Harvel Seahorse - rectangular water resistant watch

Hi everyone,

I just bought this watch as I really liked its look and it appears to be in excellent condition. Not really sure, but the crystal might be cracked. Look at that chubby second hand though!

Wasn't able to find out much about Harvel, and it would not surprise me if this watch was made by another company.

Has anyone seen this case construction before? It seems to be made out of several different parts. I guess it's supposed to make the watch water resistant. Any thoughts?

Once I have the watch I will take some additional pictures but was hoping someone has some info already.

Thanks!

Thanks a lot for the info above!

So I've been trying to find more info on the Harvel Seahorse and its water resistant case.

I found this Seahorse example below from a collector on Reddit. Note that the case is different from mine but also water resistant. The case middle appears to be screwed into little tabs that are fixed against the upper case (the tabs are visible between the lugs). I've seen the same construction being used by other companies such as Croton, Nivada and Wyler.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageWatches/comments/y287xe/vintage_harvel_sea_horse_back_on_the_wrist/

A Harvel with similar case construction was found on eBay (not labeled Seahorse):



A Wyler (from eBay) disassembled:



I came across another eBay auction for a Harvel water resistant case that has several patents inside the caseback. This again appears to be a slightly different construction (no tabs).



Searching for the patent numbers that can be seen inside the caseback lead me deeper into the rabbit hole to this Italian website. This forum post explores a rectangular Nivada watch with a water resistant case. This case uses the same patents and seems to have been made by the same company as the Harvel case above. The case company seems to have been specialized in water resistant casing.

https://orologi.forumfree.it/m/?t=78368005

The name of the case manufacturer is simply Fabrique de boites Tramelan SA. Interestingly they write on their ad that their best cases are water resistance tested to 3ATM at a facility in Neuchatel.

On the same Italian forum I also noted this page which shows case ref 162 which shows a lot of similarity to my Harvel watch case.



One thing to note is that all the watches referenced above seem to use a different case construction from mine. Even the ref. 162 above seems to use 2 screws to secure the case. Could all of the above cases have been made by the same company? No clue (probably not). And ref 162 is not exactly a unique design and very similar cases were made by other manufacturers.

So no conclusions but at least it kept me off the streets for a few hours. 😀

Having now seen several Harvel watches including the ones in this thread, it seems they made nice stuff with interesting designs and high quality stainless steel constructions. 👍

An update on the Harvel Seahorse, with an unusual water resistant case.

It is quite an elaborate construction with 2 hinged components that press the case middle against the gasket and crystal.

I will let the pictures tell the story...



Unfortunately due to the unusual case the watch needs a special curved and stepped crystal, which will probably make the watch only useful as a tiny paperweight. 🙁

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a look.

Nice! Thanks for posting!

You're right, I will check after the holiday and give it another try.👍

Just an update on the crystal.

I managed to find the correct crystal with gasket on eBay. It is a Wyler "947" crystal. I believe it is the same as used on many of the rectangular water resistant Wyler watches.

This crystal is also available from GS with number CMX345-12. However, I chose the Wyler crystal because it came with a plastic gasket.

Thanks everyone!