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Mumbai Atrocity

LouS
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You know, I don't mind it much - or at least I've gotten used to it - when the Mumbai redialers redo some Favre-Leuba in their easter-egg shades or faux-military patterns, but a cal. 135?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ULTRA-RARE-...es_Watches_MensWatches_GL&hash=item416f9ff236

And how does ALL the rhodium come off of the movement plates?
“PREOWNED, WEAR OF PREVIOUS OWNER VISIBLE”
Indeed!

I'd think the Swiss embassy should get involved here, for emergency repatriation on humanitarian grounds
 
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Stewart H
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At least they can spell. I saw a re-dialed Movado earlier (it was very interesting as it was a single button chronograph with only a central second recorder) where the re-dialer had adden the word Chronometer [sic.]
 
Stewart H
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So we've got a queue of Indian, Thai and Ukrainian watch butchers waiting for their turn to stand up against the wall and smoke their last cigarette.
 
U
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Stewart H Stewart H
So we've got a queue of Indian, Thai and Ukrainian watch butchers waiting for their turn to stand up against the wall and smoke their last cigarette.

You forgot the Vietnamese counterfeiters.
 
LouS
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Stewart H Stewart H
So we've got a queue of Indian, Thai and Ukrainian watch butchers waiting for their turn to stand up against the wall and smoke their last cigarette.

Molesters of cal 135 leapfrog to the head of the line.

I'm assuming that both of these cal 135 (the thread started and the one MMMD found) were initially sold on the Indian market, and the loss of plating and dials are the price of keeping time in the subcontinent. Who knew 1950s India was so avid for the creme de la creme of horology?

Stewart H Stewart H
At least they can spell. I saw a re-dialed Movado earlier (it was very interesting as it was a single button chronograph with only a central second recorder) where the re-dialer had added the word Chronometer [sic.]

Stewart, we Americans freely admit you speak pretty good english for a foreigner, but that is how we spell chronometer.
 
MMMD
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LouS LouS
I'm assuming that both of these cal 135 (the thread started and the one MMMD found) were initially sold on the Indian market, and the loss of plating and dials are the price of keeping time in the subcontinent.

I don't exactly buy this. These Time Cocoon watches should look like this one, with a serial number just a little earlier:

http://forumamontres.forumactif.com/t22614-chronometre-zenith-calibre-135

Rhodium plating and Côtes de Genève. You might lose plating, but how do you lose Geneva waves? The level of finish on the movements in Time Cocoon's watches is more Wostok than Zenith. Perhaps it has been noted before, but I don't recall ever reading about calibre 135 movements with such third-rate plating and finish. I believe that the appearance of these movements, both presumably destined for India, has more to do with the way they were finished in Switzerland than with any abuses perpetrated by man or climate in India. It looks to me as if Zenith snuck at least a couple of unfinished 135's into India, probably branded as Favre-Leuba's... this is the first evidence I've seen of real corner-cutting on the cal 135.
 
U
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I'd bet it's not the climate, it's a poor choice of chemicals used to clean the movement.
 
MMMD
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U ulackfocus
I'd bet it's not the climate, it's a poor choice of chemicals used to clean the movement.
Very possibly, especially since both watches seem to have been in the same hands, but... the Geneva waves? That part I don't understand. I thought all 135's had them. It makes me think the plating sucked to begin with.
 
LouS
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Interesting observation about the Geneva waves. I dont see how they can be lost either. Time to do a little research...
 
LouS
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So, just spent a little time churning through the image library. I found one other Geneve wave-less cal 135 - and - wouldn't you know it - no rhodium finish:
ob_135.jpg

You'll note it is a low number, and has some other differences including a two-tail regulator, no shock protection and serial number below the balance wheel as well as on one of the bridges. It also has a different balance wheel. The pic is from this thread (http://patek.watchprosite.com/?show=forumpostf&fi=128&pi=1846018&ti=283383&s=0) which is interesting in itself as a discussion of the Peseaux 260, and which asserts that it is the actual observatory competition configuration.

So, did Zenith decide to make a buck by putting stock balance assemblies into leftover observatory competition movements and casing them? It looks like the baseplate is stock too, so perhaps it is just the bridges which are the odd parts out? Or what?

Curioser and curioser....
 
MMMD
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Wow, thanks for that fascinating 30mm chronometer thread. Well, that is a low number, from early on in the first series of 135's (should be gold-plated) about 4 years earlier than the Time Cocoon 135's, i.e. 1951. Cool to see one with the cut Guillaume balance. It's an interesting notion that these Indian ones might have been repurposed competition movements.

Two other things I've noticed about the thread-starter:
1) The balance is not stock - it's a smaller replacement. Compare Time Cocoon 1 (small balance),

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages...,635260686,635260681&formats=0,0,0,0&format=0

and Time Cocoon 2 (legitimate looking giant balance),

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/assets/stories/DBTHMKvMrByRqahDpkI-Yw.jpg

(Sorry, but the link inserting tool is still not working for me.)

2) The spiral-sunburst pattern (there is undoubtedly a cool French term for this) always seen on the crown wheel and winding wheel of cal 135's - even on the utilitarian one from the Peseux 260 thread - is absent from the Time Cocoon 135's. They are thoroughly unfinished.
 
LouS
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Dunno what the French (& French speaking Swiss) call it, but I think it's called snailing. Anyone who actually knows is welcome to correct me.
 
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