Vintage LCD resurrection, Russias first LCD watch calibre

[JasonM]

Years ago I went through a vintage LCD watch phase, mostly the Seikos of the 70's, at some point I must have picked this one up, a Sekonda LCD, it must have sat in my watchbox for 15 years at least, I came across it today looking for something else and it occurred to me that I had never looked at it properly, certainly never tried to open it and see if it worked, so I did today, inevitably one of the cells had leaked so I wasn't hopeful of a result, however, its alive! very basic display, hours and minutes only, 3 recessed buttons but only one seems to do anything, it advances the time very slowly to set the time. After doing some Googling, it appears to be a 1977 'big block' Sekonda with the first Russian LCD movement the B6-02, this was introduced in 1974 and put in a variety of cases over the next few years. Its quote chunky, 37mm x 45mm by 14mm tall, Ive only found a few references to this style that Ill link below. To have fired up after all this time after a leaky cell is quite impressive to me.

Link to a vintage Digital Watch page

http://www.digital-watch.com/DWL/1work/sekonda-b6-02

Link to the digital watch forum discussing the module.

http://www.newdwf.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=7867


Some photos.

[Caruso]

That looks nice and chunky, if it stops working you can also use it to hit someone with. Very Russian!

[Tokyo Tokei]

Fantastic!

The second thread you posted is very evocative too.

I am sure my first watch in the 1970s only had HH:MM. It wasn’t this module, as it had just one pusher, but it was The Most Exciting Thing Ever. All my classmates agreed, when we weren’t throwing sticks at each other, so this is indisputable.

Rockets to the moon, digital watches replacing hopelessly dated mechanical powered by a spring of all things, plastic clothes… what a time to be alive!

Most interesting watch I've seen for a while on here. Thanks for posting. (Chuck it in the moribund Interesting Quartz thread if you feel like it)

[JasonM]

Thanks! I think its interesting too, a cool bit of history.
Heres a side shot showing the recessed side buttons, I've polywatched the display screen so thats looking much better now, I just need to find a suitable chunky bracelet and Im going to wear it often.

[Possu]

That’s cool. I’d consider an age appropriate stretchy bracelet, ’less you have really hairy wrists.