"Transitional" watch Calibers & Watches

Stuff that got Bettered Quickly short production runs etc things that just didn't last long stepper motors tuning forks etc the rarer the better the weirder the better! The under appreciated under collected and unknown! i'll start...

Caravelle Bulova 1974 "Transistorized"
ESA 9154
electronically controlled balance motor
sweep second
date: set by changing 23-24h
hack feature

Holy Smoke!!! what a weird piece of 70s look hardware! I love it!

I've passed on a few electric Hamiltons and Accutron tuning fork watches in my time, too difficult to find parts and competent repair people but I gotta admit, they are really interesting stuff.

But that beast.... thats too cool!

and that hack feature!..... why, lets stick a nail in the balance, that'll stop it!

38mm (excluding crown) 40.65mm (inclusive) Original Bulova caravelle crown, 41.88mm Lug tip to lug tip. and 17mm lug spacing.

the box is really cool too... im not plugging BUT go here http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/fullywoundhave a look at the box i bloody love it SO much cooler than any modern box but maybe i was just born 40 years too late!

Junghans 600 Electronic ATO-Chron Watch 1968

Junghans 600(.10)


Remarks

1967-1968

first series-produced elecronic movement from Junghans



Features

electronically controlled balance motor

sweep second

hack feature

I cant! i priced it at £695 because i bloody love looking at it! im sure its probably NOT worth that but then again who can say what it IS worth the caliber is rare its rare to find a watch in this condition (quite literally NOS and al original EVERYTHING) but i just really really love looking at it thats the problem with selling watches!

a couple of years ago i picked up a big haul of vintage Hirsch straps 1940-1970s stuff i was separating a KEEP and SELL piles (keep for me sell the rest) i was keeping about 1000 straps! When the hell will i wear 100 elephant straps im not sure but hey ho...

Erm, I don't read this as an advert. And @FullyWound s last post mentioned nothing about not being able to post here, only that he found the watch hard to part ways with.

I frequent a Facebook site for Danish enthusiasts, and many of the posts there are blatant adverts for watches people have for sale. And I see it all the time in WRUW on here - I think I might have plugged one of my own watches myself, actually 😟

Could we calm down and maybe post more obsolete (yeah, I know - "mechanical watch") tech? I find the subject fascinating 😀

no i dont mean i cant sell it i mean i dont want to sell it! yes its on sale at £695 on the ebay page BUT i have given myself a pretty strict rule that if we are to sell here (on OF) items will be SIGNIFICANTLY discounted and i dont want to sell it thats what i was saying

agreed but i still was not really ACTIVELY selling the watch i wasn't offering a discount just "more info here!" but not "go and buy it here!"

sorry its a little like "I Want to show you this i have and did look look this is me! (in watches)

so im posting it here and people ARE interested (which is nice) but yes ok i won't "link to info" ill just put it here (save and import) BUT BUT i will also say this did not NEED to be my page it could have been any page its just only i have it? (I WOULD LOVE TO SEE MORE??) if there was another page i could have linked to i would but there is not and it seemed costly (on time) just for the extra info to "port" it all here... so to speak

But its nice that people like what i like =)

its just the "over designed" over complicated aspect of these watches but it is looking at them NOW like backwards engineering like taking everything that has been micro engineered and blowing up maybe NOT in the case of the electronically controlled stepper motors as these ARE frankly obsolete (to my knowledge)

But take a Tuning fork for Example the BULOVA 214 in essence its the same technology that powers a new casio G-Shock lets say but BIGGER do people know that? its still how they measure time (tuning forks just very very small ones) that blew my little mind when i learned that!

The Box in question Flip open to "release" the watch.

Its just EVERYTHING comes over and smashes you in the face with 70s Style! (or lack thereof) like something off the set of "VINYL" ALSO i think they missed a Massive trick by not putting in some 70s watches the spaceview etc everyone was in gold Datejusts anyone watch Vinyl?

I was Going to TRY to avoid the obvious but... 214, 218 Tuning fork

1960-1968
setting handle at the bottom
electronically controlled tuning fork
sweep second
Hack feature

does not have to be electrical there are the "Hammer / bumper" Automatics... by FAR not the earliest if anyone has some of the first?

Omega 344
1952-1955
automatic (bumper)
sub second
17 jewels
f = 19800 A/h
power reserve 42h

Where does the Hamilton Electric fit in?

NOT writen by me, see. http://www.vintage-hamilton-wristwatches.com/2012/03/1957-hamilton-ventura-electric.html

i was going to write similar but this is grade A+ short brief but correct history...

Hamilton struck first in using an electrical power source rather than a coiled piece of spring steel. Hamilton began research on the electric watch in 1946. Development began under the codename Project X. The first watch appeared on the market eleven years later when Hamilton sent out a Press Release on January 3, 1957.The company pioneered the electro-mechanical and electronic watches that eventually evolved into the prevalent watch movements sold in the market now.

They noted that the Electric watch used an oscillating motor powered by a 1.5 volt hearing aid battery instead of a mainspring.

From 1957 to 1969, Hamilton produced two calibres that went to market: the 500 and 505. Even though the market favored the designs, Hamilton couldn't produce and sell enough watches to make it a profitable line of business.

In the mid to late 1960's, Hamilton attempted to address the Japanese market by forming a joint venture with Ricoh. The marketing effort failed. The company sold the Ricoh watches by repackaging them as Vantage brand. Hamilton placed a Standard Time Corp 130E caliber label on the Ricoh movement. The 130E looks similar to the Hamilton 505 and has many interchangeable parts.

In an experiment to increase profitability, Hamilton purchased some Huguenin Electric movements containing the Landeron 4750 caliber. Like many Swiss movements such as A. Shield and Font, Huguenin produced commodity movements.




Landeron 4750 made the first Swiss electric movement. It went into production when Hamilton released the 505. Landeron competed directly with Hamilton.

Richard Arbib, a highly recognized designer, gave the Ventura it's futurist look. He also designed the trapezoid-shape Vega and the oval-cased Spectra.



Hamilton's Initial Press Release

The Bulova Accutron essentially took the market for Electric watches away from Hamilton. In an effort to save the Electric watch, Hamilton formed a joint venture with Ricoh to sell the Electric in Japan. Unfortunately, the effort failed. In 1969, Hamilton discontinued production of the costly project that never paid for itself and helped put the company in financial distress.

Hamilton revived its efforts to compete with Bulova by bringing its Electronic models to market.

Something humorous to note: The Soviet Union stole the Hamilton watch designs and began making their own called the Slava. Here's a cute video:

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Today, buyers and collectors seek Hamilton electrics and they bring significantly higher prices than their their other vintage watches. They are appreciated for their design rather than as a timepiece. The Ventura in this post is one of the first released and is a prime collectors item.

Historical Perspectives The Amazing Made-In-America Hamilton Electric, The World's First Battery Powered Watch


In the years just after the Second World War, the market for American-made wristwatches was extremely competitive and makers like Elgin, Bulova, and Hamilton were in a race to develop more technically sophisticated watches that would appeal to consumers. One of the sharpest races was to develop a watch powered by a battery rather than by a conventional mainspring, and what you're looking at is the winner: the Hamilton Electric 500. Though Hamilton was the very first to offer a battery powered watch to consumers, it was a victory that came at a significant cost, in the end.



The first electric clocks go back quite a long way; in 1814, Sir Francis Ronalds invented the very first (which is pretty amazing when you consider that Breguet had patented the tourbillon only thirteen years earlier). There were two problems that had to be overcome to make a battery powered wristwatch, though: the first was coming up with an oscillator system using electrical current that would work in a wristwatch, and the second was coming up with a battery small enough to fit in a watch case. The two problems are related, of course; whatever system you use has to be efficient enough to not drain a reasonably sized battery. Engineers at Hamilton began work on the problem in 1947, when Arthur Filllinger created Hamilton's first electric movement. However, the first working model was made by Fred Koehler, in 1951, which was to form the basis for the eventual development of the Model 500 movement. Credit is usually given to Hamilton's Chief Physicist at the time, John Van Horn, and his teammates, physicist Phillip Biemiller and Master Technician James H. Reese.



The Model 500 movement made use of a battery that was co-developed by Hamilton, and the National Carbon Company (which later became Union Carbide) which agreed to work with them after over 40 other battery makers turned them down. The battery was designed to be leakproof and provide very constant voltage. Hamilton at one point toyed with the idea of making the battery themselves to reduce costs, as well as free them from reliance on a single supplier, but as it turned out manufacturing the battery to scale made it affordable, and they abandoned the idea of getting into the battery business.

In the Model 500 movement, there's no mainspring - the power to move the gears and hands comes from the movement of the large balance wheel, which indexes the gears as it swings. The Model 500 is a so-called "moving coil" electric watch - if you notice, one side of the balance looks more or less normal, with balance screws; the other side has a large wire coil mounted on it. The coil is an electromagnet. Below the balance, set into the plate, are two disk-shaped permanent magnets. As the balance swings, the coil enters the gap between the two magnets, and one of the two very thin wire springs you can see passing below the balance feeds a short trickle of current to the coil, via a contact on the hub of the balance.


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The induced magnetic field in the coil interacts with the fields of the permanent magnets, which keeps it swinging. The balance spring is made of non-magnetic alloy, but Hamilton's engineers still had to go to considerable pains to keep magnetic field leakage to a minimum, requiring them to develop their own proprietary formula for a platinum and cobalt battery (without infringing on a prior patent by General Electric, which took some doing). The second of the two long, thin springs is actually a "trip" spring, which is tripped by a jewel on the hub of the balance, and which acts to break the electrical contact between the current-carrying spring. This cuts off the magnetic field in the coil and the balance is free to swing through its full arc.




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Hamilton, unfortunately, rushed the watch into production, opting to release it on January 3, 1957, at a press luncheon at the Savoy Plaza Hotel that was attended by over 120 journalists. The watch was initially offered in solid gold, and cost $175. Advertising proudly described the watch as "the first basic improvement in 477 years of watchmaking history" (taking as the starting date Peter Henlein's supposed "invention" of the watch in 1480, a notion long since discredited). Hamilton's electric movements found their way into a number of watches, including the Richard Arbib-designed Ventura.



However the first models proved temperamental and moreover, watchmakers and jewelers were reluctant to sell them because they were unfamiliar with proper repair procedures. Hamilton compounded the problem by recommending that any and all service work should be handled by sending the watch back to the factory. Among the serious problems plaguing the Electrics in practice was the fact that the contact point on the balance hub was prone to corrosion and even the most minute amount would stop the watch.



A major nail in the coffin for the Hamilton Electrics was the introduction by Bulova, in 1960, of the battery powered tuning-fork Accutron. Unlike Hamilton, Bulova supported its product with extensive service staff training from the outset. Of course, the Accutron, like the Electric, would itself turn out to be a dead end when, in 1969, Seiko introduced the quartz Astron, which marked the beginning of an era when timekeeping would, for the first time in history, become truly ubiquitously accurate. As much as the Hamilton Electric (production of which finally ceased in 1969) was ultimately a failure, it was still a piece of incredibly ingenious engineering and to this day, they have their fans - among collectors, if not watchmakers.

Thanks to Aaron Berlow, who provided the movement and photographs of the Hamilton Electric used in this article (follow ambwatches on Instagram).

Much of the information in this story is from The Watch Of The Future: The Story Of the Hamilton Electric Watch, by René Rondeau. Highly recommended; the standard reference for Hamilton Electric collectors

FROM HODINKEE