WHO loves Certinas ?

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Some beautiful Certina in this thread, but I haven't noticed any full fat funky chunky 70's Certronic yet so let's get one of those big boys added. You certainly know it when this one is on your wrist. The largest of the tuning fork watches, my wife hates it馃榿

 
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Some beautiful Certina in this thread, but I haven't noticed any full fat funky chunky 70's Certronic yet so let's get one of those big boys added. You certainly know it when this one is on your wrist. The largest of the tuning fork watches, my wife hates it馃榿


Funky! What's the diameter?
 
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Some beautiful Certina in this thread, but I haven't noticed any full fat funky chunky 70's Certronic yet so let's get one of those big boys added. You certainly know it when this one is on your wrist. The largest of the tuning fork watches, my wife hates it馃榿


Mine are a bit smaller, for big seventies style I have to resort to the Diamaster 馃榿

 
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Love the Diamaster, almost bought one just like it a few times in the past.

Funky! What's the diameter?

43mm, it's a bigun.
 
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We all know here watches like this can routinely be had for between 拢150 and 拢250. However earlier today I was at my watch repairer and he had a 1970s Rolex datejust on his bench. As I was wearing my own DS I asked him to let me look at the Rolex so I could do a little comparison. The DS compared favourably in every department, finishing was on par along with the general feeling of quality and heft. You would never have guessed one was a 3K watch and one a 拢180 one. My point is, I suppose, that although we know the Hodinkee price is ridiculous these watches should be worth more than they are. They are massively undervalued. I have always hankered after a vintage airking or datejust but I feel my DS is scratching the itch for a slightly dressy but classic everyday vintage watch.

Spot on. The general market for these has gone up quite fast. If you're very lucky, you can still find nice examples for a few hundred 拢, and if you're very, very lucky, you can find them for even less in the dustier corners of the watch-selling world. But the days in which you could grab these on the proper cheap through the big forums (Ebay, Chrono24, etc.) seem to be fading fast, if not gone altogether. This is the nature of the game, I suppose--the artificiality of taste and value. At least, in this case, it's for watches that are well built, attractive, with a nice variety of dial configurations, solid finishing, and in-house movements.
 
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Some beautiful Certina in this thread, but I haven't noticed any full fat funky chunky 70's Certronic yet so let's get one of those big boys added.

Sun's out so I'm wearing my "semi skimmed" Certronic today.

 
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I forgot to post that one here : my first, one and only Certina so far.
This thread scares me 馃榾 It could well be the beginning of a new diversion in my collection... Thanks for sharing your beautiful certinas.

I have to thank @No Mercy for this lovely one :


Edit : going through this thread again, I can feel the envy rising馃槻馃槵馃檮 : DS, DS-2, DS-3, Argonaut, chronolympic... those crazy turtle case back, those quality & innovative movements, the colorful design, the divers, the GF bracelet... I guess I come late but maybe not too late ?

Love also this well done website : https://www.vintagecertinas.ch/de/home-2/
Edited:
 
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DS-2s are awesome. If someone who follows this thread, has one for sale, Europe preferably, please message me. 馃榾
 
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You've probably all seen this one on the Bay, the seller seems very intent indeed on selling, he/she even adds a NOS to the title, which I find rather optimistic.

Anyway, the watch is far too chunky for my thin arm anyway, so purely out of curiosity: did Certina really make these kind of funky dials on purpose in the 70s? I mean, even staid Swiss watch engineers in boring Grenchen probably dibbled in occasional recreational drugs then, but is still looks rather wild. I can't remember seeing anything remotely comparable in those old Certina catalogues, and google doesn't help either.
 
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You've probably all seen this one on the Bay, the seller seems very intent indeed on selling, he/she even adds a NOS to the title, which I find rather optimistic.

Anyway, the watch is far too chunky for my thin arm anyway, so purely out of curiosity: did Certina really make these kind of funky dials on purpose in the 70s? I mean, even staid Swiss watch engineers in boring Grenchen probably dibbled in occasional recreational drugs then, but is still looks rather wild. I can't remember seeing anything remotely comparable in those old Certina catalogues, and google doesn't help either.

The dial was originally blue and has degraded seriously. You will see this on a lot of metallic blue dials from that era to various extent especially around luminous markers.
 
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You've probably all seen this one on the Bay, the seller seems very intent indeed on selling, he/she even adds a NOS to the title, which I find rather optimistic.

Anyway, the watch is far too chunky for my thin arm anyway, so purely out of curiosity: did Certina really make these kind of funky dials on purpose in the 70s? I mean, even staid Swiss watch engineers in boring Grenchen probably dibbled in occasional recreational drugs then, but is still looks rather wild. I can't remember seeing anything remotely comparable in those old Certina catalogues, and google doesn't help either.

Phil, I hope, that was sarcasm. And Google failed again ? Oh Dear..... It's not a psychedelic variant from a spaced out designer..... It's a damaged dial. The brass plate shows through the missing paint....
 
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Phil, I hope, that was sarcasm.
Semi-sarcasm, to be honest. I really like how this - and many of the lovely patina'ed dials in this thread - looks... and probably have been looking at too many photos in the last few days, looking for a suitable dial for my DS to replace the not-so-nice and decidedly not-so-funky dial.
 
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"Mint galaxy dial", that's pretty creative 馃榿

And the obligatory Certina:
 
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"Mint galaxy dial", that's pretty creative 馃榿

And the obligatory Certina:

What's the language of that week day disk? 馃榾
 
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What's the language of that week day disk? 馃榾

Thank you for asking, I forgot to point out that it's Czech 馃榾

PON is "pond臎l铆" = Monday
 
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Thank you for asking, I forgot to point out that it's Czech 馃榾

PON is "pond臎l铆" = Monday
Ah, now that's clear. Thanks for the explanation!
 
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Ah, now that's clear. Thanks for the explanation!

I'm happy that you asked, because it i something that had me wondering. I believe that Certina might have been the only Swiss watchmaker to go through the hassle to make language specific date disks for such a minuscule market. The access to these watches in Czechoslovakia was financially very limited, so I can only imagine that they sold in the low thousands at the most.
However, Certinas seem to have been popular here, so I have another one from my Grandfather. He had the Certina and a Prim Diplomat. I can only imagine that the Prim must have been his daily watch, while the Certina was more festive. It's funny that the value is the other way around today. 馃榾

 
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Great watches, especially with their story that makes them personal for you.
I asked because I've lately seen couple of Certinas online, with a Polish day disk, which looked kinda similar to the one you shared here. 馃榾

From a short online research I did, it emerged that there was a store chain in Poland formed in the 70s during the communist time, where only Dollars where accepted. Among some other western products, it sold watches. Omega, Longines and... Certinas we're discussing here. (Funfact, even some Omegas had the translated day disk).