1933 Eterna Cal. 716 Jump Hour, thoughts?

Sam909

I noticed this watch at the current online auction and am just want to identify the Eterna model. It seems fine and only AI search shows it is correct from outside, but what should you look for when you buy one in the future? Which brands are well-known for their quality jump hours, and do those timepieces offer hassle-free servicing or not due to their rarity. Finally, do you think big brands will bring these style back, or are they a thing of the past?

Sam909

I noticed this watch at the current online auction and am just want to identify the Eterna model. It seems fine and only AI search shows it is correct from outside, but what should you look for when you buy one in the future? Which brands are well-known for their quality jump hours, and do those timepieces offer hassle-free servicing or not due to their rarity. Finally, do you think big brands will bring these style back, or are they a thing of the past?

J jaenshi

Hi, a new member, joined for this post, but might stay around.

You've identify the maker correctly, it is an Eterna movement. More accurately, it's an ETA one. The base movement is an ETA-717 specifically, and it's the typical digital module retrofitted to it. There's a more rare module with the "smiling" aperture pattern commonly found in round movement footprint 1930's jump hours.

Now the secondary and more urgent reason I joined, did you by any chance find that watch being sold on the bay by a user going by RarityNY? Am asking because that seller is definitively a conman. They are either selling watches they do not own with stolen pictures, or are, best case scenario, endlessly fraudulently cancelling legitimate winning bids chasing some mythical final price. How do I know this? They've been selling the same handful of watches over and over for years.

J jaenshi

As per your other questions. The FHF-29 "Digital" is easily my favorite early jump hour movement, extensively overbuilt and has an interesting and unique jumper mechanism with an indexing "hammer". You can find it in all sorts of grades, but the 15 Jewel workhorse, which is also the most common, is of decent quality already. Bulova has a more polished licensed version of it, cal. 13AT. An example of a higher grade one would be a Helvetia 75A version of it, but that one also has a proprietary module and not the FHF "Digital" one. the Helvetia module has the best hour switch I've seen on an early jump hour (a smooth non-jittery quick swap, blink and you'll miss it fast), however it's also a very fragile design with.


Servicing these can be very fiddly, to a point of a nightmare, and if the module parts are broken, a random watchmakler is not likely to have them. I like these very flawed watches which is how I ended up finding your post. Every now and then I'll do an image search, to see if something interesting (a previously unknown design, a caliber I'm still looking for or the precious random spare parts/sacrificial movements). The anti-lashback springs in the module are the common parts that fail, and then the second most common are severely damaged or missing discs. I've encountered spare discs being sold on a rare occasion, but never the springs. So, again, your best bet is buying a movement wrecked thoroughly enough to be cheap, but with the specific part you need replaced. If something on the base movement's end is broken, however, replacing that is easy all things considered. The balance from a base ETA-717 (or any of its many branches that have a compatible balance) for example works just fine. TLDR, If something on the front is wrecked, it might take a while to find parts to repair it. If it's a thing on the back end, a quick and easy fix.

They're likely a thing of the past when it comes to any large scale adoption. Unless we are talking really expensive high end watches, the common gimmick for the midrange is for them to make a lazy central hour wheel jump hour module equivalent to what can be found in the 70's dollar watches and sell it for way too much.

Sam909

Thank you very much. This is by far the most extensive explanation I've received on this topic, and it's quite informative. I believe many members will appreciate such efforts when searching for connected topics. I will follow your advise. I also enjoy searching for interested or uncommon watches and I believe there are a lot to learn.