Now here is a rare beast. I stumbled across it on eBay looking at my usual search filter, and was instantly intrigued. And I wanted to have it.
After a hefty bidding war, I entered the auction 4s before the end, and won the watch for £ 47.50. That’s the most I will ever be willing to pay for a pin pallet watch that isn’t even working!
What got me was the very unusual display of the time, with mixed analogue / digital elements. The second hand is as on any other analogue watch, but hour, minute and date are digital.
What drew me to the watch was the apparent excellent condition. Dial, crystal, back, case, everything is in good shape. The crystal is of course irreplaceable, as it has 3 little magnifying windows.
I just love it. Great design, and you can’t get any funkier in terms of display of the time.
I’ve seen this movement before. It’s a one jewel Swiss movement, and you can find it in Starlon watches as well. Good, as I have a spare one of those around.
And this is how it works. In the very centre, the arbor for the second hand goes straight through. The inner wheel turns once an hour, and makes the hour wheel in the middle jump by one every turn. The outermost date dial makes one click every complete turn of the hour wheel, which has 2 x 12 hours marked on it.
I can’t get the minute dial off for love nor money, and I don’t want to break the watch. As the bottom plate works well, I will leave it together as it is, and just clean and oil the gear train and balance.
Everything in good nick.
The mainspring is still spritely enough, and I just clean and grease it.
Back together and ticking.
The crystal needed a slight bit of turning as well, as the loupes didn’t quite lign up.
That is one seriously funky watch, and it will definitely stay in my collection.
You can’t tell the time for love nor money, but it looks great!
That’s crazy – looks more like an engineering measurement thing than a watch. Cool though 😉
What a crazy watch, and what a coincidence, I stumbled on one of these yesterday on the bay, despite never seeing one before! (Item No. 190887808426)
On top of that, I’m working on a pin pallet movement very similar to this one, only 15 Jewels (!). The watch is a ‘Bakobe’, and the movement is marked ‘BF84″ I’ve been scouring the bay for spare movement though, as the hairspring is a tangle 🙁 but have had no luck, have you any idea what other brands used this sort of movement?? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Funny you found the same watch, just with a different brand name…
Is this the movement you are looking for? http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=230420282775
Christian
It is indeed, this is the only one i’ve found, but I was loathed to pay £13 for it, when I picked up the watch itself (and a lovely Junghans 🙂 ) for £10!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JUNGHANS-17-JEWEL-SMITHS-JEWELED-BAKOBE-15-JEWELS-/181148416178?nma=true&si=8rtN7JChVlBWT3x4ICS%252FGPR68Z8%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
You can see how similar this movement is to the usual pin pallet 1/none-jeweled type? I may just pick up one for a quid or two and give it ago, especially as this will be the first time i’ve changed a balance out…
Cheers!
Sean