Possible aftermarket movement or just a fake watch?

OleMissBro
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Hi Y’all,

I’m starting to understand more about vintage watches, movements, calibers, etc. I was wondering about this watch that I just got. The admiral line from the 90s with the Day/Date function. They included a picture of the movement and it had me wondering. I had looked up the movement and watch, not many references on it so I’m questioning the authenticity.

Any help would be appreciated.
IMG_2538.webp IMG_2539.webp IMG_2540.webp
 
ErichKeane
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Honestly: I think that might just be real. That L636.5 was just a rotor on an ETA 2836, and that image looks like a lot of them.

It MIGHT be missing a screw on the far side(between the balance bridge and the automatic bridge), and the ETA logo looks different (they are usually clover leaf things, so IDK what the logo is under the balance), but that actually looks 'about right' to me.

Some manufacturers did some... pretty questionable looking (low effort perhaps is a better word) customizations of movements in the late 80s/early 90s, and this model is 100% that.

I also doubt someone would pay to custom engrave a fake Longines 30 years ago.
 
OleMissBro
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Interesting, I kept looking up L636.5 and nothing came up, so it’s good to know it’s a genuine movement. I was originally put off by the black lettering for the Longines logo on the rotor so I’m happy to know I have a new genuine daily watch. When I get it in the mail, I’ll add better photos of that ETA logo
 
ErichKeane
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Its a L636.5-7404, you can see a couple of photos of them on the internet. They came in a couple of color schemes. The bezel on this one is quite worn, but the rest seems OK. A little crud in the movement, plus maybe a missing screw (or a bad angle).

The logo is weird to me, but I can't imagine a fake would do EVERYTHING on it except the ETA logo, so perhaps there was a model where they did a square logo instead of the clover leaf that I'm unfamiliar with.

The black text DOES look fake as heck, but it seems real as far as I can see, plenty of ones online with it (see https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/closer0510/840002.html , you can also see the ETA clover on that one vs your square one).

It also looks like Longines did a better job on the rotor finishing (with gold inlay instead of printed black) at one point, but that is probably just year differences.
 
OleMissBro
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ErichKeane ErichKeane
Its a L636.5-7404, you can see a couple of photos of them on the internet. They came in a couple of color schemes. The bezel on this one is quite worn, but the rest seems OK. A little crud in the movement, plus maybe a missing screw (or a bad angle).

The logo is weird to me, but I can't imagine a fake would do EVERYTHING on it except the ETA logo, so perhaps there was a model where they did a square logo instead of the clover leaf that I'm unfamiliar with.

The black text DOES look fake as heck, but it seems real as far as I can see, plenty of ones online with it (see https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/closer0510/840002.html , you can also see the ETA clover on that one vs your square one).

It also looks like Longines did a better job on the rotor finishing (with gold inlay instead of printed black) at one point, but that is probably just year differences.
Good to know, I do plan on getting it serviced so the crud and missing screw will be fixed. As for the text and poor finish might be because of the 80/90s, I do know a lot of companies were struggling do to the quartz crisis, but I wasn’t collecting watches then, so I wouldn’t really know 🤷‍♂️. Thanks again for the help!
 
ErichKeane
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OleMissBro OleMissBro
Good to know, I do plan on getting it serviced so the crud and missing screw will be fixed. As for the text and poor finish might be because of the 80/90s, I do know a lot of companies were struggling do to the quartz crisis, but I wasn’t collecting watches then, so I wouldn’t really know 🤷‍♂️. Thanks again for the help!
Enjoy it! Service might be as much as the watch is worth unfortunately unless you know a friend/hobbyist willing to do it for cheap, but parts are easy to find for obvious reasons.

And yeah, the 80s/90s were end of the Quartz crisis, and the manufacturers were having a hard time finding a way to be competitive, so there are some... questionable movement decisions and low-effort customization. I frequently search various sources for watches to work on for fun, and see this sort of thing all the time.

For example, I have a 90's Tissot torn down on my bench that was even lower effort. BUT, I paid VERY little for it (~$100), and was able to find NOS hands/dial for it for pretty cheap too. SO, worth the effort 😀

PXL_20250708_152215080.webp PXL_20250708_152223575.webp PXL_20250708_164004243.webp
 
JimInOz
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ErichKeane ErichKeane
the ETA logo looks different (they are usually clover leaf things, so IDK what the logo is under the balance)
It's just bad photo resolution.
Standard ETA logo. All looks OK to me.
eta logo longines.webp
 
OleMissBro
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ErichKeane ErichKeane
Its a L636.5-7404, you can see a couple of photos of them on the internet. They came in a couple of color schemes. The bezel on this one is quite worn, but the rest seems OK. A little crud in the movement, plus maybe a missing screw (or a bad angle).

The logo is weird to me, but I can't imagine a fake would do EVERYTHING on it except the ETA logo, so perhaps there was a model where they did a square logo instead of the clover leaf that I'm unfamiliar with.

The black text DOES look fake as heck, but it seems real as far as I can see, plenty of ones online with it (see https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/closer0510/840002.html , you can also see the ETA clover on that one vs your square one).

It also looks like Longines did a better job on the rotor finishing (with gold inlay instead of printed black) at one point, but that is probably just year differences.
Any good places to find NOS hands for this watch? They look a bit worn and I’m sure the lume will be pretty dead.
 
JimInOz
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OleMissBro OleMissBro
Any good places to find NOS hands for this watch? They look a bit worn and I’m sure the lume will be pretty dead.
Could try AliXpress, I sourced some ETA hands there a while ago.
It may be easier to clean and re-lume the existing hands.
 
ErichKeane
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JimInOz JimInOz
It's just bad photo resolution.
Standard ETA logo. All looks OK to me.
eta logo longines.webp
Hm... maybe? You're probably right, but that looks like a flat bottom/squared bottom in the picture 😀 Definitely could be a bad picture, plenty of 'count the pixels' in this post.
OleMissBro OleMissBro
Any good places to find NOS hands for this watch? They look a bit worn and I’m sure the lume will be pretty dead.
its a generic ETA movement, so finding replacement non-longines hands is pretty trivial. Not sure where to find exact ones, but as Jim says, a polish/relume is probably your best bet anyway.

That said, NH35(etc) hands are the same hole diameter for hours/minutes (1.50, 0.90), so you could find basically any style of hands you could imagine for it either like that or by hole size. Finding actual longines ones are probably quite difficult unless you get lucky on ebay.
 
STANDY
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Nearly all Swatch brands used ETA movement in the time frame of the Longines and Tissot.

There was a time that ETA was in 90% of mechanical watches. (Swiss)
 
OleMissBro
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I’ll open it up later at home but I just wanted to put it on for right now
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