Mechanical Chronographs

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 02:12 GMT

So since my previous blog posts have dealt with watches,
cool watch videos

good quality affordable mechanicals

I will continue in this vein.

Today I will talk about the mechanical chronograph, predominately swiss mechanical chronographs. A chronograph is a fancy term for a stop watch. In the mechanical watch world, chronograph is probably one of the more accessible of complications not counting stuff like day/date indicator.

While adding a chronograph function in to a quartz watch is easy (reprogram the ic, add the subdial and hands), adding a chronograph function to a mechanical watch increases the cost of the movement quite a bit.

Without typing a wall of text, here are some pictures of some of the most famous of swiss mechanical chronograph movements.

First we will start with the prolific, widely used workhorse, the ETA/Valjoux 7750

It is found in watches such as Tag Heuer

Hamilton

luxury brands like Hublot

and scores of other watch brands

etc...

The 7750 typically has sweeping seconds hand at the 9'o clock position, minute chronograph subdial at the 12 position, and hour chronograph subdial at the 6 position. Some brands do flip it around so that its at the 3, 6, 12 instead.

Here is a picture of the 7750

Here is a picture of the movement without the rotor (the guillotine looking thing that winds automatic watches)

Now different watch companies will do different modifications and decorations to the movements even though they start with the same movement.

This might involve anything ranging from adding a module like a GMT hand to just plainly decorating the rotor.

see the difference between this Tag movement decoration

To this Hublot movement decoration?

The skeletonization of the rotor makes the movement a lot cooler looking, doesn't it? Almost so much that to the layman, it looks like 2 different movements.

In the next section, I will briefly go over cousins of the ETA/Valjoux 7750 movement

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 02:38 GMT

First Cousin is the Valjoux 7753

Very close to the 7750 except it loses space for the day wheel (so you can't put a day of the week display on it) and the dials are at 3,9,12 instead and has 27 jewels instead of 25 on the 7750. Its a bit more balanced look and typically is slightly rarer than the 7750.

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2nd cousin is the Valjoux 7751

Basically the 7750 with an additional moonphase function and month indicator
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3rd cousin is the newer Valjoux 7754

Basically the 7750 with an already built in GMT function (a 2nd hour hand that can be independently set without moving the minute hands)
[image loading]

see that grey arrow hand? thats the GMT hand.

Next I will talk about a movement from a brand everyone has heard about, yes, I'll be talking about Rolex.

Wolf

Korea (South)3290 Posts

October 09 2010 02:47 GMT

I want a new watch... Sigh.

LSB

United States5171 Posts

October 09 2010 02:59 GMT

Valjoux 7754 looks really sweet.

Then I saw the price tag...

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 03:10 GMT

The most iconic of Rolex watches is arguably either the Submariner

or the Daytona

Since the Submariner is not a chronograph, we will discuss the Daytona.

The most famous of Daytonas is the Paul Newman Daytona. A style famously worn by Paul Newman supposedly even until his death, this model of the Daytona is immensely collectable and valuable.

Now the Daytona came out a long time ago and actually used a wide variety of movements including a handwound Valjoux 72 and a Zenith El Primero (which I will discuss later). Yup, the granddaddy of in house movements, Rolex, actually used outside movements before.

Since 2000, new Daytonas use the in house Rolex 4130 movement

Graham

Canada1259 Posts

October 09 2010 03:12 GMT

I'd consider myself a pretty big watch enthusiast, but I could never see myself paying anything more than $500 in my lifetime for a single watch, regardless of how sick some of the "exposed gear" watches are.

Until then +/-$100 stainless steel Cardinal watches ftw!

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 03:18 GMT

On October 09 2010 11:59 LSB wrote:
Valjoux 7754 looks really sweet.

Then I saw the price tag...

your best bet for a watch with a valjoux 7754 is something like a Glycine Airman 9 used.

The Sinn 900 S above is too new and arguably too sought after to find on the used market.

However, if you just want the Chronograph function with the GMT function, there are lots of watches from Fortis, Sinn, and Tutima that takes a 7750 and adds their own GMT hand module. A lot of them actually look really good.

you might be able to find some of these used for $1200 to $1500 if you do some digging

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 03:22 GMT

On October 09 2010 12:12 Graham wrote:
I'd consider myself a pretty big watch enthusiast, but I could never see myself paying anything more than $500 in my lifetime for a single watch, regardless of how sick some of the "exposed gear" watches are.

Until then +/-$100 stainless steel Cardinal watches ftw!

buying used is always an option as is not going for chrono function if you don't think you'll use it very often.

nice watches in great conditions with 7750s can be had for around $500 if you dig around.

new swiss mechanicals with no chronograph functions with crystal display casebacks can be had for less than $300.

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 03:37 GMT

Now comes one of my favorite movements. The Zenith El Primero

Arguably the earliest and the best automatic chronograph movement, the balance wheel of the El Primero movement beats at a super quick 36,000 beats per hour VS the 28,800BPH of both the Valjoux 775X and Rolex 4130.

Beats per hour is how often the balance wheel turns per hour. A bigger BHP rate will give you a smoother second hand sweep and arguably more precision.

The Zenith El Primero is used in Zenith's own watches

and before 2000, was used in Rolex Daytonas. In fact Rolex Daytonas with Zenith movements often are more valuable than Rolex Daytonas with their own movements.

Pretty cool video on Zenith manufacturing

and another on the striking 10th (goes to 10th of a second chronograph)

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 03:50 GMT

#10

Finally a movement that is now out of production and also a fan favorite of a lot of watch geeks.

It is none other than the Lemania 5100.

[image loading]

Yeah its pretty ugly.

While the finish is inferior to the others, it is a super rugged chrono movement that can stand a lot of shocks and blows.

It is used in older Sinns, Tutimas, Fortis, Heuers, and Omega Speedmasters.

[image loading]

So what makes this movement special?

See the airplane hand that these watches have? That is the chrono minute hand. Instead of being on a subdial like all the others, the chrono minute hand is center direct driven which makes it much more shock resistant. Also this leaves room for an extra 24 hour indicator at the top which others don't have.

Thus a cool rugged chrono movement for a lot of military style watches.

Thats arguably the last of the common swiss automatic chronograph movements. Next we'll look at a few less common and some non Swiss ones.

synapse

China13814 Posts

October 09 2010 04:44 GMT

#11

These look really awesome, but I can't imagine spending more than like 100 dollars on a watch...

T0fuuu

Australia2275 Posts

October 09 2010 06:29 GMT

#12

I remember your last post (: anyways here is something that i think will be of interest to you!

http://www.hec.unil.ch/cms_irm/Gautschi.pdf

It is a 2005 thesis on the swiss watch industry i found the intro pretty interesting but didnt get much further than that. I hope it is useful or interesting for you.

Zlasher

United States9129 Posts

October 09 2010 07:44 GMT

#13

Glad I got in touch with you the other month lol, pretty happy with the watch you helped me pick out, it was really cheap and its definitely unique

Gummy

United States2180 Posts

October 09 2010 09:08 GMT

#14

Today, I learned that a chronograph is similar to a watch. Thank you for broadening my vocabulary.

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 13:30 GMT

#15

Well, here is another vocab for you. The study of watches is called horology.

There are a lot of you guys that are saying you can't ever see yourself paying more than $100 for a watch. I am not quite sure why $100 is the cutoff but I think everyone has their own financial priorities and hobbies and should buy what they like.

For me, I think of it this way. A nice dress shirt or pair of jeans will run me $100. The watch will definitely outlast my clothes so why wouldn't I spend a bit of money on a watch?

By the way, I will get to some more affordable options later but first some beautiful German watches.

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 14:02 GMT

#16

The German watch industry was pretty ruined after WWII and the following Soviet takeover of the East.

However, since reunification, there has been a great revival and a wealth of innovation and design coming out of Germany.

In the west, you have Sinn out of Frankfurt and Tutima making rugged military style watches as I showed earlier. Both of these companies however do not make their own movements and instead source them from Swatch Group movement makers such as ETA/Valjoux and Lemania.

However, there is a little town in former east Germany that with time can rival Geneva as the greatest concentration of mechanical watchmaking. Yes, I am talking about the little town of Glashutte. There really can be multiple volumes of books that can be written on the watches coming out of this town.

Since we are just talking about chronographs, I will first introduce the mid luxury brand Glashutte Original ($5k to $20k usually)

This is a hand wound chronograph that instead of having a minute and hour subdial, Chimes every 10 minutes when the chronograph is activated.

Now we come to the big daddy. A. Lange & Sohne. I would consider A Lange and Sohne to be one of the 3 top most prestigious larger scale watch making companies in the world (other 2 being Patek Phillipe and Audemars Piguet). Lange watches new will probably run you $25,000 minimum.

This is a split time flyback chronograph the details of which can be more clearly explained here
http://www.timezone.com/library/comarticles/comarticles631694473620245778

lixlix

United States482 Posts

October 09 2010 14:24 GMT

#17

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, LixLix, you really got me interested in mechanical chronographs but how can I afford one?

The answer is to go Russian or Chinese.

For Russian watches, Maktime/Poljot is a good option with their 31XX line of chronographs. These are handwound chronographs to reduce thickness, as an automatic chronograph tends to be quite thick.

I own something very close to the one below myself and it can be found new for around $200. That one contains the 3133 movement
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ones that use the 31681 movement typically is slightly more. Here is an Aviator brand chronograph that uses this movement ($300 to $400)
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On the Chinese side, you have some beautiful movements and watches coming out of Seagull also handwound and will run $300 to $400 new.
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