Second Hand Watch Shop

Second Hand Watch Shop Watches are one of my passions. As a hobbyist, I collect, repair, sell, and blog about watches.

Here’s a watch that has a unique look that only partly comes from the 1970s colorway. The dial of this watch tells the s...
07/01/2026

Here’s a watch that has a unique look that only partly comes from the 1970s colorway. The dial of this watch tells the story of the dramatically changing watch industry. The rapid rise of inexpensive Japanese electronic digital watches left the Swiss watch industry scrambling to compete. One thing the Swiss did was to make their mechanical watches look “more digital.”

Except for this Endura watch’s second hand, time-keeping is done via windows for the minutes, the hour, and the date. Note this is a direct read watch, but not a jump hour, as the hour numbers rotate continuously and don’t snap (or jump) from one hour to another.

On the inside, this watch has an economical EB 8800 movement. Made in Switzerland by Ebauches Bettlach, this movement has KIF shock protection, a pin-lever escapement, and only one jewel.

The Endura Watch Company was founded in 1966 in Bienne, Switzerland, by the General Watch Company (GWC) to make watches under private label. Endura was part of the merger between ASUAG and SSIH into SMH, which is now the Swatch Group. Endura currently operates as the private label division of ETA SA Manufacture horlogere Suisse (Swatch Group).

My wonderful wife told me to get myself a watch for my birthday (which was back in February), so off I went! After a bit...
05/20/2026

My wonderful wife told me to get myself a watch for my birthday (which was back in February), so off I went! After a bit of a search, I found a Lord Elgin dial with a Fisher Body carriage logo. My 1971 Cutlass Supreme’s body was made by Fisher, so I couldn’t resist! The dial came with a nice 17-jewel Elgin 872 movement, made c.1970 by the Swiss company Fabrique d'Horlogerie Fontainemelon (FHF).

To complete the watch, I needed to source some additional parts. The original case had likely been scrapped for gold value, which is a shame because it probably had a service award engraving on the caseback. So I found a vintage Elgin case that would fit the dial and movement, and put in a new crystal. Lastly, I selected a nice leather strap in dark green with white accent stitching.

Lord Elgin was marketed for men by Elgin National Watch Company, and Lady Elgin was for women. These two sub-brands were the highest grade watches that Elgin sold from 1937-1964. After 1964, historical information is less available.

Fisher Body Company began in Detroit, Michigan, USA, in 1908 as a coachbuilder. By 1916, they had grown into one of the world’s largest manufacturing firms, producing over 350,000 vehicles per year for nearly 20 automakers. In 1919, General Motors (GM) purchased a 60% stake in Fisher. In 1926, Fisher became GM’s coachbuilding division. Fisher Body Division was dissolved by GM in 1984, with various GM divisions absorbing their operations.

Thought you'd like to see a recent addition to my shop. My wife bought this fantastic Elgin sign for me as a Christmas p...
04/09/2026

Thought you'd like to see a recent addition to my shop. My wife bought this fantastic Elgin sign for me as a Christmas present a couple years ago, and I finally hung it up. Why did it take so long to put it up? Well, I wanted to think about where I was going to hang it, plus I was hoping to find some vintage hardware (I didn’t).

The sign was bought from a local antique dealer that gets some of his stock by buying out old watch shops. So it’s a real antique watchmaker's sign. I love the gold foil, and the old timey font!

The pocket watch that hangs with this sign is an Elgin (of course) that I picked up for a good price at a local rummage sale. The 11-jewel movement was produced in 1890. It has a 20-year warranted case made by Wadsworth. Overall, this watch is a strong runner in good cosmetic condition, except for some small dents in the back cover.

Elgin started in 1864 as National Watch Company in Elgin, IL, USA. They renamed themselves to Elgin National Watch Company in 1874, as people referred to them as "Elgin watches." Elgin was one of the "A-11" military watch manufacturers during WWII. For a time, Elgin National Watch Company was the world's largest watch manufacturing site, but now only exists as a brand under MZ Berger & Company.

This Cimier Sport watch has a stylistic dial with an outer telemetre scale and an inner spiral tachymeter scale. After r...
03/18/2026

This Cimier Sport watch has a stylistic dial with an outer telemetre scale and an inner spiral tachymeter scale. After replacing the yellowed and scratched crystal, regulating it to keep better time, and giving it a light clean and polish, I love its look!

The movement is likely a Rego cal. 147, and was manufactured c. 1965. It uses a no-jewel pin-pallet construction that helped chronographs become more accessible. Interestingly, this movement has uncommon specs like a lift angle of 38 degrees and it beats 17,280 times per hour.

The stopwatch feature on this watch is sometimes referred to as a “faux chronograph,” due to its non-traditional operation. When you want to time an event, you press the top pusher to stop the seconds hand at 12:00. Then you set the minute and hour watch hands to 12:00 to zero the subdials. To start timing, you press the bottom pusher, and to end the timing you press the top pusher again. When you’re done timing, you need to reset the time. Quite unique!

In 1924, the Swiss watchmaker Joseph Lapanouse founded his company Lapanouse SA in Hölstein, Switzerland. Lapanouse sold his Roskopf pin pallet watches first under the brand “Rego” and later “Cimier.” In the 1950s, the company was renamed to Lapoanouse-Cimier SA and started to produce the first pin-pallet chronograph, which sold over 20 million pieces across its variations. By the end of the 1960s, production had reached 1.5 million pieces annually and the company employed over 500 people in Bubendorf, Switzerland. In the 1970s, Cimier developed its own quartz movement, but struggled to sell them. In 1985, the Swiss manufacturer ceased production. In 2003, the brand Cimier was relaunched by the company that also bears the Cimier name.

I acquired this Dufonte watch in 2021 as part of a small lot of watches that I got a great deal on at an antique store. ...
02/25/2026

I acquired this Dufonte watch in 2021 as part of a small lot of watches that I got a great deal on at an antique store. But it needed some love–it had a broken pusher and a badly crazed crystal.

This watch has a 45 minute chronograph with 1/5 second accuracy. The outermost, red dial scale is a tachymeter. The Speidel Twist-O-Flex band includes an analog perpetual calendar, where you roll the months back or forth to find the month you’re currently in. This watch has a beautiful Landeron cal. 189 cam-switched movement, which was made between 1963 and ‘70.

The “T” in “T Swiss Made T” on the dial means the lume is tritium based, which is radioactive. Tritium has a half-life of only 12 years, so this watch isn’t dangerous. Tritium use in watches replaced the far more radioactive Radium, which has a half-life of 1,600 years. Tritium was common from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, when it was replaced by non-radioactive materials.

In 1873, Charles Hahn & Cie was established in Le Landeron, Switzerland, and initially produced high-quality watch movements. Landeron acquired Anatole Breitling’s patents in 1924, becoming a key supplier for column-wheel chronographs. Landeron was a founding member of Ebauches SA in 1926. In 1937, Landeron developed the Caliber 47, the first cam-switched, three-pusher chronograph, which was refined into the iconic two-pusher Landeron 48. In the 1940s to the ‘60s, the Landeron 48, 148, and 248 became the "everyman" chronograph movement, used by brands like Heuer, Baume & Mercier, and Chronographe Suisse. Landeron produced the first Swiss electric movement, Cal. 4750, in the 1960s. The Landeron factory closed in the early 1980s. The "Landeron" brand name was later acquired in 2015 by Depa Luxury Distribution, who now operates as Landeron Swiss Movements.

In 1923, Lucien Piccard was founded in Laussane, Switzerland, producing high-quality handcrafted watches that were often worn by famous people, like Frank Sinatra. While rooted in Swiss heritage, the brand was managed by Abraham Blumstein, a New York-based jeweler, starting in 1931. During the 1950s to the ‘70s, Lucien Piccard became famous for utilizing gold and precious stones, and competed with major luxury houses. LP was considered for NASA missions in the 1960s. In 1966, LP introduced the Dufonte sub-brand. The company faced financial difficulties, and filed for Chapter 11 in 2010. Swiss Watch International Group (SWI Group) acquired LP in 2011, and currently uses the LP brand name on affordable fashion watches.

It’s been too long since I’ve written about an aerospace-related watch, so let's go! I purchased a small lot of watches ...
02/04/2026

It’s been too long since I’ve written about an aerospace-related watch, so let's go! I purchased a small lot of watches at a great price a couple years ago, and this Citizen Blue Angels watch was in it.

The Blue Angels are the flight demonstration team for the U.S. Navy & Marines. I have a fond memory of going to an airshow in Janeville, WI, USA, to see the Blue Angels. The airshow was crowded, so my son and I watched from the airshow parking lot directly across the main runway from the flightline. On one low pass, the Blue Angels flew directly overhead from behind with full afterburners–it was loud and awesome!

This is a Citizen Promaster H800-S081165 from 2008. It features a 43mm stainless steel case, radio-controlled timekeeping, Eco-Drive solar power, a sapphire crystal, and 200m water resistance. It also has a 1/20-second chronograph, a perpetual calendar, and a pilot’s slide rule bezel. The original band was in bad shape, so it got replaced–love the yellow piping on the blue strap top, and the yellow strap bottom!

In 1912, Swiss watchmaker Rodolphe Schmid opened watch assembly plant facilities in Yokohama, Japan. In 1918, the brand Citizen was first registered in Switzerland by Schmid in 1918 for watches he sold in Japan. Also in 1918, Shokosha Watch Research Institute was founded. In 1930, the Citizen company was founded and took over Schmid's Yokohama facilities as well as Shokosha. Citizen also manufactures calculators, printers, health care devices, and precision CNC machining equipment.

Here’s a “watch adjacent” blog about a “watch-lighter” or a “lighter-watch.” Either way you say it, it’s a butane lighte...
01/07/2026

Here’s a “watch adjacent” blog about a “watch-lighter” or a “lighter-watch.” Either way you say it, it’s a butane lighter with a watch in it.

Watch-lighters first appeared in the late 1920s and were popularized in the 1930s by brands like Dunhill, Cartier, and Ronson. My best guess is that this particular watch-lighter was made about 1975.

Virtually identical watch-lighters to the one pictured here were sold with different brand names on the watch dial, for example: Bucherer, Buler, Harvey, Gisa, Saxony, Lucerne, Genovil, Fero, Windsor, Namruf, Rivo, and Genova. The name “FOSKA” appears on this watch-lighter. FOSCA Ltd. was a company in Bienne, Switzerland.

This watch-lighter has KIF Trior shock protection for thumps and bumps. It’s also antimagnetic, so is less susceptible to running fast when exposed to magnets. The watch movement was made by Swiss watch company Ebauches Bettlach (EB), and is a cal. 1333, which is a 17-jewel pin-lever movement.

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