The world’s first transistorised electronic balance movement: The Citizen Cosmotron X8
The heart of every mechanical watch movement is the balance, whose role is to control the release of power from …
Category Archives: Vintage
A faux milspec 6309 revisited: Seiko 6309-8010 from 1976 and 1977
One of my longest-lived watches is a grab ‘n’ go beater, a bastardised aggregation of disconnected parts that came together …
Lift angle: Seiko Business-A 8346A and Bell-Matic 4006A
If you have ever used a timegrapher to measure the timing of a mechanical watch, you will have come across …
A Seiko Champion 850 Alpinist J13079 from May 1963
In 1959 Seiko released the Seiko Laurel Alpinist, a recreational sports watch designed specifically to meet the needs of Japanese …
Perturbations and the act of observation: A Seiko 6139-8040 from November 1974
In classical physics, a foundational principle is that it is possible to assign precise values simultaneously to all physical properties …
Citizen Ace Para Water A1307051 from 1962: Part 2
In part 1, we made our introductions and rendered one rather beautiful Citizen Ace Parawater into its constituent parts. Most …
Citizen Ace Para Water A1307051 from 1962: Part 1
Although the title of this blog does not identify its main source of horological inspiration, it is fair to say …
The end of the beginning: The Grand Seiko 4520-8000
The emergence of Grand Seiko as a high-end brand with staying-power took some time to resolve convincingly: four years passed …
A ghost bezel Seiko Navigator Timer 6117-8000 from 1969
Occasionally I ruminate over what combination of features might contribute to rendering the perfect watch. This is, of course, a …
Girard-Perregaux: repairs, loose ends and reflections on the practicalities of a vintage watch
I am one of those weirdos who buy old watches to use as they were originally intended. I buy watches …
Origins of the Seikomatic: A 30 jewel Seikomatic 15031D from January 1963
Seiko’s first wholly in-house automatic movement was the Gyro Marvel, developed in 1959 as an evolution of the Marvel/Laurel hand-wind …
Adventures in Amateur Watch Fettling 