot with some sticky dirt and the two small bands to keep the strap in place were gone - poor quality. So I ordered a strap online which was luckily still available - via:
With some patience I managed to get the cap off and the tiny battery screw as well. But luck was not on my side. When putting the new battery in and fit the battery clamp with the tiny screw back I lost the screw somehow :-(
So I found a company online in the UK that sold this type of screw. So I ordered 2, just in case. Price 1,25 GBP each and 5 GBP shipping cost plus VAT it was nearly 10 GBP !! And of course when it arrived in NL I had to pay import duties. So another € 7,30 had to be paid. How on earth is it possible that import duty is more expensive than the item itself ??? This must has been the most expensive battery replacement ever.
Next I had to order also a new screwdriver set as the tips of my existing set was to large and did not fit the tiny screw (despite with firm usage I was unable to unscrew them. This set is so much better.
I also I recalled I had this magnifyer tool bought once. This was such a great aid to put the screw into the battery holder again.
So all is nicely put together again and functioning.
But it was fully working and functional and in a very good condition. I figured that finding the matching bracelet would be easy. But I was wrong.
When checking again I see them listed on Ebay for huuuuge prices (above € 200,-). I now suspect they are quite rare.
Luck was on my side as someone on the Dutch marketplace had a flaky one (poor display) for sale in combination with a complete torn apart spare and another spare module. Initially I only wanted the bracelet. But I had to haggle and ended up with the complete spare set.
On arrival the spare was not as good as anticipated and the display unit was stripped and toast. The idea was that I could use the spare stuff in the future if needed.
The bracelet was another small disaster. The push pins (A8) wouldn't come off. So I had it soaked in a WD40 bath but without any joy. The next day I made another cleaning attempt and with a lot of patience one side got off. The other side wouldn't even come off with a little hammering. So I got my dremel out and with the grinder I had cut it open and presto.
Then there was another issue, the push pin (A10) connected at the clasp had one side broken off (or stuck inside). Meaning it would not hold it. I managed to hammer this one out.
So here the end result of the push spring bars. The top one is the one that eventually came out after cleaning and forcing it. Comparing it with the second one I suspect it might have been replaced in the past (perhaps thats why it was in a better condition). The second one got grinded open and came out. Looks like its slighty bigger in diameter as well and a tiny bit shorter. The bottom one is the tail short end which was broken as well. Clearly they are all in a poor and corroded condition.
Next to that both bracelets had a few (3) with missing or broken bars. And some links were simply stuck, meaning unable to move/twist, even after it had soaked for a few hours in a WD40 bath and a bit of slight hammering afterwards.
Now I need to source those push bars, which I think is not difficult. But I'm unsure about the tail short end push bar as that needs to fit the bracelet hole and the outside needs to go into a micro hole.
This Youtube video came in quite handy for putting the spare unit together. But clearly it was not working. Oh well: https://youtu.be/3KoZ-VXDcSI
Oh, it was also missing one push button and it had a spot on the display as well.
By now I have received the wanted parts and I am adding it here for the records
I started first with the push bar connecting the clasp and the bracelet. This one was broke off on one side and still stuck. But with the tools from a starter kit I once bought it came out quite easily. You can see this bar is also quite corroded:
Putting the new one in was a more fiddly job as expected but eventually I got it connected. Whilst I was doing this, another pushbar for clasp itself broke off. DOH! Luckily I had to order these clasp push bars per two. So I had one spare which I could use and even this one required a bit of patience.
Lastly I now tried to have the bracelet actually fitted to the watch itself. This appeared almost impossible. I figured the ones I ordered were simply having the incorrect diameter 18 mm, meaning leaving almost no room to play and get it fitted in the hole. I tried the old working one which was slightly slimmer, 15 mm, and presto it fitted. So now I have to order two new ones with 15 mm diameter.
Whilst I had now had time left I looked into the stuck links, I think there were about 5 or so which would not move at all. I used a needle to get all the dirt removed from the covered spaces which simply blocked the movement of the links. I was surprised how much dirt came out and how much effort it took the get it all loosened up again. For now there is still one pair links of stuck and I can't reach the dirt with the needle. So I now finally ordered a small ultrasoon cleaner
And there is more. Some links has got split pens as I learned. One is broken and some of them has very small pens which are simply lost. Likely these need to be tailor made. As I ordered 2 split pens I'm going to attempt to make one and see if it fits and sticks.
Today the ultrasoon clean arrived. In the first attempt with only clean water not much happened. So on the next round I added a little cleaner concentrate and that did the trick. You can see a lot of black spots at the bottom:
Now the inside corners of the clasp and the inside of the stamped seiko name is mostly clean
Still losening up the one link that is still stuck had not much change after the bath. But by now is almost free. Whilst I was fiddling to get the bracelet put on the watch again one small bar fell out. That happened before and it's a very tiny part. This is one of those small bars I want to make using a long split pen.
Even putting the bracelet back on using the 1,5 mm diameter push bar was more difficult than anticipated. But it's on again. Then I had to redo the clasp mounting so it now fit my wrist.
It was a very good learning exercise and I'm happy with the end result. It has become a slighty more expensive watch but I still think it's good value. And I have some spare parts now as well. The watch is fully functional and clean.
Here you can see Roger Moore wearing the same watch:
Portrait of Roger Moore in 1976
Roger Moore sitting on the trunk of a 'Lotus Esprit' on September 8, 1976 in London
I'm a huge liker of the James Bond movies and actually one of these watches was a trigger for me to start searching around a bit more. I never realized Bond was wearing Seiko, also thought it were the high-end marques, I knew from the last years it was the Omega watch but had no idea about the watches used prior to that. This movie I remember quite well as I have seen it in the cinema when I was a young boy. I was lucky to catch this one for a decent price. The glass is however slightly scratched and the bracelet needs a good clean. Other then that it's pretty much okay. Oh, for the bracelet, it's just a fraction to small for my wrist. So I still need to source some extra elements. In any case, hereby two pictures.
This time it's my daily watch I'm wearing for about the last 25 years or so. Except for the last year, the battery was dead and the straps worn/broken. It was laying useless in the drawer.
I bought this watch about 25 years ago when I spend a weekend in Antwerp with my girlfriend. I liked it very much and decided to treat myself. It costed about 950 Dutch Guilders, not sure how much it was in Belgium Francs.
I consider it a very nice dress watch and not too much in your face or showing off. So you can wear it almost all the time, which I did. I'm surprised it's lasting so long and hardly has any wear signs (it's gold plated).
So time for a fresh battery and new straps and putting it back together. The quartz movement is by the Swiss ETA group, having nr 980.163 and is equipped with 15 jewels:
I got this watch when I purchased the Buler Bertone Stratos watch. It was some kind of compensation for all the hassle and long wait.
I never heard about this brand before but apparently it's a real Swiss watch. It's a manual wind and it's fully working and keeping time well. The straps are good too. I have to say I like the looks of it, very classic and stylish watch.
From what I understand the full name should be Solvil et Titus:
As for the watch, I suspect its from the fifties or sixties, just a guess. There are no markings or references on the watch. Only the dial mentions Titus Geneve, that's it.
When opening up the watch the cap does mention on the inside: Fond Acier Inoxydable Swiss. On the movement: 17 jewels, Titus Watch Co, Swiss
Case dial size: 22 mm
I could not find anything more nor on the Internet. If someone is interested, make me an offer.
I sold this watch for € 25,- a few months ago. The buyer bought it for his daughter as a birthday gift.
When flicking through a book called "Ferrarissima" I noticed these cool adverts in it. One of them was by Momo. And I instantly liked it and looked it up and found one for sale on Ebay in Spain. As the price was right I bought it as well.
For those not familiar with Momo, hereby the wiki link:
I do happen to have Ferrari 400 with a Momo steering wheel, so this would be a nice match. So this was another reason why I bought it.
I could not find out exactly when this watch was designed/produced, but since the book is from 1985 I think it's from that year. Another good reason to buy it as I like the seventies and eighties stuff.
As you can see on the photo it's a very minimalistic style watch and has a modest diameter of 32 mm
I also placed the watch on the actual advert in the book
As it was not running I had to open it up and hoping it was having a dead battery. I actually did not check the battery and simply ordered a new one (Varta V364).
When opening it up I unfortunately made a scratch on the black coated cap, sigh! Yes, just like the LED watch this one does not a small hole for a knife to open it. On the back the following is stamped: water resistant - ETA swiss quartz - all stainless steel. And also the following is engraved: "laiag" I am sure what that means but was unable to find anything about it. The serial or reference is M0917A.
With the cap off I could now see the movement which is having a nice blue circuitboard. It is actually a semi mechanical watch and having 7 jewels.
And having nr 956.032 Clearly I am a novice at this but it was very easy to look up information about this movement. If it was broken somehow you easily can purchase parts or a complete unit, ie:
Since I was working on the other LED watch I figured it might have a poor battery, despite they were both new ordered. So when measuring they both provided 1.5V after all. Out of curiosity I also measured the battery for this Momo watch. To my surprise it also provided 1.5V. So when I put it back in and left it for a few minutes (it has no second hand/marker) it appeared to be working. How's that? I now have a brand new spare battery as it's still running nice and keeping accurate time.
I need to give the leather strap a bit of treatment but other than that it's a nice addition. To bad it's a little small. And I'm also slightly annoyed by the fact not much more info about this model is available on the internet. I sense it's quite a fairly unique watch in the sense of first Momo watches created. I also like the style of the "newer" Essenziale model watches.
Oh, in the advert it did mention it was available in black (men) and in gold. When checking again on Ebay I now found this 18k watch. Adding the photo's here for reference. Its listed for 495 GBP
This one is my latest purchase. I bought it at a Italian market website somewhere in February. And I only received it last week. I will spare you the details on what happened but it was a small miracle I got it in the end.
As you might know or not I'm a classic Italian car enthusiast. As such I bumped into an article about this watch. Clearly these are not mass produced and as such hard to find. In any case I was intrigued by it due to the car related history, the brand and the LED technique used. So I wanted to have one.
Unfortunately I did not make screenshots of the original advert but the provided photos were not exactly good (understatement). I could not have seen that one of the buttons was missing. If I only had known that beforehand. When questioning this afterwards I was informed by her that she thought it was suppose to be like that). I was also informed the bracelet was original (which I seriously doubted) and the watch was functional. But since greed was on my side I bought it nevertheless and ignored all the red flags.
On arrival the first thing I did was the removal of the bracelet. I had already purchased a very cheap watch toolkit when working on my Seiko, so removing it was a easy task. The bracelet was clearly an aftermarket and very small too as it did not fit my wrist.
As I had already done some research regarding these watches I knew there were a few variants available. And originally this watch was luckily supplied with a black leather strap. So I can easily put something similar on.
Removing the battery cover was a completely different game. As there is no small hole to put your knife under it made it very difficult. I was also unsure if it was maybe having a thread screw cap. Certainly there were no indicators for that either. So I figured it had to be pressed. Note there is a print on the cap with an arrow mentioning "bezel" So it had to put back in that direction. I'm unsure what the nr 1009-22952 represents. So when searching for it I hit an expired Catawiki auction with the same model. So I guess it must the model reference nr. Furthermore this auction had provided a very good section of photo's which always good for comparing and checking.
After many fiddling and hurting my fingers I managed to get the cap off. On the inside of the cap you can read the mark "swiss case"
The batteries were seriously oxidated and leaving a black and green marking on the contacts. I believe on the picture below I had already removed a bit. Luckily the batteries have not been leaking or such.
The battery that came out was the following:
At this stage I could not do much more. So I ordered 2 new batteries Varta V392 and a leather strap. The batteries have arrived by now and replaced. Unfortunately nothing happened. Sigh. So I did further cleaning of the battery contacts.
And when putting the batteries in again one LED was presenting a 0. But that was about it. Bummer! Again slightly dissapointed by this:
Then I realized I maybe should try to play around with the push buttons, perhaps I had to toggle with it in order to set the timing. Maybe it did require a combination of pushes or such. Also the push contacts were heavily contaminated. So I had that cleaned as well and tried it. But this had no influence or whatsoever. I was stuck again.
When fiddling around with the batteries again I now ended up with a "1" on the second LED. I know this as I had the unit taken out to inspect the LED screen. You can see clearly it's the 2nd LED. So by now I had at least 2 LEDs intermittently working. This was somewhat encouraging.
Here you can see the unit itself with a supporting sticker mentioning the components are made in the USA and assembled in HongKong
For now I'm still unsure if there is a component defect or a printed circuit damaged. Maybe a capacitor or the crystal quartz/oscillator is defect. I tried to further open it up but didn't want to damage it so I left it. There is one screw but I'm unsure what's the purpose of it. I suspect the NDK63F is the crystal quartz, there is another small component sitting next to it.
When enlarging the photo on the computer, you can visibly read stamped on the unit; unadjusted, hong kong, for collins, no jewel. I need to dig a little more around but don't think I will find much more.
When doing a few more testings (fiddling) I somehow got the single dot LED present, so that's working as well:
Still a shame this push button is missing as I sense this watch can be fixed somehow. On the Catawiki auction you can see how it should be looking like. It looks similar as the other two on the other side, except it does has a hole in it to press the button with a pen or such . The more triangle button is true push button that slides in to push the pin.
Something I realize today is that I'm unsure if the LEDs are suppose to light when simply adding the batteries? I thought this was suppose to happen when using the push button?
So today I subscriped to a FB group specialized in vintage watches, hopefully the can help out.
Yes, today finally the new straps arrived. Finally a easy and very rewarding job to put on. Looks very good in my opinion:
When doing further fiddling with the module I now have a new situation with the LEDs. Previously I almost ended up with a 1 on the 2nd LED (most often) or a 0 or the 4th LED. And very occassionly a dot, as per examples above. And in all those occassions they remained solid on, untill I broke the battery connection. This is odd as I believe the LEDs should be turned on when pressing the button.
Now I have the 4th LED on with 3 characters only and it lasts only a few seconds. I managed to make this unclear photo
This would make more sense to me when replacing batteries and showing some kind of functionality and then go off again.
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