Several years ago, I began collecting interesting Valjoux, Landeron, etc chronographs because they were affordable and often struck my fancy. Please share your favorites. I’ll start with something from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. This is a Valjoux 7733. I'll try to put up a movement photo later.

 

landeron pretty in pink

 

I know it's not an automatic. I believe it's a meca-quartz hybrid. Anyway, it got me back into wearing a watch several years ago, and now I'm into automatic watches again.
What I like about it is, the top chrono subdial makes 1 full sweeping revolution every second, and displays 20ths of a second. The sweep second hand ticks just once per second.

 

This is a Landeron 48. It keeps time within 5 seconds a day and I don’t think it was ever serviced.

 

yes we have a few of the old Seiko 15 jewel high-grade quartz jobbies and it's quite amusing to watch the split second chrono hand whizzing around

 

I have one of these and I love it. Mecaquartz movement

 

Here are a few no-name vintage chronographs that were fairly inexpensive at the time I found them.

 

Dibs on the Grana .

 

so sorry Jim, if I had only known. I sold it on eBay a few months ago and IIRC it went for less than 500 USD. It had a nice 38mm stainless case and an unsigned Venus 175. Most likely the hand set was a replacement, but it was a good fit. The good news is that it went to a nice tinkerer in the California desert and he really liked it.

 

I’ve seen this one on chrono. Affordable and elegant. Great choice!

 

I absolutely adore this Wakmann Regatta with a Lemania 1341 powering it. The uniqueness of a big hand minute counter is simply fantastic.

 

3017 chronographs, used to be real cheap, and still unappreciated. Mine gives me a smile every time it’s on my wrist.

 

Picked up for $500 couple of years ago

 

if you need parts to fix your keeper let us know as we have a black anodized version that still works fine and looks almost NOS but the center second hand counter doesn't seem to move. we can send it to you for gratis to save your heirloom as i'm never going to get around to getting it fixed.

 

Nice!

 

Very nice gesture.

 

yea I should button up my shirt before my heart falls out