1960s Zodiac Kingline Automatic - Full disassemble

[JamieP]

Hi, My name is Jamie.

I just became a member today after I was looking for more info on my English grandfather's watch (who passed away a few years ago at the ripe old age of 99 and 363 days!! 2 days short of his 100th birthday). He lived in London and we think he bought it in the 1950s or 1960s.

A few years ago I had it restored at a watch repair company about an hour outside of Amsterdam in Netherlands (they are famous for restoring the Rolex eaten by a cow and found 50 years later, see the story here: https://dutchreview.com/news/rolex-eaten-by-cow-returned-after-50-years/).

I never thought anything more about it and enjoyed the watch and made me think of my grandfather when wearing it. Recently I thought I would try to find out more about the watch and the history and to my great surprise and joy, the watch repairer in Holland actually has a youtube channel with more than 55,000 followers, and actually made a video of my grandfather's watch when he was restoring/disassembling it, giving you a rare look inside the watch. I have copied the link for below you as I can imagine as a Zodiac enthusiast you would perhaps enjoy it too.

I also added a couple of photos. Enjoy!



If anybody can share more info (Butch has helped me already - Thanks Butch!!) I would love to hear more info on the watch.

Kind regards,
Jamie

[Grossisten]

It's a very nice watch - sort of an arch-dress watch almost.

As the video says the Kingline was the top dress watch line of Zodiac from around 1968 and onwards. My impression until seeing yours was that the Kinglines were only issued with hi-beat movements (36000 bph) - but as it is not mentioned on the dial or in the video, this may be an older variant. The high-beat movements was the result of a collaboration between several manufacturers and the movement provider AS (A. Schild, part of ETA today). Zodiac was part of this collaboration which specifically aimed at launching a high beat movement, that they claimed was the most precise in the world. This movement was introduced around 1968. If it's not featured in your watch it would be produced before that year, we may then assume. I do not think however, that the Kingline was introduced as early as the 1950'ies, I have not seen anything to suggest this. There were other model lines marketed in that decade, like the Glorius.

Your watch is a chronometer, ie a certified very precise watch. Zodiac in advertising material of the period claim that something like 80% of their watches would be able to obtain a chronometer status. As this was costly - an external party (today known as COSC) tested such watches for a fee - only top of the line models were certified.

I would say that it is probably as fine a watch as you may find from any major brand of the period, given the high general quality of Zodiacs of that period. Zodiac - even if a much smaller company - saw Omega as a main competitor and aimed to produce watches to match those of that brand.