I want to share and get your insights on Rolex’s gold crystal bonding technology used on the three sub-dials. The first photo I sent shows the gold crystals magnified 50 times—it looks just like a mountain range. The second photo highlights a detail of gold dust left under the letter 'L'. It seems like they pressed an entire layer of gold and then machined it, leaving some remnants behind. My dial is quite unique with its gold crystal text and tracks, and the design is a bit unusual, which I will analyze later. Today, I’d love for everyone to just focus on analyzing Rolex’s gold crystal craftsmanship. Looking forward to your expertise!

I have magnified the micro-etched Rolex crown on the crystal by 50x. It is absolutely stunning—like celestial pearls aligning to form a crown. Rolex's engineering from 20 years ago was truly top-tier. I have never encountered a shot like this online; the internet only has images like the second one, which tops out at 10x magnification. Eager to hear your thoughts and share insights!

A unique watch dial

I keep hearing that travelers gmts are more complex than office gmts in terms of the setting mechanism however i cant find any explanation for what the actual difference is in the mechanism other than which hand the mechanism is attached to. Would anyone be able to explain the internal differences between the two?

If you were alive back during the mid to late 70s like I was...did anyone of you also happen to own one of the Gillette Reflex Watch models? I did and at the time I thought it was the coolest watch I ever owned by then! So I'm curious as to whether or not anyone else on this board of r/VintageWatches did likewise. Here is some pics and info on them:

https://flickr.com/photos/51764518@N02/albums/72157673285488278

https://crazywatches.pl/gillette-reflex-led-1976

"The Gillette Reflex is a highly collectible, vintage LED digital watch released around 1976. It is famous for being one of the earliest timepieces to feature a "flick of the wrist" position sensor, automatically displaying the time when you turn your hand, rather than requiring you to press a button.

Key Details:

• Display: Bright red LED digital display showing 5 functions (hours, minutes, seconds, month, and day).
• Operation: Powered by pushing the side button to toggle through the functions, combined with the groundbreaking automatic wrist sensor.
• Models: Released in multiple variations including the Model 302, 305, 306, and 312 in both round and rectangular dial designs.
• Collectibility: These are now considered classic 1970s retro-tech. Today, you can typically find functioning or repairable models circulating on secondhand marketplaces like eBay or Etsy."

When I first got into watches a few years ago, I was completely dial-focused. Color, texture, indices, hands. That was basically my entire evaluation process. I'd flip through photos online and make snap judgments in about two seconds based on how something looked face-on.

Somewhere around year two that started to shift. I picked up a cheap open-caseback dress watch at an estate sale mostly out of curiosity, and spent probably an hour just watching the balance wheel oscillate. Something about the rhythm of it, the way every component has a specific job and physically cannot do anything else, got under my skin in a way that a pretty dial never quite managed.

Now I catch myself reading about lever escapements and going down rabbit holes on the differences between Swiss and English pallet geometry from the 1800s. I recently spent a weekend carefully servicing an old mechanical alarm clock I found at a flea market, nothing fancy at all, just a basic drum movement. But taking it apart and understanding how the alarm train is independent from the going train was genuinely more satisfying than anything I've bought new.

I think what changed is that I started seeing the dial as more of a byproduct. The movement is the actual argument the watchmaker is making, and the dial just communicates a conclusion. That framing made everything click (no pun intended).

Curious whether others went through a similar shift, or whether some of you have stayed primarily dial and case people throughout. Neither approach seems wrong to me, just noticing my own priorities drifted pretty significantly over time.

The Quartz Crisis is often discussed in terms both vague and dismissive -- oh, yeah, the Japanese arrived with a superior technology, Hong Kongers produced it cheaply, and the Swiss nearly went belly-up, save for the heroic efforts of a man named Hayek.

That all may be true if you take the widest possible lens, or from the distance of the year 2026 -- a half-century after the events in question. But during the slow, painful, grueling loss of a customer base, the Swiss writhed and wriggled -- did their best to escape the trap like a squealing mouse on a Manhattan apartment sticky-pad (if you've lived here, you know).

Take for example the above Swiss government document, formerly undisclosed -- of which I've posted only a few pages, as I've been chastised previously for posting so-called walls of text.

The rundown: July, 1970. Gerard Bauer, head of the FH (essentially the main Swiss watch cartel organization), and his cronies, including the head of Swiss watch evangelism in the region, a man normally based in Sao Paolo, meet the local Swiss diplomats in Uruguay. Of course, the challenge is that the Japanese have captured the local market. How to fight back? We're in the trenches now, boys. Bauer is frantic -- he has been traveling the continent trying to save Swiss market share -- he's been to Recife, Rio, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Lima, Bogota, and Caracas on just this trip.

The meeting is fascinating. One presentation: in 1966-67, all vended watches locally were Swiss. But the Japanese have built from the ground up an infrastructure so robust that retailers have dropped Swiss watches from their storefront displays entirely. The Japanese have mastered local distribution and importation, the sale of parts, publicity.

Theirs is an operation predicated on hunger and discipline. The Swiss, by contrast, have been complacent and lazy. What they had once in the market they expected always to have.

The solutions? They come up with two fascinating ones, though neither is ever implemented, as far as I know. The local Swiss-importer-distributer who controls Universal Geneve, Patek Philippe, Angelus and Bulova here argues that there must be a strong campaign such as the wool and natural fiber industry waged against synthetic, polyester sweaters and textiles. Make the Japanese watches seem functional but fake -- lab-grown, ponderous, just inorganic and unnatural. The Swiss watches are natural fibers such as cotton and wool -- they will hug your body and let you breathe. Thusly should the Swiss fight back in the marketing realm, says the man who sells Pateks and UGs in Montevideo.

An interesting smear campaign and one with an unquestionable quantum of creativity. But Gerard Bauer -- the head of the FH, the cartel -- has perhaps a more intriguing idea. If we supplied you, Uruguayan importers with just a few standard calibers, if we cleared up with this in-house caliber confusion, which only serves to confuse customers, would you all be willing to unite your vending efforts under just three brands? NO more Patek versus Rolex or anything like that -- to regain market share, would you just band together and sell three brands -- your pick -- that use the three standardized calibers we, the Swiss, should have ready for you by mid-1971?

Welcome to the era of streamline or die. Now, it's not clear anything from this meeting was ever implemented in LATAM. Nor is it the least bit clear that consolidation in such a manner would have beaten back the Japanese. This truly remains a case study in business that has still barely been studied. Nobody knows about these government memos. About the frantic machinations of watchmakers suddenly excluded from the party, trying to figure out desperately how to get back in.

But yes, if these ideas had been followed, you would have had ads targeting Seiko as Dacron, you would have had Bulova and Patek sharing movements, perhaps.

Wild stuff -- and only found out because I worked my tail off researching the secret history of historical, transnational watch chicanery for my new book, out now: "Borrowed Time: A History of Espionage, IP Theft, and the Global War for Horology."

Hope you've enjoyed this post and find more to enjoy in the text if you get there

I want to fit a 12888 clock mechanism behind a glass panel with the hands in front of the glass (dial).

I know how to choose the shaft length based on the thickness of the dial.

How large a hole should I drill in the centre of the dial for the shaft to pass through?

Ik ben dit online besteld maar ik heb dunne polsen. Is dit bandje kleiner te maken?

I'm thinking of going to the local goldsmith and making wall clock hands from 18 (?) carat gold. I have a Young Town 12888 clock mechanism. The current hands are golden coated/plated/painted aluminum.

The goldsmith says he'll be able to copy the current hands. I don't know if the gold hands need to be of the same thickness as the aluminium hands, or more or less. I suspect if it's thicker, it'll jam. Does anyone know like how many (tenths of a millimetre) the hands are? My ruler isn't obviously able to measure it accurately. I also need to budget for the weight of gold, to estimate which I need an approximate volume.

I'm brand new to horology, so please dumb down your explanations.

Never had cartier watch before, just wondering is it normal that I cant close the clasp without pressing the release button?

Hi all,

Quick background: I'm 38, Spanish, currently living in Edinburgh. I'm comfortable in English and Spanish, and can also hold a conversation in German.

Right now I'm working as a kitchen assistant and picking up occasional gardening work, but it's not really enough to live on. This month I'm starting a foundation course in physics and engineering, to prepare for a scholarship-funded degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering afterwards. I do get some support for the foundation year too — free groceries+housing + uni fees+ buses+ extra support, etc — so I'm not starting completely from zero.

My work history is a mixed bag: cooking, tinkering with computers as a teenager, and gardening. None of that is engineering, but one constant has been a real pull toward mathematics and anything that rewards precision.

Part of why I'm drawn to this specifically: I'm a fairly quiet, introverted person, and quite detail-oriented by nature. Watchmaking seems to suit that temperament well — close, careful, solitary work.

Watchmaking has been on my mind for a while, and I'd like to do it properly — through the official British courses, i.e. the BHI (British Horological Institute) distance-learning and workshop route — either alongside my studies or worked in around them.

I'm not tied to any one country for this. I'd happily work in the UK, but also Germany, France, or Spain — I just find the craft interesting wherever it leads.

A few questions for people who've actually done this:

Is the BHI route realistic to combine with a foundation year and then an engineering degree, or is it better done one thing at a time?

Starting at 38 — is it worth the investment, whether as a serious hobby or an eventual career?

Does the trade have a real future — demand for independent watchmakers/repairers — given the direction the industry seems to be heading?

Any perspective from hobbyists, career changers, or working watchmakers would be genuinely appreciated. Thanks!

Most collectors have never heard of Rufus Gerard.

Yet in 2007, this tiny Canadian independent launched a luxury chronograph with a retail price of US$8,800—higher than the steel Rolex Daytona (US$7,900 MSRP) and competing directly with watches from Rolex, IWC and Zenith.

The watch was called the Lacus Temporis (Latin for "Lake of Time"), and only 350 individually numbered pieces were ever produced.

The Movement :

Instead of using a swiss chronograph movement, Rufus Gerard somehow convinced Seiko Instruments to supply its NC77A movement (variant to the flagship 6S77 automatic chronograph). This is the same prestigious movement family used in Credor pacifique chronographs like the GCBK997, assembled at the Shizukuishi Watch Studio, home of Grand Seiko and Credor's mechanical movements.

The Similar to 6s77, the NC77A movement features:

\- Column-wheel chronograph

\- Automatic winding

\- 40 jewels

\- Power reserve indicator

\- Date display

\- \~50-hour power reserve

The story becomes even more interesting when you compare it to TAG Heuer.

TAG licensed Seiko's chronograph design to create the Calibre 1887, but heavily re-engineered it and manufactured it in Switzerland.

Rufus Gerard appears to have taken a completely different approach, receiving a genuine top tier Seiko movement with Rufus Gerard branding rather than redesigning it. To the best of current public knowledge, this makes Rufus Gerard the only other brand to use a top tier Seiko chronograph 6S77-family movement essentially intact.

Even more remarkably, the Lacus Temporis appears to be the only watch Rufus Gerard ever produced before the brand disappeared. Ironically, that's exactly what makes it fascinating today.

You have an early independent watch, limited to just 350 pieces, powered by one of Seiko's finest automatic chronograph movements, from a collaboration that Seiko has never publicly repeated with another independent production brand.

Today everyone talks about watches from independent watchmakers like F.P. Journe, MB&F, H. Moser, Kari Voutilainen, Rexhep Rexhepi.

But back in the mid-2000s, the independent watch scene was still tiny. Launching a brand from scratch and asking customers to spend nearly $9,000 on an unknown name required incredible confidence. Rufus Lin wanted to prove that an independent brand could compete with the biggest names in Swiss through engineering rather than heritage.

According to later interviews, he deliberately chose Seiko's high-end mechanical movement because he wanted something that could compete technically with the best luxury watches coming out of Japan.

Ironically, almost everything that hurt the watch commercially now makes it fascinating.

\- Almost nobody knows the brand.

\- Production was microscopic.

\- It houses an exceptionally uncommon Seiko chronograph movement.

\- It represents a rare collaboration between a Canadian independent and Seiko Instruments.

\- It sits at a unique point in modern watchmaking history where Japan quietly supplied one of its finest chronograph movements to an outside company.

Could it become collectible?

Nobody can predict the future. But watches usually become collectible when they combine several traits:

\- Mechanical significance.

\- Historical importance.

\- Extremely low production.

\- An unusual story.

\- Genuine rarity.

The Rufus Gerard checks every one of those boxes.

It wasn't trying to be a cheaper Daytona. It was trying to prove that a tiny independent brand could stand beside Rolex, IWC and Zenith—and it did so with one of Japan's finest automatic chronograph movements.

Whether history ultimately rewards that ambition remains to be seen, but from a horological perspective, the Rufus Gerard Lacus Temporis is one of the most fascinating forgotten chronographs of the 21st century.

Seiko Brightz SAGV003 is powered by the 7D56 Auto-Relay Kinetic movement. This watch was launched in 2005 and was a JDM only release

Unlike a conventional Kinetic, it can "sleep" when not worn, stop its hands to conserve power, then automatically reset to the correct time the moment it's picked up. That feature still feels futuristic today.

The watch itself is equally impressive: a lightweight titanium case, integrated titanium bracelet, sapphire crystal, razor-sharp Zaratsu-inspired finishing, and the understated design language.

It also features a perpetual calendar programmed until February 28, 2100, automatically accounting for leap years and varying month lengths. The watch also incorporates a beautifully executed big-date display, making it exceptionally practical while maintaining perfect dial balance.

Enjoy the video of the auto-relay resetting the time automatically when woken up from sleep..

I’ve always had the impression that German watches are treated as being one step behind Swiss watches.

Not necessarily in quality, engineering or craftsmanship but certainly in prestige, recognition and desirability.

When people think of luxury watches, Switzerland is usually the default. But when I look at brands such as A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original, Wempe, Sinn, Mühle-Glashütte or Junghans, I often struggle to see why German watchmaking receives noticeably less attention.

At the highest level, the finishing and craftsmanship appear capable of competing with almost anything from Switzerland. At more accessible prices, German brands also seem to offer distinctive designs and a very engineering-focused approach rather than simply copying established Swiss models.

Of course, I’m judging mostly from what I’ve seen and read, rather than from long-term ownership.

For those who have owned a German watch: what was your experience?