Citizen Automatic Flyback Chronograph 8110A

Now I have not updated the blog or made any post for like 3 years! I apologize for that. Other priorities and commitments in life just took over. And I had not bought watches for a long long time.

Today, I just suddenly have the impulse and I remembered a particular watch that I hunted for, found and bought on ebay 5 years ago. I wrote about it here:
http://anton-c.blogspot.sg/2008/06/bad-ebay-purchase.html

And yes, back then the watch arrived damaged and was returned. But I never really forget my fondness for that watch however decided that I should be more cautious with my vintage adventures, coz its not just ebay but on flea market buys I been disappointed too.

So today I just feel like buying a watch, remembered this lovely vintage Citizen Automatic Flyback Chronograph I had for a while, ebay searched, found one. Clicked BuyItNow and paid immediately without much thinking.

I hope 5 years down the round this time, the purchase will be a smooth one.

Seller dates the watch to October 1976 and wrote that it is professionally serviced and running well with original parts. Good luck to me. (Seller's photo).

BANG FOR BUCK PILOT CHRONOGRAPH

A good looking mechanical pilot chronograph watch for only USD300/- new? Yes, its possible if you forget the Swiss and German brands with four figure price tags and go Russian instead. Poljot is known to make lookalikes of many famous Swiss and German watches and this one looks just like Fortis' awarding winning Flieger Chronograph.

In fact, many of Poljot's Aviator series watches resemble models from Fortis' Flieger line. So much so that Fortis took Poljot to court, with the results of the lawsuit being an injunction prohibiting Poljot from selling their Aviator line of watches in Switzerland and Germany.
Of course, we are not comparing the USD300/- Poljot to the Fortis Flieger (retail USD2050/- street USD1400), but we'll just take a look at an example of what a Poljot's Aviator watch got to offer.

The watch came with a rather nice leather box. This actually varies from seller to seller and you don't always get the box, but who needs the box anyway?
The dial is very legible with a military look. The indexes are marked with arabic numbers in both hours and five minutes/seconds increments. The chronograph hands are in red, while the normal hands are in white. The size of the hands are very well balanced and suits the dial very well. In addition to being very functional, it is also very attractive. Well, who designed it in the first place? :D
The original Poljot strap (not shown) doesn't look very promising. I switched it to a Di Modell Chronissimo immediately. I feel that the Chronissimo strap enhances the look of many pilot watches and chronographs.
The crown is big enough for a handwind watch and its signed with the letter A, which probably refers to 'Aviator'. The chronograph buttons felt tactile enough even with gloved hands.
The watch is powered by the Poljot 3133 movement. The 3133 movement is based on the Swiss Valjoux 7734 movement and in fact its made with Swiss tooling. In the 1970s the Russians bought the machine and tooling over from the Swiss and made modifications to it, raising its thickness from 7mm to 7.35mm, adding 6 jewels to the original 17, and increasing the beat rate from 18000 bpm to 21600 bpm.

It is a very reliable movement that was eventually used for space flight missions. Although its rated for a power reserve of 42 hours, I am getting over 60 hours actually, which is pretty common. Accuracy is constant and very good, I am getting about +15 secs a day for this watch.

The watch came with both glass display back and steel back options. Mine came with both, here's the glass case back showing the P3133 movement; raw, unrefined, undecorated, but reliable and tough like a soldier.
With the steel case back, the water resistant is 50 meters instead of 30 meters. Oh yeah, Poljot often made 999 pieces of each model.
Lume is not something the Russian watches are good in. The application isn't very good nor consistent and the glow is weak. It also does not last long. I never had high expectations for Russian lume in the first place so I'm not really disappointed. This watch comes with white lume paint, there is another version with green lume paint, though both glows green however.
Here's a wrist shot of it on my 6.5" to 6.75" wrist. The case size is 39mm without crown, but actually wears bigger because its all dial and bezel-less. Someone with large wrists can always boost its size with a BUND strap if desired.
Here are the specs:
Case size 39mm without crown, 44mm with crown
Lug to lug 46mm
Lug size 20mm
Dial size 35mm wears big coz its all dial.
Case height (thickness) 12.5mm
Water Resistant 30meters with glass display back, 50 meters with metal case back
Mineral glass crystal
Sandblast stainless steel case with a pearly finish
In my humble opinion, this is an ideal watch for those in service. How many active servicemen wear expensive USD2000/- Swiss watches out there in the field?

Russian watch prices had been raising crazily in recent years, so I find these are really good buys before prices soar further.

Thanx for the read!

BEST BANG FOR BUCK UNITAS FLIEGER

If you're looking for a budget Unitas 6497 powered flieger/pilot watch, especially a 'nine-eater', then you probably might had already heard or looked at brands like Ollech & Wajs, Trias, Jurgen & Gallai, or Kienzle to name a few. The problem is the really budget ones like the Trias are not nice enough and the really nice ones like Jurgen & Gallai or Kienzle can't really be considered budget watches. Anyway at the same price range people probably look at the more interesting Debaufre watches instead.

Enter the Altanus Unitas Flieger. It has the same style of nine eater dial like those offered by Jurgen & Gallai and Kienzle, cathedral hands and strong lume. The price is just right. However these seems to be rare and it seems really hard to find new pieces, though they sometimes pops up pre-owned on the various sales forums. Having no luck at the sales forums, I thought I should check out the original seller's Ebay store.

So while trying to procure a piece from the Swiss Ebay seller uhren_baron, who's the source of these Altanus watches, I discovered he's got another brand to offer. The Oscar.
It seems identical to the Altanus and the seller told me its from the same factory.
Comes with a display back. The Unitas 6497 movement is undecorated.
Lume is pretty good, I think it's Super Luminova.
The mineral crystal is slightly domed, the stainless steel case size is about 40mm excluding crown and lug to lug distance is about 48mm. The watch also wears flat at about 10mm height at the thickness part.
Needless to say I am happy with this purchase. I paid about CHF250 shipped back in December 2007. Thus far I had not see another similar piece, though I seen many other Oscar watches on the Unitas movement.

Till date, I think the Altanus is still the best bang for buck Unitas Flieger watch. There are some Altanus owners who are bothered by the 'anus' word on the dial, so the Oscar might be a better option if one could find another one from the Ebay seller. Though the sales forums might be more practical, since I had not seen either watches in uhren_baron's Ebay store for sometime.

*Update on 31 August 2008: I was informed by Chris (Ray Knight on WUS forums) that this watch was being sold on Ottofrei as a kit recently, though when he last checked it was no longer available.

QUICK & DIRTY SIZE COMPARISION PICS

James (Riker) requested for some Debaufre Nav B and Davidsen Marina Militare size comparison pics. So here's some quick and dirty pics of the watches.

Nav B 48mm, Marina Militare 47mm.
Nav B's flatter, MM's thicker.
The MM's a pseudo vintage diver watch, while the Nav B's a pseudo vintage pilot watch.
Many guys had concerns if these watches would be too big for their wrists. I have puny 6.5"-6.75" wrists and I don't care and wear them. Yes it might seems like I am wearing alarm clocks on my wrist but I think it just takes getting used to. Ultimately all that matters is that I enjoy my watches. :)

DEBAUFRE NAV B PHOTO REVIEW

I done this Debaufre Nav B Photo Review sometime ago and it was posted at Watchuseek Debaufre forum on 6 February 2008 too. I am posting the full review here too.

In November 2007, Debaufre and PMWF.com collaborated to rise funds for Marine Toys For Tots Foundation and Debaufre would be donating any production watch to PMWF.com's raffle winner. Read about it here.

Anyway I was fortunate to have won the raffle and I chose the Debaufre Nav B watch for my prize. I am very drawn to the Nav B but I was skeptical about it fitting my wrist since my wrist size is only about 6.5" to 6.75" (more on that later) and the Nav B is a big watch at 48mm (excluding crown). I was torn between it and the Triton, especially since I am a fan of pilot watches and already had quite a few pilot watches, I was actually lacking watches in the diver department. I eventually decided to give it a try anyway, and at the same time I also read about Captain Dale 'Snort' Snortglass receiving the Nav B too, so I guess that was a little push to get me off the fence.

I was then contacted by Debaufre and arrangements were made to have the watch shipped to me. At this point I must say I really appreciate the good customer service from Debaufre. First they were very flexible in the shipping method, and then when the package was seized by my local customs for tax valuation, Debaufre extended their full assistance in providing the necessary documents for customs to release the watch, even when its on a Sunday, (its Monday over here for me). Thus I was able to receive it in time on Christmas Eve. Thank you, Jon and Elsa. When I got home from the Customs office I eagerly opened the package.

Shipping box.

Open it.

Foam.

Coming soon.

The box and an invoice with greetings from Elsa, noticed she drew a flower there, how nice.

I like the outer sleeve box, which has a cut out window that shows the emblem on the actual box.

There is a piece of foam on the watch, I took a deep breath and blew it away.

A simple manual, warranty card, and paper tag.

The watch.

The basic specs of the watch from the Debaufre website:
* Stainless steel case
* Diameter 48 mm, including crown 53 mm, 13.8mm thick.
* See-thru case back with blue screws and a special "Cote de Geneve" engraving
* 3 ATM
* Sapphire crystal
* Black dial, and sub dial
* Figures with Super LumiNova
* Leatherstrap 22 mm with thorn buckle with screws.
* Unitas 6497 hand wind movement with 17 jewels
* Nickel plated with blue screws
* "Cote de Geneve" design
* 17 jewels

I have owned the watch for more than a month and its time to do a review about it. The sapphire crystal is domed and the inner side is AR coated. One of the first thing I noticed when I got this watch is the blue sheen on the crystal. The hour, minute and second hands size ratio is good in relation to each other. The hands are blued too, which is a nice touch and it is very attractive in the daylight. Personally I like the minute and second hands to touch the track markings and its great that the Nav B does so. Overall, the watch is designed for legibility and indeed legibility is superb. However due to the blued area of the hands, the lume doesn't extend all the way to the tip of the hand. So when the watch is read in dark condition, the hands appeared shortened, see lume pic below.

Here's the lume shot. I like to wear it to the movies because the lume is good and the dial is big.

Nice big crown that is very easy to wind. The diamond shape works really well and provides a much better grip as compared to flat or even onion shaped crowns. This is one plus factor that I really like about this watch, especially since it has a hand winding movement.

See the thick domed sapphire crystal and the finishing of the case. One thing you can't miss is the heave of this watch, its heavy, the case looks tough and its nicely finished. The lugs curve and slope gently to fit the wrist.

What we have here is a Swiss Unitas 6497 movement, decorated with blued screws and "Cote de Geneve". The finishing is very attractive and pleasing to the eye. I think its rhodium coated. Due to the size of the watch, the whole movement can be seen underneath the glass display case back. Power reserve is about 48 hours and accuracy out of the box is about + 30 sec a day, but I must say I checked the accuracy during the first few days of getting the watch. I have not check again to see if accuracy had improved with use yet.

The Pam Pre-V styled buckle, nicely finished, uses screws too.

The leather strap is 5mm thick throughout and doesn't tapers, which is good. The quality is top rate, feels like leather from an expensive luxury handbag. The texture is attractive, feels firm and smells nice. It is a little stiff initially but breaks in easily within a few days. And once its broken in, its flexible and comfortable. It is obvious that this strap is going to last a long time. This is the best stock strap I had owed thus far.

There is this metal keeper sewn into the strap, I think its great because I find it hard to insert the strap into the fixed leather keeper and most of the time I will just use the metal keeper and the movable leather keeper. It is secure enough and I think it could act as a substitute for either one of the leather keepers when they eventually breaks. The rivets and the metal keeper are mirror finished, I wish they are not, which will be more consistent with the rest of the watch's metal parts.

The 48mm watch on my current 6.5" wrist. Not too bad I guess, but I gotta wear it on my right wrist so that the big crown won't dig into the back of my hand.

All in all, a really wonderful watch that is well designed and made.

Thanx for the read!

By the way this last photo above was a PMWF.com photo election winner too.

BAD EBAY PURCHASE

I recently bidded on a vintage Citizen Automatic Chronograph from the 1970s. Its running on the Citizen 8110 movement so it's a Flyback chronograph.

These vintage chronographs are extremely good deals because you pay small money for very good movements. A Swiss equivalent of a Flyback chronograph would probably cost 20 times as much, conservatively. The more common ones are the Citizen Bullhead chronographs, which are always on Ebay. I guess they are in abundance because collectors prefer the larger Seiko Bullheads instead of the smaller Citizens.

So this piece caught my eye (seller's pic) because it looks really like those German pilot watches. Think in the lines of Tutima, Bell & Ross, Sinn, etc. It is also less common, compared to the Bullheads. I won the bid and so the watch arrives today.

However when I put it on my wrist and press down the snap on clasp, the crystal popped off. I was seated and the crystal landed on the coffee table in front of me. The sub-second hand at 6 O clock dial also went missing. I looked high and low, but couldn't find the sub-second hand.

It seems that the friction fit ring around the crystal had already worn off and when I examined the inner rotating bezel attached to the crystal, there are brown stains underneath. I am not sure but maybe its dried glue. I fear that the crystal is attached to the watch via those glue.

It's a real pity, cause the watch is really nice and is in good condition cosmetically. Although I think the case had been refurbished to a mirror polished surface. I think it should be a brushed surface originally. In fact I had been thinking of sending it to Jakub for a bead blasting job, but now I guess I should scrap the plan.

I have notified the Ebay seller about the problem, it seems that he is willing to work out a solution with me. I hope he will make things right. I will post again on the outcome later.

Whatever it is, I guess it seems likely that more cost would have to be incurred. Oh well...