![[Daniel Mink] never heard of this brand….](https://preview.redd.it/uz9bh2ynxdkh1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=75978ac1396e69f28ce1997eb11fcc154d54741a)
Curious what people think…... Daniel Mink is definitely an obscure brand, but it’s Swiss made and uses the Valjoux 7750 movement. I actually don’t hate it. Apparently they were a thing about 20 years ago?
Anyone familiar with Daniel Mink or have any thoughts on it? It was a family members and I’ve been into watches for a while, but this is a new one.
I own Tudor, Sinn, Seiko, Omega….and now Mink?
It’s the technology of bonding gold crystals to the dial. This method is used not only on the three subdials, but also for the lettering and the chapter ring.
I have noticed a lot of subs for watches talk about investments and watches holding value or going up. i wanted to actually check that instead of just reading about it so i spent way too much time this week pulling together all the auction results from a few houses back about 30 years. Then i went looking for the same watch selling more than once, not just two of the same ref, the exact same watch.
After all of it i found over 1,200 of them. This is what happened between the sales:
Median result was about +1% total, not per year, just total, over about two years of owning it. Basically nothing, just under half sold for less than they cost before a single fee. The fees are where it gets even worse, and i have a feeling id get a reply "you forgot the buyer's premium". I didnt, thats the point. These prices are what the buyer actually paid, premium included, on both ends. You pay premium going in and commission coming out so the hammer has to climb about 44% before youre even back to even as the seller. only 16% of these got there. Count the auction house's cut and 83% of them lost money.
I tried hard to disprove these before posting, it isnt survivorship (matched pairs, losers included, and the ones that tanked so hard nobody resold them arent even here). It holds same-house-only and one-pricing-basis-only. Holding periods run from under a year to over five. And its nominal, so after inflation the median lost money in real terms.
What i cant see is private and dealer sales. If that side behaves differently, tell me. And my fee numbers are mid-range (27% premium, 12% commission). If you actually consign, what do you really pay?
Not saying watches are a bad thing to own, buy what you love and wear it. Just that "watches are an investment" doesnt really survive the round trip data for the average one (AT AUCTION!). If you want a specific slice run, drop it in the replies and i will run it.
This movement unites the leading Swiss minds (Felsa, Veus, UN, Rolex…).
Hello everyone,
I recently bought this electromechanical watch.
Sadly it isn’t really working. I bought new batteries and the balance wheel is swinging freely. But when I shake the watch slightly it starts up but then comes to a slow stop after about 5 seconds. Does anyone know anything about these types of watches and can help me identify the problem?
Help would be greatly appreciated :)
Analyzing watchmaking technology naturally turns one into a polite historical storyteller. Why do so many people claim that the movement I previously reviewed resembles China's TY601 and old Soviet mechanisms? To understand this, we must travel back to the 1950s and 1960s. During this era, Venus was the ultimate survival powerhouse among Swiss movement manufacturers. In reality, Venus’s designs utilized raw Arcap material supplied by the US. Ulysse Nardin would then meticulously hand-refine them, and while Rolex could apply exquisite decoration to the movement, the outer casing remained purely Rolex. So, why the resemblance to Soviet and Chinese designs? In the early 1960s, facing severe financial distress, Venus sold off a portion of their machinery and designs to the Soviet Union and China. Later on, China legally bought out the technology, whereas the Soviet Union simply pirated it. It’s a long story—let’s continue in the comments
One must look back at the actual auctions, where watches tied to this project were repeatedly put up for bidding up to three times. These were self buying and self-selling transactions. They are not insane, nor are they trying to defraud anyone of a few hundred thousand dollars, which is negligible for a project of this scale. In reality, they are baiting a response and stirring the pot. As ufor Rolex, they remained silent and covertly boycotted that auction house a move completely without precedent. Why have they not filed a lawsuit? This action clearly constitutes more than enough grounds for a defamation suit. However, suing would prove the project is real, as they would be legally required to disclose the entire archive.
Just look at the movement in the photo. It’s a completely unique design. The most incredible part is that it runs in total silence—you won't hear a thing even with your ear pressed right against the caseback or the crystal. It looks like a simple 3-hand watch built with classic 1970s technology. Why is it so bizarre? Because it wasn't made for the public. It was a custom order built for ultimate shockproof protection, using a solid ARCAP ring molded directly onto the plate, floating inside without being screwed to the case. It’s a movement with zero official specs, but it carries the signature mark of a historic partnership between Rolex and a titan of watchmaking from that era.
Es ist eine Tissor multimillionaire mit einem modifizierten Ziffernblatt und ich möchte sie genau so haben – was sind meine besten Optionen?
Chinesische Fabrik beauftragen?
Ich habe echt null Ahnung von Uhren aber noch nie so eine schöne Uhr gesehen!
Würde mich daher über jegliche Tipps freuen
Vielen Dank :)
Which one would you get? Which do you guys think is better? The highlife is slightly used but the F77s are new
Bonjour,
Des connaisseurs de ce type de montre? Mécanisme suisse reconnu de qualité par un horloger mais très peu d'infos concernant la marque sur le net ...
Trouvaille de brocante : Montre à gousset mécanique Molnija
Une magnifique pièce d'horlogerie russe chargée d'histoire, 100 % fonctionnelle !
Détail des pièces & Traductions
Clapet extérieur (face avant) :
Dessin : Le monument du « Soldat-Libérateur » du parc de Treptow à Berlin, représentant un soldat soviétique tenant un enfant sur le bras et une épée brisant la croix gammée.
Inscriptions :
« ПОБЕДА НАД ФАШИСТСКОЙ ГЕРМАНИЕЙ »
« Victoire sur l'Allemagne fasciste »
« XX ЛЕТ »
« XX ans / 20 ans » (commémoration des 20 ans de la fin de la guerre, 1945–1965)
Clapet intérieur :
Dessin : Reproduction du motif de la pièce commémorative officielle de 1 rouble émise en URSS en 1965, arborant l'emblème national soviétique (la faucille et le marteau sur le globe entouré de blé et surmonté de l'étoile).
Inscriptions :
« СССР » « URSS »
« ОДИН РУБЛЬ »
« Un Rouble »
Cadran :
Dessin : Cadran blanc style vintage avec chiffres arabes, minuterie « chemin de fer », graduation intérieure sur 24 heures et cadran secondaire pour la petite seconde placé à 9 heures.
Inscriptions :
« Молния » « Molnija » (nom de la marque, signifiant Éclair ou Foudre)
« 15 КАМНЕЙ »
« 15 rubis »
« СДЕЛАНО В РОССИИ »« Fabriqué en Russie »
Fond du boîtier (face arrière) :
Dessin : La Porte de Brandebourg à Berlin sous des feux d'artifice éclatants célébrant la Victoire.
Inscription :
« ЗА ЗАСЛУГИ »
« Pour mérites » (ou « Pour services rendus »)
⚙️** Le Mouvemen**t
Au cœur de la montre bat un mécanisme mécanique à remontage manuel Molnija 3602 (15 rubis), réputé pour sa robustesse et sa fiabilité. Ce calibre est basé sur l'architecture du mouvement suisse Cortébert 620, une mécanique légendaire qui a historiquement été utilisée par de grandes maisons horlogères comme Rolex et Panerai pour leurs montres militaires et de plongée dans les années 1930 et 1940
(Le dessous de la montre était entièrement recouvert par la rouille. On ne voyait même pas le dessin. En cours de nettoyage)
The watch goes to sleep when placed in darkness such as a box or drawer. When exposed to light it awakens and resets to current date and atomic time via GPS.
I keep hearing that travelers gmts are more complex than office gmts in terms of the setting mechanism however i cant find any explanation for what the actual difference is in the mechanism other than which hand the mechanism is attached to. Would anyone be able to explain the internal differences between the two?
The Quartz Crisis is often discussed in terms both vague and dismissive -- oh, yeah, the Japanese arrived with a superior technology, Hong Kongers produced it cheaply, and the Swiss nearly went belly-up, save for the heroic efforts of a man named Hayek.
That all may be true if you take the widest possible lens, or from the distance of the year 2026 -- a half-century after the events in question. But during the slow, painful, grueling loss of a customer base, the Swiss writhed and wriggled -- did their best to escape the trap like a squealing mouse on a Manhattan apartment sticky-pad (if you've lived here, you know).
Take for example the above Swiss government document, formerly undisclosed -- of which I've posted only a few pages, as I've been chastised previously for posting so-called walls of text.
The rundown: July, 1970. Gerard Bauer, head of the FH (essentially the main Swiss watch cartel organization), and his cronies, including the head of Swiss watch evangelism in the region, a man normally based in Sao Paolo, meet the local Swiss diplomats in Uruguay. Of course, the challenge is that the Japanese have captured the local market. How to fight back? We're in the trenches now, boys. Bauer is frantic -- he has been traveling the continent trying to save Swiss market share -- he's been to Recife, Rio, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Lima, Bogota, and Caracas on just this trip.
The meeting is fascinating. One presentation: in 1966-67, all vended watches locally were Swiss. But the Japanese have built from the ground up an infrastructure so robust that retailers have dropped Swiss watches from their storefront displays entirely. The Japanese have mastered local distribution and importation, the sale of parts, publicity.
Theirs is an operation predicated on hunger and discipline. The Swiss, by contrast, have been complacent and lazy. What they had once in the market they expected always to have.
The solutions? They come up with two fascinating ones, though neither is ever implemented, as far as I know. The local Swiss-importer-distributer who controls Universal Geneve, Patek Philippe, Angelus and Bulova here argues that there must be a strong campaign such as the wool and natural fiber industry waged against synthetic, polyester sweaters and textiles. Make the Japanese watches seem functional but fake -- lab-grown, ponderous, just inorganic and unnatural. The Swiss watches are natural fibers such as cotton and wool -- they will hug your body and let you breathe. Thusly should the Swiss fight back in the marketing realm, says the man who sells Pateks and UGs in Montevideo.
An interesting smear campaign and one with an unquestionable quantum of creativity. But Gerard Bauer -- the head of the FH, the cartel -- has perhaps a more intriguing idea. If we supplied you, Uruguayan importers with just a few standard calibers, if we cleared up with this in-house caliber confusion, which only serves to confuse customers, would you all be willing to unite your vending efforts under just three brands? NO more Patek versus Rolex or anything like that -- to regain market share, would you just band together and sell three brands -- your pick -- that use the three standardized calibers we, the Swiss, should have ready for you by mid-1971?
Welcome to the era of streamline or die. Now, it's not clear anything from this meeting was ever implemented in LATAM. Nor is it the least bit clear that consolidation in such a manner would have beaten back the Japanese. This truly remains a case study in business that has still barely been studied. Nobody knows about these government memos. About the frantic machinations of watchmakers suddenly excluded from the party, trying to figure out desperately how to get back in.
But yes, if these ideas had been followed, you would have had ads targeting Seiko as Dacron, you would have had Bulova and Patek sharing movements, perhaps.
Wild stuff -- and only found out because I worked my tail off researching the secret history of historical, transnational watch chicanery for my new book, out now: "Borrowed Time: A History of Espionage, IP Theft, and the Global War for Horology."
Hope you've enjoyed this post and find more to enjoy in the text if you get there
When I first got into watches a few years ago, I was completely dial-focused. Color, texture, indices, hands. That was basically my entire evaluation process. I'd flip through photos online and make snap judgments in about two seconds based on how something looked face-on.
Somewhere around year two that started to shift. I picked up a cheap open-caseback dress watch at an estate sale mostly out of curiosity, and spent probably an hour just watching the balance wheel oscillate. Something about the rhythm of it, the way every component has a specific job and physically cannot do anything else, got under my skin in a way that a pretty dial never quite managed.
Now I catch myself reading about lever escapements and going down rabbit holes on the differences between Swiss and English pallet geometry from the 1800s. I recently spent a weekend carefully servicing an old mechanical alarm clock I found at a flea market, nothing fancy at all, just a basic drum movement. But taking it apart and understanding how the alarm train is independent from the going train was genuinely more satisfying than anything I've bought new.
I think what changed is that I started seeing the dial as more of a byproduct. The movement is the actual argument the watchmaker is making, and the dial just communicates a conclusion. That framing made everything click (no pun intended).
Curious whether others went through a similar shift, or whether some of you have stayed primarily dial and case people throughout. Neither approach seems wrong to me, just noticing my own priorities drifted pretty significantly over time.
Seiko Brightz SAGV003 is powered by the 7D56 Auto-Relay Kinetic movement. This watch was launched in 2005 and was a JDM only release
Unlike a conventional Kinetic, it can "sleep" when not worn, stop its hands to conserve power, then automatically reset to the correct time the moment it's picked up. That feature still feels futuristic today.
The watch itself is equally impressive: a lightweight titanium case, integrated titanium bracelet, sapphire crystal, razor-sharp Zaratsu-inspired finishing, and the understated design language.
It also features a perpetual calendar programmed until February 28, 2100, automatically accounting for leap years and varying month lengths. The watch also incorporates a beautifully executed big-date display, making it exceptionally practical while maintaining perfect dial balance.
Enjoy the video of the auto-relay resetting the time automatically when woken up from sleep..
I'm thinking of going to the local goldsmith and making wall clock hands from 18 (?) carat gold. I have a Young Town 12888 clock mechanism. The current hands are golden coated/plated/painted aluminum.
The goldsmith says he'll be able to copy the current hands. I don't know if the gold hands need to be of the same thickness as the aluminium hands, or more or less. I suspect if it's thicker, it'll jam. Does anyone know like how many (tenths of a millimetre) the hands are? My ruler isn't obviously able to measure it accurately. I also need to budget for the weight of gold, to estimate which I need an approximate volume.
I'm brand new to horology, so please dumb down your explanations.
