Thanks for your comments.
Could I finally ask how the 1960s automatic Seawolf movement compared with other automatics of the day such as the Seikos or Omegas, etc? This I have often wondered about, not personally being a watch repairer.
The Zodiac Seawolfs of the 60's (at least) used the Caliber 70-72, as I recall. The base ebauche is an A. Schild 1687, and the 1687 or 1688 was the base ebauche for the Zodiac calibers 61, 68, 70-72, 76, 86, and 88.
This movement was also used as the base for Girard-Perregaux calibers 30 through 43 (which includes many variations), the Favre-Leuba 11xx series (particularly the popular 1152), and the Ebel 213, 214, 313, and 314. It was also used by Eberhard and Doxa, though I don't recall those caliber numbers. Other companies probably used it as well.
Thus, the movement in the Sea Wolf was used by many good-quality etablisseurs back in the day. The manufactures of that time made their own. The patent on the ball-bearinig rotor lapsed in the late 60's--Eterna had patented it in 1948--and so only Eterna and ETA (which was closely associated with Eterna) used that design when this AS movement was popular. The ball-bearing rotor is in many ways a superior design, and pretty much everyone (except Rolex, except in the 4130 used in the Daytona) uses it now. That's one reason these movements didn't survive the Quartz Crisis.
Longines is a brand at a similar price point to the companies above (well, maybe a bit more than Zodiac, but similar to GP and Ebel, at least) that made their own movements, and their automatics of the 60's (such as the cal. 345) are held in a little higher regard than the AS movement used by Zodiac. But that's probably not based on anything other than brand awareness in the modern era--Zodiac's brand peaked with the Sea Wolf of the 60's and early 70's, while Longines is still well-known. Also, the high-end brands of the day had their own automatics as well, often using micro-rotors, such as the Piaget 12P and the Universal Geneve Polerouter. Zenith, for example, had their 2500-series autos based on movement designs that came with their 1958 acquisition of Martel, and these are probably of similar fundamental quality to the AS movement in the Zodiac, though they may have been finished a little more expensively. Those watches were "fancy" while the Zodiacs were "good".
The Zodiac was therefore a working-man's quality watch, which is why so many of them came into circulation via military base exchanges during the Vietnam War. I would compare it to toolish watches with ETA movements today (such as the recent Clebar models, and many small-brand dive watches). It was a "good" watch that could last a lifetime at a time when many mechanical watches were not designed to be serviced and kept in good repair. The Sea Wolf, in particular, was half the price of a Rolex and an alternative for those who didn't have the money for a Submariner. Where the Zodiac really shined was in regulation accuracy--many were guaranteed to be accurate to within a minute a month. Both my Zodiacs have hacking seconds (an option on the AS movement) and Triovis micro-regulators. I think the push-to-set quick-date feature was unique to Zodiac, too.
My Aerospace GMT, which is in a similar case to the Sea Wolf, is the kind of watch I would have loved to own when it was new--technical enough to show off to buddies, and implemented for accuracy.
Rick "recalling the time when something could be good quality without being fancy" Denney
Topic: Comments on my Seawolf please....... (Read 8039 times)
