Automatic Associations [ft Seiko 6139 content]

[ewand]

I gave a talk at a watch meet earlier this week, on the topic of "Automatic Associations", and thought I'd share the contents on here for kicks.

Let's start to play: what is this? [without using reverse image lookup to find it elsewhere ]

[ewand]

It's a Zenith "El Primero" 3019PHC movement, with the rotor taken off. Zenith had been working on a fully integrated automatic chronograph movement for some years but accelerated theirs to market when they heard of the Chronomatic Group's work. They announced the "El Primero" in January 1969, 2 months before the Chronomatic launch, Though watches wouldn't start being in customers' hands until much later that year, with the A384:

• source

Meanwhile, Heuer, Hamilton and Breitling were preparing to launch their first automatic chronographs, using the Cal 11 movement built from a Buren micro-rotor automatic base movement, and a Dépraz chronograph module.



The resulting movement is in many ways less elegant than the Zenith one; lower jewel count (El Primero's 31 to Cal11's 17), lower beat frequency (Zenith 36000bph, Cal11 19,800) and it was bulkier too (7.7mm high vs Zenith's 6.5mm) and with a slightly lower power reserve. [3019PHC vs Cal11]


Still, they had quite a variety of watches all featuring the distinctive left-hand crown (part of the fusion of two movements, meaning that to fit better in the case, they flipped it so the crown was on one side and the pushers on the other). Most iconic, of course, was the Heuer Monaco, the first square cased watch that was also "water proof".



When Steve McQueen was filming "Le Mans" in 1970, Heuer had been engaged in providing timing equipment and some prop watches; though McQueen reportedly favoured wearing an Omega in the film, the props team pointed out that the Heuer shield on his race suit (same as one worn by Jo Siffert) meant that would be inconsistent, so he strapped on a Monaco instead. Apparently, he also thought that if he had been wearing a Rolex or Omega, those companies would have used him in their advertising, which he didn't want to happen...

• History of Cal 11
• Heuer and the Le Mans film
• Comparison of Chronomatic movements
• The Real Story behind McQueen's Monaco

[ewand]

Of course, the point of this is to talk about Seiko, who had been working on their own integrated automatic chronograph for years, and had been producing them in some form since the very start of 1969. Here's the earliest known 6139-6010:


Dated to January 1969 (as you can see from the serial number; the fact that it's a 6010 and marked WATERPROOF tells us it can't possibly be a 1979 watch, and the 1 tells us it's January. The dial might even have 91 on its reverse side, though it's not inconceivable it could be 8N or 8D, signifying the dial was made in late 1968). Seiko's nomenclature is usually the movement number followed by a case reference, so the 6139 "family" went on to have numerous case shapes and dial colours, but the very first were 6139-6010s made for the Japanese Domestic Market, like this



Many fans of the genre will be familiar with the variants and some of the lore that goes with each, however it's worth noting that in the JDM catalog from 1969, there were only two colours for each of the 6139-6000 and -6010; yellow and blue for the former, and blue and black for the latter. The dial finish is quite different too; the blue 6010 is much more vibrant than the blue 6000.


The pricing at the time was interesting; in 1970, the ¥18K it would take to buy a Speed-Timer 6139-6000 was about £21 in the then-new decimal currency of the UK. A Rolex Daytona at the same time would be about £109. Presumably the price disparity between the 6139-6000 and -6010 was due to the former's slightly more elaborate case shape, the external "Pepsi bezel" and the more complex rotating inner bezel. That may also explain why the 6010 predates the 6000 by a few months when it comes to production and being on sale.

The 6139 movement was higher in capability than you might have expected from Seiko, with its column wheel and pioneering vertical clutch mechanism:




Sitting between the El Primero and Cal11 in terms of jewel count, beat rate, power reserve and size, the 6139 was in a different league in many respects. The then chairman of Seiko even reportedly visited Heuer's stand at Baselworld in May 1969, to congratulate Jack Heuer on releasing the world's first automatic chronograph that people could buy, even though Seiko themselves started selling them around the same time.

• https://www.chrono24.com/magazine/th...-6139-p_69287/

[Airwave]

I'm a complete fanboy of the 6139 a/b have 4 and have stripped and serviced another 5.
Only real weakness seems to be the barrel holes in the plates, tend to wear and/or oval out.
Nice light, easy to wear watches.
Can be reasonably regulated and it's still possible to get spares.

[Thewatchbloke]

^^^I'll take a dozen balance wheels please.

[Fullbreakfast]

Thanks ewand, excellent reading.

When you consider that the El Primero is still being used today, and that at 6.5mm height you can still have a slimmer watch than you'll get with most of its more recent competitors, it really was quite a feat of design and engineering from Zenith.

A £109 Daytona is something to think about. The median weekly wage in Britain in 1970 was £27 4s for a man. So a Daytona would have cost about 4 weeks' gross wages to buy. As of this month, November 2023, the median weekly wage for UK adults is £682 and it seems like the list price of a steel Daytona is £12,700 - almost 19 weeks' gross wages at the median. So on this measure the Daytona is not far off 5x less affordable than it was in 1970. I also note that these seem to be being offered for sale at double the list price (know little about the Rolex market, so perhaps these models are actually different...).

It's probably a flawed exercise though, as the Daytona isn't now and wasn't then something the median earner would be likely to buy. A more valid comparison would probably be to use the wage of the top 5% or 10% as a starting point.

[ewand]

Continuing the story... maybe for those who haven't spent all the time I have, looking at 6139s...

At least as far as the 6000 and 6010 series is concerned, there are basically 3 different variants: JDM, Americas and rest of the world.

JDM
Here's a March 1969 JDM 6010:


Both 6000 and 6010 had "Speed-Timer" branding, the Seiko 5 shield and WATER 70 PROOF at 9 o'clock, when launched. They had the 6139A movement with 21 jewels, as indicated on the dial. Early models had chrome-rimmed crystals and -TAD suffix by the dial code on the lower right. JDM models had English & Kanji day wheels.



Rest of the World export
The "RoW" export models differed somewhat; they didn't carry either Speed-Timer or the 5 shield, and the font which proudly said "WATER 70M PROOF" was different.
Example, here's a blue dial 6139-6010 from August 1969.


The chronograph hand is the original 2-piece one (with the steel centre), which was often replaced during service for the later orange/red one-piece affair. There's no jewel count on the dial (and the 6139A used was only 17 jewels) but it does say CHRONOGRAPH AUTOMATIC under the applied metal SEIKO logo (compared to the JDM one which is a painted logo and doesn't say anything about chronograph or being automatic.


Day wheels varied by region, with the common English + French/Spanish/German also joined by English + Chinese/Thai and others, including a Roman day wheel where days were substituted with Roman numerals. Similar to the JDM models, the 6139-6000 initially came in yellow and blue, and the 6010 in blue and black. In mid-1970, things started to change - WATER 70M PROOF on the dial and WATERPROOF on the case back gave way to WATER 70m RESIST (note the lower case "m") and RESISTANT on the case back. The reference numbers became 6001 and 6011, before completing the change to having a 6139B movement and 1-piece chrono hand, and moving to 6002 and 6012 references, in early 1971.

Americas
The final familiar variant is the Americas market - they never had "PROOF" on the dial, instead only carrying "WATER 70M RESIST" in the initial iterations; the dial was different due to having the jewel count (17J) and for some reason, didn't say CHRONOGRAPH either. Initially, the model numbers were 6139-6009 and 6139-6019, and both were only available with blue dials. A transitional model appeared in mid-1970 at the same time as the RoW models also changed; the 6007 and 6017, again both only in blue but notably the 70M RESIST on the dial became 70m, like the RoW transitionals.

Here's a rare January 1970 transitional 6007, with a 1-piece chrono hand:




After the transitionals, the Americas market changed again (it's presumed to be US + LATAM but it's possible that LATAM markets just had the RoW model with an English/Spanish day wheel; maybe it was just the US market which got the 6009 etc, and that seems to be English/Spanish too).
The 6007 / 6017 gave way to the 6005 and 6015; the 6005 being available in yellow or blue dials, though I don't know for sure that the 6015 was available in anything other than blue...

[ewand]

So far, I've avoided using the names these watch families have acquired; I'm sure everyone knows what they are.

THE SEIKO POGUE

Here's Col. William Pogue wearing his own watch;

It was verified while he was still alive (RIP) and auctioned off (for $6k!) for charity.
It's a 6139-6005, as evidenced by the AUTOMATIC only under the Seiko logo, the 17J count on the dial and the WATER 70m RESIST at 9 o'clock. The serial number dates it to September 1971:


Pedants on the internet would say this reference - maybe even this specific variant, ie the yellow/RESIST 6005 - is the only one which can be called a "Pogue". Others would say it's OK to have a "blue Pogue", a "yellow Pogue", including the JDM or RoW versions, from any age. Those who think that's OK might refer to the yellow 6005 as the "True Pogue".

Anyway, much has already been written about Col Pogue wearing his Seiko during the Skylab 4 mission (which blasted off nearly 50 years ago as I write this), though his was arguably not the first automatic chronograph in space, since the mission commander - Gerald Carr - had been given a Movado Datachron HS360 to take on board (see Hodinkee article). Movado, a sister company to Zenith, used the 3019PHC movement and Carr had been given it to see if it worked in space, not realising that Pogue was taking his own Seiko with him. If the Commander had a Movado, and Pogue - a pilot - had his Seiko, the pecking order might say Carr's was first and Pogue's was second...

Pogue apparently wore the Seiko since he had used it during his training and was familiar with it, and astronauts often had more than one timepiece set to different time zones. Here's Pogue double-wristing his Seiko on left hand and NASA-issued Speedmaster on the right:




SEIKO "BRUCE LEE"
Similarly, the 6010 family has been given the moniker "Bruce Lee", after the famous martial artist who was photographed wearing one in the early 70s (or was it more than one?), often on a funky metal rally bracelet.




Lots of peering at high-res versions of photographs had watch nerds fixating over whether Bruce's watch was a black-dial JDM or black-dial RoW version, concluding that there's not enough going on at 9 o'clock for it to be JDM (ie there's no colourful SPORTS or Seiko 5 shield as per the black JDM pictured above).

Dealers like DCVW declared the black RoW watch is the "True Bruce Lee":

[ewand]

Luigi Chinetti was a legendary Ferrari customer, racing driver, team owner and exclusive distributor of Ferrari cars in the US. He was known for commissioning - with the approval of old man Ferrari - custom versions of their cars for sale in the US.

What if that kind of arrangement was not exclusive to low-volume, high-cost Italian exotic cars?

THONG SIA
Since the mid 1960s, the exclusive distributor of Seiko watches in many parts of south-east Asia is Hong Kong-based Thong Sia, a sister company to Stelux, which made watch components like bracelets. In period, there were several varieties of Seikos, often appearing with different dial colours and different bracelets than those found elsewhere. These appear to trace back to Thong Sia, and in most cases, have never appeared in any Seiko catalogues.

Here's an example of a 1969 Silver dialled PROOF 6139-6000:


This watch has an English/Chinese day wheel and came to me wearing a straight-end Seiko/Stelux "Snakeskin" bracelet (which I presumed was not original but may have been fitted in period). Many Thong Sia watches had other Stelux bracelets - the "President" style being my favourite:

... though the "Chiclet" is often found also. In fact, the previously assumed-to-be-mythical "Aussie Pogue" - a yellow 6139-600x with Roman day wheel and a black chapter ring, as opposed to the typical yellow one, is pictured in a period catalogue with a Chiclet (see thread on Wristsushi).


So what about this?



It's a brown-dial 6139-6010; not black which faded to brown as some Swiss pieces of the same age might have. But evenly, chocolately brown. 6139A movement, 70M PROOF on the dial, and in this case, dated to November 1969. Oh, and it's got an English/Chinese day wheel.

A Thong Sia, Hong Kong special.


Which brings us back to Bruce Lee. Casting around for other photos, we can find some which very much look like his was brown:




Even accounting for aging of photos or exposure weirdness, quite a few B&W images show a clear contrast difference between the dial and the chapter ring. If the dial on this watch had been black, there's no way it would look so light when the chapter ring all around it is so dark:





Therefore; Bruce Lee probably got his 6139 in Hong Kong, from Thong Sia. And so the True Bruce Lee is not black, it's Brown...

[ewand]

^^^I'll take a dozen balance wheels please.

And some spare centre chronograph wheels. Oh, and a couple of 2-piece chrono hands...