Hi all,

I'm considering shopping for a 196.052 Montreal ana-digi because I love and collect early electric watches. I'm a bit nervous because they're expensive - over $2,000 - and I see a lot of non-working ones on eBay. Does the number of non-working examples belay reliability issues? Also, what's my recourse if I buy one and it stops working? Do replacement parts exist? I have to imagine that since I see many dead ones, they can't be fixed. At the prices they're at, you'd expect all these dead ones to be fixed if they could be.
In collecting early digital watches, I've noticed that there are some models which should be avoided because they have design flaws and frequently die and are unfixable - The Seiko G757 Octopussy and Breitling Pluton are two. Is the Montreal another?

Thanks!

 

My guess is that when one of these obsolete quartz units packs it in, it means a trip to the manufacturer. And I suspect you know what that means!

 

Many of the parts are still available for the Cal. 1611, but not all. Critically the electronic module is not available, so it would depend on what the particular problem is whether it would have to go back to Bienne or not.

Cheers, Al

 

STS in the UK still have parts as well. You should be able to do better than 2000$ with the pricing, 1000$ should be possible.

That watch is pretty unique, mine's LCD has developed a stain of sorts, need to look into it at some point in time...