My luckiest ebay pickup! Tissot 709

As some know, I've been working through my watchmaker's journey, and am constantly on the lookout on ebay to pick up watches that look fun to work on! Along the way, I bid on a pair of watches in 1 bid:


Looking at those, I was pretty interested in the Boucherer (stainless looking case, the red background makes it look gold). I love a good ETA movement and strongly suspected that is what it was, though there were no better pictures. SO, I bid, and had very little competition, so ended up with $102 shipped!

Last night, I got them home and started to take a look and do my initial 'triage'. Interestingly, my wife who doesn't really want to wear watches, mentioned that she'd actually be willing to wear the Tissot once I get it running! She's never really showed interest in watches before, so I figured this would be a win, for the watch of the pair I had no interest in.


Now that the case back is off, I had my suspicions confirmed, an ETA 2728, which is exactly what I was hoping for, a good quality ETA movement in need of somehelp.

THEN, I went to take a look at the Tissot. It is ticking, but very poor looking on the time grapher. It ended up coming out case back + movement:


The movement itself was VERY stuck and required some prying to get out of the case back. Inside, a LOVELY looking Tissot 709 that will be a challenge and a half!



BUT <and here's the luck!> I then went to 'clean up' and put the watch + case into my storage for future projects, and noticed this!


What I assumed was a gold-filled case, is actually 14k! The band is a cheap stretch bracelet that IS plated, but it looks like the watch itself is gold! Again, a watch that had my wife not showed interest in, would have just gone to the 'spare watches/parts' box, and I had no interest in when bidding on.

SO I ordered a spare parts movement plus a mainspring, and will put this one up as one of my soon-to-work on projects.

Anyway, just a heck of a score to have a few hundred dollars in gold for what is a watch that was the 'extra', and only paid $100 for.

That movement is tiny, I wish you luck with it if you decide to service it.

Your nice surprise was made by Carnal & Cie. SA, La Chaux-de-Fonds.

I'm going to have to service it, the trace on this is a snowstorm. I'm not familiar with that manufacturer, is that particularly special?

Just one of the many case makers used by the various watch companies at the time.
Most of them have been gobbled up by entities like Swatch in order to have complete control of production.

I spent some time on the bench with this guy over the last few days. The movement was kinda filthy with some corrosion, but the cleaning machine went to work! I weighed the case + crystal, and it is ~5g (my scale is in whole grams only). I measured a different crystal (that is bigger) that was barely less than 1 gram, so value of the case is at best ~$400, still a great deal 😀

Unfortunately, one of the incabloc springs broke in the cleaning machine, so I've got some on order from otto frei. BUT it probably means this won't be ready for christmas. Oh well!

I got lucky and the Otto Frei order was shipped SUPER fast and got here nice and quick! A bit of work to get the incabloc spring replaced, and it runs like a top! Sadly I noticed the minute hand is broken off at the tip (but it was already like that), but still looks good unless you look too close.

I probably still need a little time with a polywatch to clean up the last few nicks, but here it is, already for my wife to wear! She actually said she'd prefer to keep the stretch bracelet, so thats back on it:

Interestingly, I found that the 'spare' movement I ordered for parts (which NOW arrived, quite a while after I already finished!) came with the correct hands plus a signed crown! I'm going to swap them out so my two biggest complaints will be fixed! Plus, a whole movement of parts.

The Bucherer I got in the same order I was able to service (though getting the crystal squared away was a PAIN, I ordered like 5 of them before one actually went in with the chapter ring/tension ring thing without cracking) and get running great! I actually just sold it on Reddit at $150 (and had TONS of folks messaging about it!), so in the end this Tissot was effectively free. My wife hasn't really been wearing it, but perhaps she will for special occasions. Hasn't really worn the Ladies Dynamic I finished either though, so shrug.