Questions & Answers

A. No. Citizen and Seiko are the biggest competing companies in Japan.

A. It was first introduced by Seiko as A.G.S (Automatic Generating System) in 1985, but didn't get popular until 1995.

A. As of the 1970's, the term has been ruled out by the Federal government. Today watches must specify the rated depth, like:"water resistant to 100 meters "(or 333feet or 10atm)

A. Titanium is the newest metal to storm the watch market. Titanium is an environmentally friendly, natural metal that is 40% stronger and 30% lighter than stainless steel. It is hypoallergenic because it is nickel-free. And, perfect for water sport enthusiasts, it is extremely resistant to salt water and other forms of corrosion and able to withstand extreme temperatures.

A. These are the most confused terms in watches, in fact, a chronograph can be a chronometer. CHRONOGRAPH is simply a stop watch function. On the other hand, a CHRONOMETER is a watch that has been tested and certified by a laboratory in Switzerland to keep time for 360 hours in five positions with sudden temperature changes in accordance with standards.

A. The oldest known watch is dated back to around 1500.

A. Jewels used today are synthetic rubies. They protect the wheels and plates from excess wear and reduce friction.

A. In a Wittnauer Longlife the lithium cell will last 20 years; however in the average watch, a silver oxide battery will last from 2 to 5 years and a lithium battery will last up to 10 years.

A. Seiko introduced the first quartz watch in 1969 at $1,250.00. The Swiss made the prototype of the watch in 1967, they just couldn't mass produce it. The original discovery was made by 2 American engineers in 1930's.

A. Hamilton watch factory in 1957 made the Hamilton Electric 500.

A. Vacheron Constantin, out of Geneva, was founded in 1755.

A. Omega Speedmaster was worn by the Apollo 11 astronaut in July 1969; however the first watch in space was Bulova Accutron.

A. Concord Delirium IV was just 0.98 mm thick including a gold case and bracelet.

A. No it wasn't Mickey Mouse. Orphan Annie made her debut at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1933.

A. Patek Phillippe's Henry Graves watch, completed in 1932, was sold in New York on December 2, 1999 for $11,000,000.

A. In 1912 it was a Cartier Santos-Dumont.

A. No, it wasn't Russian watch worn by Yuri Gagarin, that came a little later in April of 1961. It was an Accutron Tuning fork watch movement as part of the instrumentation, made by Bulova in partnership with NASA, aboard an unmanned flight.

A. He was Swiss born Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) an inventor of the most significant discoveries in the watch industry: Tourbillon escapement, Perpetual calendar, Shockproofing, Over-coil hairspring, and many more.

A. Daytona Cosmograph by Rolex.

A. Swatch - Swiss Watch by ETA S.A.

A. For decades, it has been stated, that in 1756 Swiss watchmaker Abraham Louis Perrelet invented a pedometer type watch that wound itself. Just recently, a French historian has contacted me and pointed out his book, where he attributes this mechanical discovery in 1778 to a 30 year old French watchmaker from Lige, Hubert Sarton. I'm not a historical expert, so I'm presenting two sides.

A. It is a very stylish and simplistic model with and all black dial and a round dot at the top. It was the brainstorm of American designer George Horwitt and executed by the Swiss watch brand Zenith Movado, and now part of an American Movado Group. It wound up in the Museum of Modern Art in NY.

A. Originally it was a Rolex. Now days he sports an Omega Seamaster (I guess they pay more...)

A. Rolex is a brand name that was registered in 1908 by a Bavarian born watch seller, living in London - Hans Wilsdorf. All watches in the beginning were made for him by the small Bienne firm of Aegler. In 1914, Aeglar delivered a watch so precise that it was awarded a Class A Bulletin certificate from Kew Observatory in London. Wilsdorf began advertising Rolex as a wrist chronometer, and in 1919 moved headquarters to Geneva. In 1926, the firm invented the first truly waterproof case called Oyster. Today, there are 5 Rolex factories in Bienne and an assembly and finishing factory in Geneva.

A. It is a OCEANUS by Casio - solar radio controlled watches that receives a daily signal from WWV radio transmitter in Fort Collins, CO, service of NIST in Boulder for US customers, and in Osaka, Japan for the Pacific rim countries. In 2007/08 they plan to release models that would "tune in" to the European frequency in Frankfurt, Germany too.

A. The best work on the fine watches is done, usually, by a hand of the best stone setter. Nowadays, however, more mass produced brands use machines to do the setting.

A. Not at all. It is very simple to correct. This simple repair works on 2 most popular Swiss made qaurtz chronograph movements that have been used by many brands like Tag Heuer, Breitling, Chase-Durer, Tissot, Xemex, Tutima, Belair, Omega, Longines, and many, many more for the past 20 years and they are: 22 jewels ETA 251.272 with 3 chronograph hands and 27 jewels ETA 251.262 with 4 chronograph hands. The "0" position of every chronograph hand is a logical one and not physical, like in a mechanical watch, so its the circuit board that is controlling where each hand returns to and if watch was dropped or jolted hard, especially the long sweep second recording hand or minute recording hand, can get out of "whack" and return to few minutes before or after "0"/"12". To correct this problem you need to:
Start the chronograph with the button at "2" o'clock (usual position).
Stop the chronograph with the same button.
Return all hands to zero with "4" o'clock button (usual position) - it doesn't matter where they actually return, as long as they return.
Pull the crown OUT into the time setting position, second click or all the way out position
Keep pressing the button at "2" and change the "return to" position of 60 seconds sweep second hand.
Press the button at "4" to correct the 1/10sec small hand at "2" o'clock register.
Push the crown IN one notch into a calendar changing mode and repeat the same procedure with 2 buttons and 2 remaining hands( only 1 remaining on a 3 hand chronograph)
Push the crown all the way in (in case of dive/sport watches SCREW DOWN the crown tight!)
Now if you start, stop and return to zero your stopwatch - all hands will return to the zero you set them to.
Nothing to it...but for strange reason, not a single watch factory or ETA ever published this information for the consumers!
The same technique, but a different routine and sequence will work on most quartz chronograph models made by ETA, Seiko and Citizen.

A. Definitely not. Seiko Kinetic is a "joint venture" between an old automatic system a new quartz one. The automatic system (oscillating weight) generates electricity that is stored in a capacitor, which powers a quartz movement for up to two weeks without a recharge.

A. You need to know that the movement they use is Lemania 5100 and it only winds in one direction - counterclockwise, so change the setting on your winder to rotate in that direction and the auto-wind system has only 2 wheels, so its very inefficient and requires a lot of wear time to fully wind.

A. As defined by the US Government Regulatory Agency it means that a watch can withstand the impact of being dropped from 3ft onto a wood floor.

A. Watch movement is like a fine automobile engine and needs to be regularly lubricated to run smoothly. With time old oil deteriorates, brakes down and dries up, increasing friction between movement's parts, thus making watch run slow. If left unchanged, old lubricants will turn to fine dust and, like fine sandpaper, will wear out pivots of watch wheels. Mechanical movements should be serviced every 3-5 years, and quartz 8-10.

A. With older style tuning fork Accutron models 214, 218, etc., you have a "built-in" error that can be put to work for you. If placed in a vertical position with "6" down, it will lose 2 seconds over night, with "12" down, it will gain 2 seconds. Thus by placing your Accutron at night the right way for the situation, you can control the accuracy even closer. Just remember: six down is slow down.

A.
WHAT IT DOES

The tachymetre scale can be used to compute many things, but it's primary purpose is to compute the speed after noting how long it takes to travel a fixed distance (e.g. one mile or kilometer). The dial is a scale which computes the function:

Tachymetre Dial = 3600 / Elapsed Time in Seconds

The scale is valid for all elapsed times from 7.2 seconds to 60 seconds. If the duration of the event is outside this range, then the answer on the dial is invalid.

HOW TO USE IT

For example, suppose you wanted to measure the average speed a racecar was traveling. After starting the chronograph function when the car passes the starting line, and stopping it after the car travels exactly one mile, you note that the chronograph hand is pointing at the 4 o'clock position (i.e. 20 seconds have elapsed) Looking beyond the 4 to the Tachymetre dial reveals the chronograph hand pointing at 180. This means that the average speed of the car would be 180 MPH.

Let's say, instead of the race car speed, you are measuring something much slower, like sailboat speed. In this case, you need to use a shorter distance because the elapsed time must fall within the 7.2 - 60 seconds range. For this example, let's say it took 36 seconds for your sailboat to travel 1/10 of a nautical mile. Reading the tachymetre dial gives a speed of 100 knots. However, since we only traveled 1/10 of a nautical mile, the actual answer is 1/10 of that or 10 knots.

Now let's say you wanted to measure the speed of a VERY, VERY fast airplane: after traveling 10 kilometers, you noted that 10 seconds have elapsed. The tachymetre dial gives an answer of 360 but we traveled 10 Km. Therefore, the answer is 10X360, or 3600 km/hour.

There is really nothing magic about using the Tachymetre dial to measure speed. You can also use it to measure other things, like gas consumption. Suppose it took 50 seconds to burn up a gallon of gasoline. Reading the tachymetre scale shows that you are burning 72 gallons of gasoline per hour

A. A Minute Repeating watch tells the time both visually and audibly. A slide on the side of the case will activate two hammers in the movement. These hammers strike two gongs curled within the case. First one hammer strikes a gong of lower tonality; it will count out the hours. Then both hammers will strike both gongs alternatively to count out the quarter hours after that hour, and then the second hammer alone striking a gong of higher tonality will count out the minutes after that quarter hour. The repeating mechanism was developed by an English watchmaker Daniel Quare in 1690. The early repeaters used bells. At the end of the 18th century, two bent-wire gongs became the more popular system.

A. Follow this link to read the instructions

A. Rotating bezel on the watch serves as a reference point. Mostly divers use bezels with 0-60 minute scale. At the beginning of the dive, you align the "0" point or a triangle of the bezel to the minute hand. As the dive progresses minute hand will show duration of the dive along the number scale on the bezel. Because the diver's air tanks hold 15-20 minute of air this amount of time is usually marked off in a different color form the rest of the scale. Today's sport watch bezels are uni-directional - counterclockwise only. That's done with diver's safety in mind, so if the bezel is accidentally bumped during the dive it will show less air time than it actually is. Watches that are used by pilots or with other gradation, like 24 hours, normally made to rotate in either direction for convenience. Scale from 1-24 is used on watches with a 24 hour second time zone hand, thus the bezel can track a third time zone.

A. It is OK to do it occasionally, but not very often, especially, not every day, and particularly, when your watch is equipped with a screw down crown. First, by winding with a crown, the reverser wheels of an automatic system will wear out faster. Second, the resting hole of the stem inside the main plate will enlarge and wear out quicker, and lastly, the screw down crown system and/or threaded case tube, will wear out in no time as it not designed by the manufacturer to be used so frequently. If person is not active to keep an automatic watch running well through the night, invest in a simple automatic watch winder to solve most of these problems. Or, use your free manual labor, and just grasp watch by watchband securely and in a back and fourth motion, keeping the crown toward and away from you, so as to let the oscillating weight to move in the same fashion inside, give the watch a 50-75 gentle shakes before going to bed.

A. Sometimes, a simple remedy can solve this little annoyance. Before going to bed, place your watch on a nightstand sideways, with a crown pointing up or down. This will create more friction and resistance on the balance staff, thus will slow it down a little, maybe 5-10 seconds per day. Just remember, that laying watch in dial up or down position offers the less resistance for balance and crown up or down - greater resistance. Now, if your watch is a very finely 5 position adjusted timepiece, positional error will not be this great and you would have to seek a professional watchmaker's help to regulate it better.

A. That a lot of times will depends on pure luck. Sometimes, somewhat inexpensive watch will run perfectly from day one and a very expensive chronometer will need to be adjusted over and over again. But a good rule of thumb, is a freshly lubricated or a brand new mechanical watch should run about "+/-" 10-15 seconds per day and a certified chronometer -2+8 seconds per day. Many factors can affect this rate, for example, how active or inactive a person is during the day, what position the watch is in most of the day, how rough the owner is by subjecting the watch to extreme shocks or jolts, and when was the watch serviced last (that should be done every 3-5 years).

A. It was true until year 2000, first Rolex used a manual wind Valjoux 72 model, than switched to Rolex modified El Primero movement by Zenith, and now they developed their own Caliber 4130, that I recently had a pleasure of taking apart - very nicely done.

A. Visit an answer page on our new website that is devoted only to watchbands!

A. We're now done learning, its time to play. Enjoy some of our watch poetry and jokes to brighten your day!
I Am A Watch