Vintage Omega Seamaster Review

One of the downsides of collecting watches is the price of admission. While it�s true that there are a lot of truly fine poor man's watches out there (and there are folks who can convincingly argue that some examples of these bargain models match their pricier counterparts in all respects), the big names don't come cheap. You like Rolex, Omega, Tag Heuer, etc., bring money and lots of it. A cheap example of one of these will set you back at least six or seven hundred dollars (and that for a quartz model no less), while the good stuff is well up into the thousands of dollars. If, like me, you just don't have that kind of cash to throw around, (my kids and my money go private school), the situation could get really depressing. Fortunately, there is another way go. Take a deep breath, step back and consider the used watch market, or if you like the classier term, vintage market (to make it sound a little less like buying a used car).

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It should be noted that even in the vintage market, some brands hold their value so well that there are few bargains to be had. If you are expecting a Rolex for $200 you will be sorely disappointed. Other brands, however, are very reasonably priced and if you take your time and look around, you can do very well. A few words of caution, however. The fact that a watch is old does not mean that it isn't a fake. The reality is that there are fake vintage watches out there (Seamaster 300 fakes aren't uncommon) and it isn't hard to mistake one for the genuine article. Similarly, there are a lot of so-called frankenwatches (a seemingly acceptable watch that is actually an amalgam of several other watches) floating around. The bottom line is that you should make a point of learning something about the vintage watch you are interested in. With the amount of available data online (Omega, for instance, has an online database of its vintage watches and movements) and the existence of enthusiast forums where one can ask an expert a question, researching a vintage watch isn't terribly hard anymore. Other caveats with a vintage watch, don't assume that the water resistance is functioning and expect the lume to be burnt out. Lastly, make sure that you have access to a competent watchmaker. It is reasonable to expect that a vintage watch will need a cleaning if nothing else. If all of this is too much for you, stick with new watches (not that there aren't plenty of fakes there either though).

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On to the Omega. This particular model is a 1966 Seamaster DeVille. It is powered by a model 611 hand wound movement with a date display. The watch is a traditional sized man's watch, small by today�s standard at 35mm (including the crown) but it still looks quite good. The watchcase is Omega's Unishell design that opens only through the dial side which can make servicing tricky. The crystal is an acrylic one that fortunately was not scratched. The watchband is a Hadley-Roma that I added for about $25. The Omega was very clean when I got it, and when opened, it had a jeweler's date mark on the inside of the case indicating a servicing had been done two years ago. Not surprisingly, the original lume was not functioning.

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The only substantial change that I made to this Omega, aside from adding a strap, was to have the lume re-done by Kent Parks at Everest Watchworks. A non-operative lume on a watch just plain bothers me and Kent is a wizard with this sort of job. Now it looks great, probably better than new considering the advances in lume technology and I am very satisfied with the result. You can't even tell that anything was changed under normal lighting. Only in the dark is the change apparent and even then, in keeping with the watch's character, the lume is just enough to be read. It would look ridiculous if it glowed like a Seiko diver after all.

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Now none of this would really mean much if I had paid through the nose for this Omega. That, thankfully, was not the case. The total bill for the watch, the re-lume, the new band and a thorough look-see by my jeweler came to about $250. All told a good deal.

Mido Commander Review

When it comes to watches, I like classic designs but still want something that doesn't mimic every other watch available. Too many classic/vintage style timepieces seem to be copying the look of a Rolex Submariner or Datejust or that of an Omega Speedmaster or Seamaster in my opinion. What initially drew my eye to the Mido Commander is how different it looks from just about every other watch I've seen, while still looking like a vintage design. The Mido has a style all its own that brings to my mind images of ocean liner travel and art-deco decor. The watch face, its most striking feature, has a sort of brushed starburst pattern that radiates up from the 6 o'clock position and the hour markers and hands have a very unusual retro look about them. I could see this watch fitting in perfecly in that old movie Metropolis. Like it or not, you must admit that this is a design that you are not likely to see everywhere you go.

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Mido is not aggressively marketed in the United States anymore and, I'm sure, most people are not familiar with the brand. The company was founded by George Schaeren in 1918 in Biel, Switzerland. Mido has produced a number of technically interesting designs through the years including being the first to combine an automatic movement with anti-shock protection, water resistance and anti-magnetic protection. Mido also is the only company, to my knowledge, that makes use of cork as a crown water seal, and was the first company to use an unbreakable mainspring. Today, Mido is part of the Swatch Group, but the brand still retains much of its old, unique character. For a history of Mido, see this page at Swiss Watches USA.

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My Mido Commander was NOS (new old stock, from the mid 1990's I think) and I don't believe the exact model is still available new. The current iteration uses Superluminova lume where my model uses tritium laced paint. Aside from that though, I believe the current and older models are the same. The watch is made of a polished stainless steel one-piece case with an integrated stainless steel bracelet and clasp. The crystal is made of Hesalite, a brand name for acrylic. The movement is protected from water damage by Mido's Aquadura cork crown seal (which allegedly will block water even with the crown pulled out in the set position) and is rated at 30 meters water resistance. Internally, the watch is powered by an ETA 2836-2 25 jewel automatic movement that both hacks and handwinds. (The 2836-2 is a variation on ETA's ubiquitous 2824-2 with the addition of a day wheel)

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All told, I really like this watch. The bracelet is one of the most comfortable I have encountered and the big face is easy to read. Furthermore, and this is admittedly a matter of taste, I think the Commander is an extremely elegant design. The Mido has, so far, proved to be very accurate for a mechanical watch averaging -2 seconds per day. My only gripe is the small crown which is tricky to use. This is a minor quibble in an automatic watch however. It�s not like you have to manually wind the thing. It should be noted that the Commander's one-piece case makes servicing tricky (everything comes out through the crystal) but the watch's superior sealing might cut down the frequency of service a bit. Additionally, this Mido collects fingerprints easily. The new version of the Commander currently sells online for between $450 and $600 dollars (see example ). However, my NOS model can be found on ebay nowadays (at least for the moment) for less than $200. Not bad for nice Swiss automatic.

Thinking about doing a piece on vintage watches.

Some of the best deals available are vintage watches. If you are willing to overlook a scuff or scratch here and there and, maybe, put a few dollars into maintenance, some seriously good stuff can be had.

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Sent from my Treo

Marathon Watch Review

The subject of this review, the Marathon General Purpose Watch (talk about a generic name for a watch) is the first genuine military watch that I have owned. As it name implies it is manufactured by the Marathon Watch Company, a Canadian business that supplies watches to the U.S. and Canadian militaries and SAR (search and rescue) teams. It is my understanding that Marathon is currently the only official supplier of watches to the American armed forces. This particular model was made for the U.S. Army in March of 2005.

The watch itself doesn't look very impressive at first blush. It is a traditionally sized man's watch, which is to say rather small by today's standards. The watch measures 34mm in width (36mm if you include the crown) and comes stock with a 16mm wide nylon, one-piece band on fixed wire lugs. The case is made of some kind of supposedly durable plastic and uses an acrylic crystal. The watch is all black except for the markings on the dial, which also has the words U.S. Government and Swiss Made printed on it. In addition to its small size, the Marathon is also extremely light. If making a big visual impression with your watch is important to you, look elsewhere, this one isn't for you. Lastly, my model uses an ISA1198 Swiss quartz movement with an easily accessible, user replaceable battery.

The Marathon General Purpose does have a number of redeeming features, however, that make it one of my favorite watches of late. The watch's best feature is its lume. The Marathon uses tritium tubes (tiny glass tubes filled with gaseous tritium) on its hands and face to provide a steady bright glow that won't fade for over a dozen years. Unlike conventional glow in the dark technology, tritium lume watches do not need to be exposed to light to charge up the glow. In this respect the watch is like Luminox, Traser and Ball brand watches except that the Marathon is significantly less expensive than those brands. The lume, as those people who own tritium lume watches know, is simply terrific. In darkness and even low light conditions the watch is very easy to see and the glow does not fade over a few hours like a conventional, light charged lume system. For those of you who are concerned about exposure to radiation, the radiation output of the tritium tubes in the Marathon is very low. It is so low, in fact, that it is said that the radiation that the tritium emits cannot even penetrate the watch�s case or crystal. Unlike older watches with industrial radium lume (some of which were dangerously radioactive), there is apparently almost no possibility of exposure to dangerous radiation with tritium tube watches. The other feature of the Marathon that makes it a keeper to me is its ruggedness. The watch is built to meet a set of standards set by the armed forces (see also here) to ensure that it will continue to work under rough field conditions. It is thus unlikely that anything that I can throw at it in my day-to-day activities will cause any permanent damage. That makes wearing the Marathon a no-brainer in my opinion. It is the perfect beater. It is also the least expensive tritium lume watch that I have been able to find, other than closeouts on ebay. (It should be noted that when shopping for a watch with tritium lume, newer is always better. Tritium has a relatively short half-life as radioactive isotopes go, and the glow from a watch with this technology will last for only twelve to fifteen years. An older model, while probably less expensive than a new piece, will not work as well or as long.)

To sum up, if you are interested in a tritium lume watch, and don�t want to spend a lot, give this Marathon a long look. It isn�t pretty in any way but it is very light and comfortable and the sheer utility and ease of use that it provides make it the perfect choice for field wear or just general knock around. Add to that its military origin, which makes it historically interesting in my opinion, and you have a winner that you will want to wear for a long time.

Watch Band/Bracelet Combinations

One of the easiest, and cheapest, ways to get the look of a new watch without actually buying one is to experiment with strap/bracelet combinations. I have been pleasantly surprised on many occasions by how good an old watch can look with just a strap change. Two prerequisites, you must get yourself a good spring bar tool (I recommend Bergeon but there are others. They generally cost $10 to $30. Otto Frei has an excellent selection.) and you should buy some spring bars in several sizes (they don't cost much at all, the Timezone Tool Shop sells 240 for $20) Once that is taken care of though, you can now change the look of your watches with very little effort.

There are many good sources for watchbands. One of my favorites is R M Nilsen�s ebay store. The Watchprince has a good selection as well. Look around, there are loads of other sellers.

As the pictures above show, I hope, it is relatively easy to completely change the look of a watch with a new band/strap combo. If you have a watch that you haven't worn for a while, try a new watch band on it. I'm willing to bet that you will be surprised by the result.

I'm thinking about a review of watch band combos

Its really amazing how a simple change of a watch band can make an old watch look and feel completely different. I'll try to throw something together with the pictures that I have taken.

Poljot Shturmanskie Chronograph Review (And a brief section on the Poljot Gagarin)

Shot of the Gagarin on an aftermarket Nilsen bund strap. I think it works well.










The subject of this review is my first mechanical chronograph, a Poljot Shturmanskie (Poljot Navigator in English). However, before I get to the review, the watch's maker, Poljot, merits some discussion. Poljot, also known as the First Moscow Watch Factory, has a fascinating history. Prior to the Russian revolution, watchmaking in Russia largely consisted of locally assembling foreign made watch parts. A number of watch brands were sold in Russia through this method including Bure, Mozer, Reinin and Dmitreiv see Aviator-Watch look under General Infos-History/Links. In the aftermath of the revolution, the newly created "Trust of Precision Mechanics" continued to make watches from the available stock of spare parts but when this supply of parts ran out, the Soviet government decided to create a domestic match industry. To affect this, they purchased the defunct Deuber-Hampton watch company from the American industrialist Armen Hammer see Klokwurx and NAWCC. The entire factory was apparently packed up and shipped to Moscow where it was reassembled and, with the help of a number of former employees of Deuber-Hampton, was gotten up and running over the course of a year or so. Four different watches were initially produced, a pocket watch, two men's wrist watches and a ladies wristwatch. (As an aside, I believe that the older models of the giant Zlatoust diver watches still use the movement from the first Russian made pocket watch. They still turn up on ebay from time to time although the newer units may be using a different movement.) The first Moscow Watch Factory produced these models until the war began when production was shifted over to military equipment. After the war, a number of new models were introduced including the Pobeda (meaning victory), the first Shturmanskie (pictured in this review as well and reputed to have been worn by Yuri Gagarin while flying Vostok 1 as the first man in space. Note-this claim has been questioned; some folks say that Gagarin wore a Rodina model. Irrespective, as he wore the watch under his flight suit, I'm not sure if anyone will ever really know for sure which claim is true.) (Update-an astute reader at the WatchUSeek Russian Watch forum clarified this matter for me. Gagarin was in fact wearing the Shturmanskie. It seems there was a photo of it at the time on his flight suit.), a mechanical chronograph called the Strela (meaning arrow) with a Venus based chronograph movement, an alarm wristwatch (the 2612 movement), a very thin mechanical movement called the Vympel, two rather rare models called the Sputnik and the Antarktida, the Sportivnie, the Rodina with the first Russian automatic movement, and, the model 3133 movement powered chronographs (the subject of this review being one). (This list should not be considered exhaustive; there were other models as well.) Poljot survived the breakup of the Soviet Union but the current status of the company is in question. The latest that I have heard is that Poljot itself is no longer in existence but that a sister company Volmax or Poljot-Volmax (I am not sure which of the two names it is), founded by Poljot employees and making watches with Poljot movements for the export market, is still functioning. There is also a company called Maktime that seems to have purchased some of the machine works from Poljot and is now producing watches with Poljot movements. Lastly, I have heard that the Poljot alarm movement, the 2612, will now be made by Vostok (another big Russian watch maker). It is hard to keep track of these developments; this sort of news isn�t widely reported. That being said, Poljot watches seem to be readily available on ebay and through a number of Internet based businesses.

The Shturmanskie chronograph itself is a very nice watch. It has that heavy, solid feel of something that has been truly well assembled. The case measures 39mm in width (not including the crowns) and 14mm in height. The band lug width is 20mm. The watch uses a mineral glass crystal and is rated at 3atm water resistance. In a very pleasant surprise for a Russian watch, the lume is excellent, the hands and markers on the watch face easily remain visible for several hours after exposure to light. My particular model was purchased second hand from someone who owned it for only a few months but in that time he saw fit to replace the stock leather strap with an aftermarket model. As such, I cannot comment on the quality of the original strap. (However, I do own another Poljot watch, a Shturmanskie Gagarin, pictured above, and the leather strap that it shipped with is excellent. If the chronograph�s stock band was of similar quality that it would be just fine. That being said, Russian watch bands are a very iffy proposition, most seem to be dreadful. I have the chronograph on a Hadley-Roma 20mm pilot bracelet that, I think, looks and works quite nicely. FYI, got it here.) The Shturmanskie is also a very handsome watch, with a striking appearance that doesn�t resemble many other watches.

The raison d�etre of a mechanical chronograph is its movement. The movement in the Poljot Shturmanskie is Poljot�s 23 jewel model 3133 and here for images. The 3133 is not an automatic movement and thus must be wound once a day. This movement has an interesting pedigree in that it is essentially a Russian made copy of a Swiss chronograph movement, specifically the Valjoux 7734 and here. It is my understanding that when Poljot bought the machine tools from the Swiss to make this movement, they changed the balance wheel and raised the frequency of the movement to improve its accuracy, but that some of the parts remain interchangeable. The chronograph function is started and stopped by pressing the button at two o�clock and reset after stopping by pressing the button at four o�clock. It is apparently considered important with this movement to be sure to stop the chronograph function before resetting the watch. The chronograph face itself (the dial at three o�clock) will accurately measure thirty minutes of elapsed time. The dial at nine o�clock, by the way, is an ordinary second hand. The crown at 9 o'clock adjusts the inner bezel ring, not the movement. The accuracy of the 3133 is rated by Poljot at -20 to +40 seconds per day, not bad at all. My example is running at a very fine +5 seconds.

Mechanical chronographs are something of a rare breed among watches. As a general rule they are quite expensive and must be treated carefully. (By the way, after a long search, I found a US service center for these chronographs. See the bottom of the webpage.) I would not recommend wearing the Shturmanskie chronograph, or any mechanical chronograph for that matter, when engaged in any strenuous physical activity. That is not to say that a mechanical chronograph should not be a daily wear watch, but try not to bang it around too much, it�s not meant for that. As you can probably tell by now, I really like this watch. However, the Shturmanskie chronograph is not a no-brainer in the price department like many other Russian watches. While it costs a fraction of what a Swiss mechanical chronograph costs (generally between $1000 and $3000 and occasionally much more), it will still run you between about $265 and $400, not exactly an impulse buy anymore. However, if you like watches, it is really a pleasure to watch a mechanical chronograph in action. For this reason, the Poljot Shturmanskie, and most of the other Poljot chronographs, really deserves attention.

(As an aside-I am starting to see Chinese made chronographs with copies of Venus movements for very low prices but they don�t seem to be available everywhere in quantity yet and I don�t know about their build quality. They may be very nice but I don�t know for sure.)


The other watch pictured in this review is the Poljot Shturmanskie Gagarin (for a good read on this and other Russian re-issues, see Reissue Issues. This model is the 40th anniversary edition of the original Shturmanskie that was reputedly worn by Mr. Gagarin during his famous flight. The original was supposedly only issued to Russian air force pilots. This one is really a very simple watch, just the time with no other features (as if anyone really needs much more). It is powered by a Poljot 2609 movement, a rather ordinary 17 jewel stemwinder with no hacking feature. It uses a mineral glass crystal and came stock with a very nice bund style watch band. The back of the watch has an image of Vostok 1 orbiting the earth and Gagarin�s words on take-off ��Let�s go!� Since this is a commemorative edition, Poljot issued it in the same size and style as the original (33mm in width not including the crown). That makes it a bit small in comparison with a modern mans watch, but the bund strap makes it look bigger. Technically, the watch isn�t much to write home about, but it is a piece of history and I think that makes it interesting. This model is getting pretty hard to find though. I only know of two sellers who still have it (Aviator-Watch, look under 17 Jewels/Date- other mech, Date and Juri Levenberg's ebay store, search for Gagarin).