I have just received a Zenith 126 wristwatch. I noticed that if I look at the hour and minute hand, the watch appears to tell good time. It appears to be pretty close to the time.gov time. However, the seconds hand goes around the dial in about 47 seconds (when I time it with my IWC chronograph). I would think that if it is that fast, the watch would be extremely fast, gaining an enormous amount of time. However, when I look at the hours and minutes, it appears correct over the last 6 hours or so. Any ideas as to what is happening? I am almost certain that the watch has not been serviced recently. I am going to post a picture when I get a chance.
I have compared it against the clock on my computer, time.gov and to another watch. They all show the same phenomenon.
This must be a sweep second watch as if it was a sub second then the seconds hand is pressed on to the fourth wheel which turns once per minute and I doubt there is a combination of wheel types for this calibre that allows the balance to oscillate at 18000 A/h and the fourth wheel to run very fast but, the second wheel (and hence minutes/hours) to be fine. Do you have a picture of the watch? Here's a picture from the web for a sweep seconds watch (large seconds hand). The driving wheel on top of the third wheel (in the red box) will turn with the third wheel and then it turns the sweep seconds pinion. If this driving wheel or the sweep seconds pinion has the wrong number of teeth then the seconds hand could run at the wrong rate while the minutes (and the hours which are directly linked) would run at the correct rate. I hope this helps but, you need a watchmaker. Cheers, Chris
I am actually starting to like it - it still keeps time but the seconds is fast. Seems Dali like. the movement (picture from seller) Timing. I set the watch yesterday - the hours and minute still tell the correct time.