This vintage diver was made by Altanus Genève, another new brand on the blog.

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Though their headquarters are now in Marcianise, Italy, Altanus were founded in Geneva Switzerland in 1914 and they still have a manufacturing base there. For a company with almost a 100 year history, there is very little information to be found about them, it’s not even clear if they have been manufacturing all that time. Their output has however, covered many of the major categories, from quartz dress watches right through to Valjoux powered mechanical chronographs.

One of the more notable events in their history occurred in 2010, when as a result of a 4 year development programme, Altanus unveiled the world’s first paper wristwatch – the “Patch”.

Weighing just 11 grams, the watch is made from a single strip of bio-degradable paper, with a specially developed coating making them tear-resistant and waterproof. When first launched, the Patch was available in 10 vibrant colours, but the range has since been expanded to over 30, let’s call them ‘eye-catching’ designs. If you feel you need a Patch in your life, you can buy one here – but be warned, you may need sunglasses.

Getting back to the matter in hand, what makes the watch in this post particularly interesting is the case; an asymmetric, stainless steel case made by Squale, a company specialising in professional diving watches. Founded in 1946 as “von Büren S.A. / Montres”, the company supplied cases to a wide range of manufacturers both large and small. The Squale ‘shark’ logo quickly became their trademark, and a recognisable sign of quality. Buoyed by the immediate sales success of other brands using their cases, Squale started to produce watches under their own brand name from the 1950′s onwards, and went on to supply watches to the Italian Air Force and Navy Diving Corps in later years.

Turning the watch over, the asymmetric profile of the case is more obvious and the caseback markings are common to all Squale cases; the Squale logo, details on the case construction, the depth rating (30 Atmos = 300 metres) and Mod. Depose, short for Modèle Déposé which is French for ‘registered design’.

Here are a few more examples of Squale’s vintage watch cases, all of which featured screw-down crowns and for the 1000 metre rated cases, a high dome mineral crystal to withstand the extreme pressures.

It’s hard to date the watch in this post exactly, but based on the movement inside, an ETA cal. 2872, I’d say it dates to somewhere around 1980. The watch arrived in good running condition but needed a service, and from a cosmetic perspective it was in good shape too, except that the lume was missing from the sweep second hand, and there was a lume smudge on the dial which had to be carefully removed.

There were no hidden surprises on this one, so with the movement serviced and the cosmetic issues tidied up it was soon back in one piece.

You may have noticed that it says ‘Medium’ on both the case and dial, and it probably isn’t obvious from the pictures but at 36mm, this is a mid-sized watch. To give you an idea of its size, here’s the watch next to a full sized diver that will be familiar to most watch enthusiasts, the 44mm Seiko 6309-7040.

Rich.

** Many thanks to Daniel Spiegel for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

Under the loupe this time is this Breitling Top Time chronograph.

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Introduced in 1964 to appeal to the ‘youth market’, the Top Time was an entry level chronograph offered at a much lower price point than their Navitimer and Chronomat models. The watch in this post is one of the cushion cased models from the 1970′s, which was also available with several different dial colours, and in a gold plated case with either matching or contrasting subdials.

A quick search reveals a variety of styles ranging from simple round cased models reminiscent of the Heuer Carrera, to the more elaborate later models with external bezels. Here are several options, including one featuring an additional 12hr register, very similar in style to watches from Breitlings own ‘LP’ (Long Playing) range.

Famous for wearing Rolex, and more recently Omega watches, a Top Time can be spotted on the wrist of James Bond in the 1965 movie Thunderball. Although clearly visible several times during the film, you’d be very hard pressed to find the same model today, as the watch in the film was transferred into an appropriate case made by the props department. You’ll notice in the pictures below that the watch doesn’t even have a crown or pushers (and possibly the most ill-fitting strap ever!)… but it did have a rather handy Geiger counter ‘complication’ – pretty good those props guys.

The Top Time range proved very popular, remaining in production until the late 1970′s. Despite the introduction of automatic chronographs in the late 1960′s, the Top Time range remained all manually wound, powered by either Valjoux (7730 / 7733 / 7736), or Venus (188 / 178/ 179) calibres.

The watch in this post has a Valjoux 7733 inside which was in running condition, but the chronograph didn’t function at all. Removing the caseback revealed the possible cause of the problem right away, the chronograph operating lever was cracked and just flexed when the pusher was pressed.

However, further investigation revealed more serious problems. With the watch removed from the case, it quickly became apparent that  an unsuccessful attempt had been made to repair the pushers at some time in the past.

As you can see, one of the mounting plates for the pushers had broken loose from the case, and the one still in position had been soldered into the case in the incorrect position, so didn’t even make contact with the reset lever.

Finding replacement pushers for this case without buying a complete donor watch proved very difficult, so I had little choice but to remove them altogether and start again; modifying the pushers and making new mounting plates, before attaching them in exactly the right positions this time.

With the pushers repaired, it was on to the rest of the job. Once the broken operating lever had been replaced, the rest of movement service was straight forward, and from a cosmetic perspective there was little to do except clean the case and polish the crystal. The dial and hands were still in excellent condition, and the case too was still in great shape – which isn’t always the case with vintage chrome plated cases.

Rich.

** Many thanks to Sohail Chaudhari for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

Another great vintage chronograph on the blog, this time from Tissot.

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During the late 1960′s and 1970′s Tissot produced many attractive chronographs in the Seastar and Seastar Navigator ranges. The watch in this post is from the Seastar range, and is one of the more complicated models featuring a 12 hour chronograph.

Here’s an advertisement from 1969 showing the gold plated version of the watch, along with other watches from the same series – note that prices started at just $39.95, which sounds like a bargain, even for 1969.

Opening the caseback it was immediately obvious that the movement hadn’t been serviced for a long time, the caseback gasket was missing, and dirt had found its way into the case, and distributed itself around the movement.

The movement in this watch is the Lemania cal. 1281, produced at a time when movements and casing parts were being shared between Omega, Tissot and Lemania. Although the movements were all produced by Lemania, they were re-branded for Omega and Tissot watches, in this case the movement was re-branded as the Tissot cal. 871.

The cal. 1281 was developed further to become the Lemania cal. 1873, a calibre which was subsequently used in many popular vintage chronographs, one of the most well known being Omega’s ‘Moon Watch’, the Speedmaster Professional. The movement was re-branded as the Omega cal. 861, but the lineage back to the 1281 is clearly apparent if you compare the two calibres.

A few years ago, I wrote about another watch in the advertisement above, the model with a single chronograph subregister, powered by the Lemania cal. 1277 (see that post here). As the watch in this post has the additional hour register, let’s have a look at the extra components, all of which are located under the dial.

Towards the bottom of the picture is the hour recording runner which, like in many chronograph designs, is powered directly from the mainspring barrel when engaged.

When the start/stop pusher is pressed to start the chronograph, the actuating lever raises the chronograph brake from the hour recording runner and it starts to rotate along with the mainspring barrel. When the chronograph is stopped, the brake is re-applied, and the runner is held in its current position.

When the reset button is pressed, the reset hammer moves across, raising the brake temporarily from the hour recording runner and the reset hammer moves all the way across, contacting the chronograph heart on the underside of the runner, resetting it to zero.

With the movement serviced it was on to the cosmetic work, of which there wasn’t too much to do this time.  The luminous filling in the hands had deteriorated, and needed to be replaced, but little else, so here’s the watch after a clean for the case, and a crystal polish.

Having mentioned the Omega Speedmaster Professional above, here’s a picture of the two watches together, which again highlights the diminutive proportions of the Tissot – the size of the movement in both watches is exactly the same, 27mm.

At 41mm, the Omega is seen as a ‘regular’ sized watch these days, so with a case size of just 34mm excluding the crown, the Tissot is what you might call ‘a little cracker’.

Rich

** Many thanks to Phil Johnson for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written about a sailing timer on the blog. This time it’s a Memosail Skipper.

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The Skipper model differs from the other Memosail timers I’ve written about in the past, as inside is a Valjoux cal. 7757; a sailing timer based on their ubiquitous cal. 7750 automatic chronograph.

There are various sources online claiming that the cal. 7757 was produced between 1985 and 1993, but ETA suggest that the calibre was discontinued in 1988, which probably explains the lack of production watches using this calibre. Apart from the Memosail Skipper, the only other watch I can find that uses the cal. 7757 is the Atlantic Skipper.

According to Juerg K. Bohne, managing director of Atlantic Watch AG, this watch was produced in conjunction with Memotime (the company who produce Memosail watches) and Dubois-Dépraz, the renowned chronograph specialists. He also suggested that in a short production run, just 300 of the Atlantic Skippers were made. I don’t know the number of Memosail Skippers that were produced, but given their rarity, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a similarly low number.

Let’s have a closer look at the cal. 7757, starting with the components under the dial.

Removing the dial reveals the countdown disc, painted with the white, red, and blue sections that are visible through the holes in dial. The wheel takes 15 minutes to make one complete revolution, and like the cal. 7737 used in the other Memosail timers, it rotates continuously until the timer mechanism is disengaged (for a description of the cal. 7737, see here).

With the countdown disk and timer top plate removed, the heart of the mechanism is uncovered.

Here’s how it works. The driving wheel is mounted on the extended axle of the third wheel in the going train, and provides the power to the countdown disc via the two intermediate wheels. When the timer is started using the start/stop pusher, the detent rotates and simultaneously releases the brake from the gear mounted on the underside of the countdown disc, and using the actuating lever, engages the intermediate wheel with the same gear, and the countdown disc starts to rotate clockwise.

When the timer is stopped the reverse happens, the intermediate wheel is disengaged, and the brake applied to hold the countdown disc steady in it’s current position.

On the train side of the movement, just like a standard cal. 7750, the centre chronograph wheel is engaged when the timer is started, and the centre second hand sweeps around the dial.

There are subtle differences from the standard cal. 7750 though, namely that the minute recording wheel in the 7757 is used solely to perform the reset function, and so has no teeth (see inset). This timer in this calibre doesn’t ‘tick’ forward in 30 second intervals like the cal. 7737, as the timer is driven directly from the wheel train, it is in constant motion when engaged.

When the reset button is pressed, just like a regular 7750, the reset lever moves across to return the reset hammers back to their starting positions. On the dial side of the movement, as the reset wheel is mounted onto the axle of the minute recording wheel, it also returns the countdown disc back to it’s starting position – showing 5 white dots on the dial.

The watch in this post arrived in running condition, but would stop immediately as soon as the timer was engaged. Further investigation revealed that the oil on the timer mechanism had thickened over the years and the increased friction was enough to stop the movement altogether. A full service for the movement immediately put things right.

If anyone has any further information about the cal. 7757, or other examples of watches using the calibre, it would be great to hear from you.

Rich

** Many thanks to Stephen Giles for letting me feature his watch on the blog, and to Mark Reichardt for additional background information about the cal. 7757. **

Kicking off 2013 is this Heuer Autavia 2446C from the 1970s.

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The name Autavia is short for ‘Auto-Aviation’ which combined Heuer’s two main markets at the time; timing devices for motorsports, and cockpit instruments for civil and military aircraft. Released in 1962, the Autavia was the first Heuer chronograph with the model name printed on the dial. Many more were to follow, the Monaco, Carrera and Silverstone, to name just a few.

The watch in this post is the third execution of the 2446, and in many ways was a re-design, as the earlier versions had lumed rather than applied dial markers, dauphine hands, and the chronograph subdials were much larger. The case too was different, as it had much thinner lugs.

(Picture: OnTheDash)

The ‘C’ in the 2446C model number denotes that the case has a snap back or compression caseback  as opposed to the screwed back seen on many of the earlier versions. The caseback on this watch wasn’t too bad as the Autavia name and Heuer shield were still legible. It isn’t uncommon to see these watches with a caseback that has worn completely smooth – or is hideously scratched as these cases aren’t easy to open, even with the right tools.

Though the watch was in reasonable cosmetic condition, there were several issues to address. The outer bezel was in poor shape, with obvious wear to the outer edge, all the way down to the markings in places. The lume had also deteriorated significantly over the years, and would all need to be renewed.

Things inside looked much better, as the movement, a Valjoux cal. 72, was in good shape and with no obvious signs of mishandling or corrosion.

With the watch out of the case the deterioration of the lume on the hour markers and hands was clear to see. All of the old lume would need to be carefully removed before the new lume could be applied.

There was one issue with the movement as watch would only tick for a few seconds when shaken and wouldn’t wind, so there was definitely a problem with the winding mechanism which would need further investigation.

With the movement stripped for servicing, the problem was very quickly uncovered as several teeth were missing from the ratchet wheel. A new wheel was the only solution here.

Thankfully there were no other issues, so with the ratchet wheel replaced and the rest of the movement cleaned and oiled, everything was looking good, and working perfectly again.

As bezels for the 2446C are much in demand these days, I knew that finding a ‘new old stock’ bezel to replace the current one would be hard (and expensive!) The one I found was much better condition than the original, it still has some wear around the edges, but is in-keeping with the rest of the watch.

After reassembling the watch, the case was cleaned, a new crystal installed, and a new strap finished the job.

Rich.