Tissot also does DON bezel: 40508 chronographs

Just got this in today - it's a quite unusual Tissot chrono with Cal 870 / Lemania 1277 movement that was only produced in 1969, so I presume this watch comes from 69/70.

Apart from the fact that I love the case size and shape of these, and the bracelet, I was drawn to the bezel...

Another rabbit hole opened up; I hate the way this happens when you find yourself tumbling into another new wormhole.

That said, the 40508-6X reverse panda watch shown above is already one of my favourites. It's much slimmer than the tri-compax PR-516 chronos that have the Lemania 1873 movement, so feels so good on the wrist.



I also recently picked up another, a 40508-1X with a considerably earlier serial number (208xxxx vs 245xxxx); condition wise it's not quite so good (bezel is more scuffed, there's a spot of lume missing on the hour hand) but I suspect could be even more unusual. It came to me on a horrible leather strap that went straight in the bin, and currently sits on an early 1970s NSA bracelet:

I took it apart to clean the case out since one pusher was sticking a bit; popping the bezel off showed a lot of gunk underneath

A very honest watch. Looks very nice to me. In my opinion, Tissot is totally underrated.

This is now getting silly. Just arrived - this one is about 900 later in the serial number order than the 40508-6X above, but it's a 40508-10X yet also has a 870 / 1277 movement... I've no idea why the difference in ref number... maybe the different chrono hand is original and it's considered an evolution model?

Sabina also did a very Speedie-adjacent bezel, at least in one of their (now exceedingly rare) chronos:

What is the significance of a DON bezel?

Nothing really, other than the Dot-Over-Ninety a marker of older Omega Speedmaster bezels which some people will attach a lot more value to than a Dot-Next-to-Ninety (DNN) bezel...
Like everyone else, it seems, Tissot was non-consistent too. In the early 70s they had a "Radial" bezel 😆 - should that be a RADN?