Post pics of your watches Part II
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Join Date:Posts: 20125
I reassembled this last night with new hands as I made a mess the first time around I built it - trying to mount the seconds hand is the fiddliest thing ever. The crown stem probably needs an extra 1mm taken off it, but it's not that noticeable.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59021
Since I got my 1975 LIP Tallon quartz I've been looking for the correct bracelet for it. Not easy as they made feck all of them in quartz(a few hundred was the consensus on a French forum) and only that model had the steel bracelet. I had slapped a genetic 70's style and crappy pressed steel job on it. The originals are solid links, screwed and all that. Last week I spotted a job lot of "70's bracelets" and saw one(and the women's smaller version and a couple of other nice bracelets). NOS. Nabbed the lot for 40 quid. Was waiting for me today when I came in from a job.
OK, I so do have two of these. Cos me... The above a prototype(silver rehault, production models were grey. 4 ATM, production models were 3 and the movement is slightly different) and a German market one. Fully in house quartz movement, which cost them a pretty penny in development costs. Never mind bringing in non watch designers like Roger Tallon to come up with a new approach to the wristwatch which had been mired in tradition for so long. Genta was also one of those few that pushed the boat out at the time with the AP Royal Oak. Thing is though his designs are lauded today they were very slow sellers when new(interestingly the prototype RO were made from white gold as initially making them in the much tougher steel was too expensive and AP were looking down both barrels of insolvency at the time).
These proved to be good sellers, but LIP were in financial difficulty and the last member of the founder LIP family had gotten the heave ho in 72. And while doing this development and designer looks they were in the middle of bankruptcy and industrial action that was the talk of France. The workers took over the factory and and took some managers hostage. The French police stormed the place and rescued them, so the workers grabbed a load of watches and production machinery and plans and hid them*. As you do. Then the army was sent in and took over the factory. Followed by mass demonstrations in support of the workers. Then the workers decided to operate the factory themselves. Lots of back and forth and government resistance and ultimately the company went under. The newly elected French president Giscard d'Estaing was among those against them, though the model above was known as the "D'Estaing" because he actually wore one for a time. An interesting time in the history of French politics and economics and workers rights, summed up in a watch.
Values wise: ten years ago you could get them for one to two hundred quid, if you could find one. The mechanical chrono in the same style case goes for a well north of 1000 quid. They were popular in the US. These days for the D'Estaing figure about 600 quid. The LED ones add another 200(though way off the beaten track in the watch hobby, early digital collectors have been consistently keen over the decades so values tend to stay equally consistent).
EDIT I nearly forgot I nabbed an original box for one years ago. Even the boxes went funkaaay.
You can spot the later 80's reissue stuff because a) the watches were much smaller. The above is 44, by 40mm and b) the LIP logo is a series of lines, the later ones put a line across the P for legibility. I prefer the modernist purity of the original myself. Cos pseud. 🤔😁
*for ages on ebay NOS LIP bits and bobs were a regular feature. Many of the LIP mechanical chronos that Hodinkee cool hunted so they went from a couple of hundred quid to a few thousand were almost certainly modern put togethers from old parts. My bracelet stash likely came from a similar source...
Post edited by Wibbs onRejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Apologies for not being around much lately, will explain later. For now, Wearing a 4006-7000 from November 1966 while getting some things done around the house
This month 55 years ago is when the first Bell-Matic was released. A very fitting picture from the time
"A fisherman fights a dolphin near Kana Port on November 22, 1966 in Ito, Shizuoka, Japan" kind of like the experience I had during the final seconds of the auction! :)
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