I was stalking eBay since a week for budget gen watches and i found many vintage gen for less than 100$, brands such as Sandoz, Tissot, Titoni, West End Watches, Enicar.
I bought my 'refurbished' "Sowar Prima" from "West End Watch Co." (a Swiss brand mainly selling in Asia and Orient which was the first to use Incabloc) which is a manual winding watch from the 50-60s from
Old Watch Collection a seller located in India.
I paid ~40euros including shipping for the watch.
Here are the pics from the eBay auction :
I received it after... 2 days and a half (auction won the 10/11 at 2am, shipped from India; i received it the 12/11 at 2pm in France via TNT:mellow
, i dont have to add that i wasnt expecting that this early
And it was verry well protected; in fact, it took me 10 minutes to remove all the protections
First impression... the watch is even smaller than what i thought (32mm including crown, 30 without and 16/14mm strap)... really like a toy :shocked: and the "plastic leather" band feels cheap but at least its soft and not too uncomfy.
But after that... it really doesnt looks like an old watch, it really look like if it was brand new : the tropic is new, the dial has been repainted (or maybe its a brand new one !) and it has lume (not extreme lume as on their pic but still its as good as on Seamaster/PO reps i got) and the entire case has been cleanly polished.
The only visible flaw if the hour and minutes hand where the lume seems imperfectely placed and in fact doesnt light up that much (compared to the hour markers) but its still hardly noticeable.
It definitely doesnt feels like an old watch or even a refurbished one and the movement seems to work pretty fine (havent got a caseback opener to verify if its in nice shape) and to keep time well.
It looks way better than all the replicas i had that you could find at about the same price, its a real Swiss watch even if some of the parts may have been changed.
Wearing it... well... i cant compare to my other watches (they are all Automatic and Quartz) mainly beacause of the size of the watch, its really tiny compared to the 42/45mm watches i have but it is at least 2 or 3 times less heavier and i almost dont even feel it.
The movement ticks are at least 3 or 4 times more louder than the 21j/A7750/Quartz i got which definitely doesnt bother me.
I definitely want to buy other 'refurbished vintage' watches but in bigger size next timeroud:
After about 1 day and a half without rewinding it (definitely not sure i winded it completely), it has just stopped few minutes ago and at most it have kept good time (cannot be precise as i havent saw when it stopped but definitely lost less than 2 or 3 minutes over 2 days).
Pics :
ps: more pics and impressions to come
I bought my 'refurbished' "Sowar Prima" from "West End Watch Co." (a Swiss brand mainly selling in Asia and Orient which was the first to use Incabloc) which is a manual winding watch from the 50-60s from
Old Watch Collection a seller located in India.I paid ~40euros including shipping for the watch.
Here are the pics from the eBay auction :
I received it after... 2 days and a half (auction won the 10/11 at 2am, shipped from India; i received it the 12/11 at 2pm in France via TNT:mellow
, i dont have to add that i wasnt expecting that this early And it was verry well protected; in fact, it took me 10 minutes to remove all the protections
First impression... the watch is even smaller than what i thought (32mm including crown, 30 without and 16/14mm strap)... really like a toy :shocked: and the "plastic leather" band feels cheap but at least its soft and not too uncomfy.
But after that... it really doesnt looks like an old watch, it really look like if it was brand new : the tropic is new, the dial has been repainted (or maybe its a brand new one !) and it has lume (not extreme lume as on their pic but still its as good as on Seamaster/PO reps i got) and the entire case has been cleanly polished.
The only visible flaw if the hour and minutes hand where the lume seems imperfectely placed and in fact doesnt light up that much (compared to the hour markers) but its still hardly noticeable.
It definitely doesnt feels like an old watch or even a refurbished one and the movement seems to work pretty fine (havent got a caseback opener to verify if its in nice shape) and to keep time well.
It looks way better than all the replicas i had that you could find at about the same price, its a real Swiss watch even if some of the parts may have been changed.
Wearing it... well... i cant compare to my other watches (they are all Automatic and Quartz) mainly beacause of the size of the watch, its really tiny compared to the 42/45mm watches i have but it is at least 2 or 3 times less heavier and i almost dont even feel it.
The movement ticks are at least 3 or 4 times more louder than the 21j/A7750/Quartz i got which definitely doesnt bother me.
I definitely want to buy other 'refurbished vintage' watches but in bigger size next time
roud:After about 1 day and a half without rewinding it (definitely not sure i winded it completely), it has just stopped few minutes ago and at most it have kept good time (cannot be precise as i havent saw when it stopped but definitely lost less than 2 or 3 minutes over 2 days).
Pics :
ps: more pics and impressions to come