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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Chronometer Suggestions
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2009 Jan 5, 08:11 -0500
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2009 Jan 5, 08:11 -0500
Dear Bruce, > I find my > trusty Timex is off about 6 seconds a month, There are quartz watches which perform better than that, but I don't know how to choose a brand (my quartz watch, made by some obscure, now extinct, company in Germany is off by few seconds per year, it was 200 Euro when I bought it 6 years ago). > there are any reasonably priced real > quartz chronometers (non-wrist) > that anyone would recommend? Wempe company in Germany makes beautiful quartz chronometers that look exactly like real, but I would not call them reasonably priced. (In the range of $2000 last time I checked. Given that a good quartz movement costs almost nothing, I conclude that they mainly charge you for the case and box finish). A year ago I bought a Russian "Poljot" chronometer on e-bay, made in 1985. I payed about $600 and it works very satisfactory. I am watching e-bay prices for about 5 years, and I see that they increased sharply, and real chronometrs become scarce. Just a year ago there was a lot of Russian ones (several of them listed every week) in the price range $500-600, some of them with "buy it now" option. 3-4 years ago one could buy a British (Mercer) chronometer for under $1000. This is not the case anymore. Shipping a chronometer can be a very serious problem. (My one was seriously damaged on the way, had to be returned and repaired. Fortunately the seller had spare parts supply and access to a professsional shop where they do such repair). There is a watchmaker in Chicago neighborhood who does repair "in principle" but has no spare parts, and the cost is high. Hope this info can be of some use for you. Alex. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---