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One of the main reasons I bought this Alpha watch off E-bay was mainly for the movement.The movement appeared to be a Venus 175,but looking closer its a Chinese made copy.The claim of chronometer on the dial of the Alpha must be for marketing,more about that later.And yes it's styling looks a bit like the Rolex Newman Daytona but thats where it ends,it just looks a bit like it, and its not made to deceive in any way. Its a 40mm watch Movement: 17/25 jewel manual wind chronograph with quite well finished Incabloc protection,running at 21,600 Bph,and the Crystal is good quality Acrylic.over-all weight 140 grams power reserve is 42 hours on a full wind.
Watch case and dial.
Now lets talk about quality, over-all I'm quite impressed with the quality for $65 plus $15 for postage.The dial is very crisp even under a 10x loupe,the fonts are very sharp and crisp.The watch comes on a solid link oyster style bracelet with screwed in links.That is very well finished and even lock-tight on the screws.And the case is well polished to a high mirror finish,and all the brushed work is nice and crisp, all the edges are sharp and clean all good so far.
Now the movement is a Column Wheel chronograph, and nicely decorated with blued screws but not proper heat treated blued screws, pearlage and Geneva stripes,(Hong Kong stripes).All the levers have been polished to a high luster and show little signs of any roughness under 15x loupe,plates and bridges seem to be plated.The gears are brass and have a high smooth finish. I would have expected to see a very cheap plastic spacer ring holding the movement in place.But I was totally shocked to see the more traditional case clamps used, like on very much higher priced watches.
Movement.
Now off to my watchmaker friend and his timing machine.This will sort the men out from the boys.Well the first position he timed was dial up.The graphs was pretty well even, and showing + 5.07 seconds per day. Now this is a good sign, he only ran 100 beats for each run since after 100, the principle of cancelled returns starts to take effect.Next position was logically the dial down position. Notice now that the balance is running very slightly erratic and showing + 8.01 seconds per day .Now crown up, probably the least important position showing + 7.25 seconds daily, and a very even graph.Now the most important position crown down, now in this position gravity has it's greatest effect on the balance wheel.I would expect it to speed up a bit,in this position graph shows + 10.21 seconds daily,with a perfect strait line graph,this is excellent considering price of watch.Overall its running at just over Chronometer spec at + 7.65 seconds daily,with excellent isochronous.So out of the box its been tested and running very close to COSC specs.Now new watches tend to run a bit fast till the oil circulates around all the moving parts.But all the tests say this movement can quite easily be tuned to run well within COSC specs,but for how long,thats the $64000 question.But even my watchmaker friend made a comment that it looks and performs as good as the ETA equivalent.And after a week of wearing has settled down to + 5 to + 8 seconds daily,very good for a $65 watch.
This watch once regulated has completely amazed me with its consistency and accuracy for well over two years now.And it still looks good in every way case bracelet not any problem,even the screw down crown still fully functional.Movement is a Seagull ST-19 chronograph 25 jewel The Seagull Chinese modern factory has been manufacturing movements since 1955 and have long been the favourite movements for homage type watches. The ST-19 was a 19-25 jewel column-wheel chronograph,depending on complications,and allegedly identical to the Venus 175 movement and made on the same machinery, which the Chinese acquired when the Venus 175 went out of production. Others claim that the Seagull was simply reverse-engineered from the Venus and the argument continues over which story is correct: either way, the fact remains that the design retains all the very accurate and long lasting properties to the old Swiss Venus movement and come highly recommended by personal experience
Watch case and dial.
Now lets talk about quality, over-all I'm quite impressed with the quality for $65 plus $15 for postage.The dial is very crisp even under a 10x loupe,the fonts are very sharp and crisp.The watch comes on a solid link oyster style bracelet with screwed in links.That is very well finished and even lock-tight on the screws.And the case is well polished to a high mirror finish,and all the brushed work is nice and crisp, all the edges are sharp and clean all good so far.
Now the movement is a Column Wheel chronograph, and nicely decorated with blued screws but not proper heat treated blued screws, pearlage and Geneva stripes,(Hong Kong stripes).All the levers have been polished to a high luster and show little signs of any roughness under 15x loupe,plates and bridges seem to be plated.The gears are brass and have a high smooth finish. I would have expected to see a very cheap plastic spacer ring holding the movement in place.But I was totally shocked to see the more traditional case clamps used, like on very much higher priced watches.
Movement.
Now off to my watchmaker friend and his timing machine.This will sort the men out from the boys.Well the first position he timed was dial up.The graphs was pretty well even, and showing + 5.07 seconds per day. Now this is a good sign, he only ran 100 beats for each run since after 100, the principle of cancelled returns starts to take effect.Next position was logically the dial down position. Notice now that the balance is running very slightly erratic and showing + 8.01 seconds per day .Now crown up, probably the least important position showing + 7.25 seconds daily, and a very even graph.Now the most important position crown down, now in this position gravity has it's greatest effect on the balance wheel.I would expect it to speed up a bit,in this position graph shows + 10.21 seconds daily,with a perfect strait line graph,this is excellent considering price of watch.Overall its running at just over Chronometer spec at + 7.65 seconds daily,with excellent isochronous.So out of the box its been tested and running very close to COSC specs.Now new watches tend to run a bit fast till the oil circulates around all the moving parts.But all the tests say this movement can quite easily be tuned to run well within COSC specs,but for how long,thats the $64000 question.But even my watchmaker friend made a comment that it looks and performs as good as the ETA equivalent.And after a week of wearing has settled down to + 5 to + 8 seconds daily,very good for a $65 watch.
This watch once regulated has completely amazed me with its consistency and accuracy for well over two years now.And it still looks good in every way case bracelet not any problem,even the screw down crown still fully functional.Movement is a Seagull ST-19 chronograph 25 jewel The Seagull Chinese modern factory has been manufacturing movements since 1955 and have long been the favourite movements for homage type watches. The ST-19 was a 19-25 jewel column-wheel chronograph,depending on complications,and allegedly identical to the Venus 175 movement and made on the same machinery, which the Chinese acquired when the Venus 175 went out of production. Others claim that the Seagull was simply reverse-engineered from the Venus and the argument continues over which story is correct: either way, the fact remains that the design retains all the very accurate and long lasting properties to the old Swiss Venus movement and come highly recommended by personal experience
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