Rolex ref 6305 (from Q1, 1955) big bubbleback 勞力士大泡泡背

This afternoon, after lunch, I have decided to walk by and take a quicvk look at my favourite vintage watch shop and saw a watch that looks like a 1601. Upon clower examination, I then realised that it is a 6305, which is a big Bubbleback ref 6305 from Q1 1955. 

The Rolex Datejust in stainless steel remains to be one of the most popular vintage watch requests we get on a daily basis, and we can see why. It’s beautifully designed and completely wearable in any setting without being ostentatious. The Rolex 6305 was in production from 1953-56 before being replaced by ref 6604, 6605 using the Rolex Buttlefly movements cal 1030. etc

Much of the design ethos remains the same for the Datejust since its debut in 1945. Rolex patented the Cyclops in early 1953, and featured it on the Datejust. This curved lens, put on the crystal at 3 o'clock (or at 9 o'clock in the case of GMT Master II) above the window, made viewing the date easier. This Datejust ref. 6305 from 1955 Q1, is especially charming, as it still has an overall hybrid feel between the Rolex Bubbleback and Datejust models. 

The case measures 36mm, which is a universally appealing size for modern wear for both men and women This particular watch is even more special because of its dial. It bears the so-called OCC inscription ("OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER"), which can only be found on early Rolex specimens. In addition, the dial features an alternating black and red date disc and is one of the very first roulette dials in watchmaking history.
This Datejust still features an old finely fluted coin edged bezel gives it some extra pizazz. In the mid-1950s, the changeover to the wide fluted bezel took place. Thus, this Datejust is one of the last watches with this super-elegant and fine bezel. The best part of this watch is definitely the dial as it still retains its clean look. 

Using A296 Semib bubbleback movement

The Rolex Big bubbleback series leading to the Datejust consists of the following 

Rolex ref 4467 (solid Gold from year 1945-1949)  
Rolex ref 5030 (Solid gold) , Bi colour steel and gold 5031, 5075, 6031 (from year 1949 - 1950)，
Rolex ref 6075, 6074 (Bi colour from year 1950 - 1953) also some 1960-64
Rolex 6104, 6105 (Bi colour modified A296，from year 1951 - 1953) some from the 1960s
Rolex 6304 , 6305, 6309 (Pre ThunderBird) (A296，from year 1953 - 1956)
Rolex Datejust 6604, 6605, 6609 (Thunderbird), 1600, 1601,1603, 1607, 1625 (Thunderbird) (from 1959 - 1977 onwards using Butterfly movement calibre generation features cal. 1065 and later cal. 1565 and 1575.)

Seagull ST7 海鷗ST7錶

I have been actively collecting Vintage Chinese Mechanical watches. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Tianjin Watch Factory developed a watch of a higher grade than the ST5. This was the Sea-Gull ST7 -automatic. The movement was a sophisticated design, and the micrometer regulator suggests the kind of accuracy that was expected of it. 

In the mid-late 1970s, Tianjin Sea-Gull worked very hard to enter the export market with contemporary western styling and state of the art technical quality, producing the ST7 automatic day/date model which contained Sea-Gull's most sophisticated movement until the modern tourbillons--a first class movement with micrometer regulation.

The watch's styling was superficially similar to the Rolex Datejust, and some collector said it is modeled after Titoni's Cosmo King bezel, but Sea-Gull was far from the only watch manufacturer to make a similar model in those days. In any case, the branding is clear and with the Chinese/hanzi day and noticeable "Made in China" and this was certainly no attempt at a fake but rather a pride to produce a watch equal to the Swiss.

Unfortunately at this time 'Red China' was under the Cultural Revolution and it was a closed country to the rest of the world, and nothing was known of their watch industry. It now seems unreasonable that a foreign watch buyer might have chosen a Sea-Gull over the nearest equivalent from Tissot or Titoni, or Enicar. On the other hand, how many ordinary people in China could have afforded such a watch? The ST7 was an excellent watch without a market.

Sea-Gull watches were sold in parts of Asia, and in 1977-78 some were sold in Britain. However, unlike the Soviet Union, the Chinese watch industry lacked a coordinated approach to exports, and Sea-Gull did not become a household name outside of China.

Unfortunately, fewer than 3500 of these beauties were ever made because the ST7 was launched at a bad timing and it has failed in the market: the Mainland Chinese either couldn't afford it or, if they could, were more interested in the recent influx of cheaper or flashier, and often quartz, watches (this was exactly the same period when China was first re-opening to the west, and western products, after years of isolation--and even the mighty Swiss were seeing their mechanical market thrashed by quartz competition)

Making matter worse, export market customers were not yet aware of the high capacity for quality and technical sophistication of Chinese manufacturers (which is likely the reason the dial states 29 jewels but the movement is actually 28: Sea-Gull probably modified existing 29 jewel ST5 automatic dials for the first ST7 prototype run--which turned out to be the only run produced.) One technical issue which Seagull cannot fixed during that time was the inability to make the Day Date dics jump at the same time.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting watch and it looks like no money was spared in the development and construction. It showed that Seagull watch  wanted to compete with Swiss watches and not hold back. Personally, I think they did a good job. It does not have the finish of a comparable Swiss movement, but that’s just a bit of polishing. As usual, this movement is more pragmatic and not out to dazzle with polished and ornately brushed bridges and parts – this is made to work well and to last.

As mentioned earlier, the launch timing was wrong. By the early 1980s, the mechanical watch market was declining, quartz digital watches, especially multi-function models, were reaching the peak of popularity, and a new demand for very thin quartz analogue watches was emerging. At the same time, economic policy in China was changing, leading towards more international trade, both import and export. This was a tough time for the Chinese watch industry. Simple hand-winding watches still had their uses (for example China's first South Pole expedition in 1985 was equipped with Sea-Gull ST5 watches) but on the general market they were simply not competitive. Tianjin Watch Factory met the challenges of the 1980s by developing the quartz calibres ST9 and ST11 , which were reliable and successful at least on the domestic market.

Their other response to quartz competition was slightly controversial, although by no means unique in the Chinese watch industry. Mechanical watches were still competitive against quartz on some markets so long as they were self-winding and not too expensive e.g. Seiko 5. The calibre ST6D was based on the woman's watch calibre ST6, but with an over sized dial plate supporting a calendar mechanism big enough for a man-sized watch. An auto-winding module was installed with a large diameter rotor. The result was low-cost and of reasonable quality, albeit somewhat fragile.

In spite of the factory being given self-management of their export program in 1988, Sea-Gull watches remained obscure on most markets. However the factory realized that there was a ready market for cheap automatic movement for foreign watch assemblers, particularly in Hong Kong. As the 'quartz revolution' peaked, the 'mechanical renaissance' began, with mechanical watches slowly gaining popularity in the developed world, this time not in the mainstream, but as a niche market. This was fertile ground for the makers of counterfeits of famous brands like Rolex and Omega. Sadly a large proportion of ST6D movements have found their way into fakes over the years.

辽宁试制"为人民服务"表

这是一隻辽宁试制"为人民服务"表。中国产表的一大乐趣在于盘面变化，而这其中，以能反应特定时代背景的最有意思。在特殊的文化大革命 1960-70年代，各种革命口号层出不穷，不少表厂也都纷纷响应，推出了“为人民服务"、“XXX万岁"的口号表盘，比如：辽宁试制、北京五型，还有上海，比如钻石怀表等。

这枚紅旗是其中我最喜欢的，第一是因为" 人民服务"红字在上，真正把"人民“放在了首要位置在表面上方；第二，盘面为辽宁早期试制的白漆面，有一种古朴温润之美，是同时期国产表里颇具美感的一类。红字之于白盘，非常突出，像是这盘专为这口号而设计。

This is a Liaoning trial production of "Serving the People" watch. One of the most interesting things about the China watch lies in the great variety of dials, and among them, it is the most interesting to reflect the background of a specific era.

In the 1960s and 1970s during the Cultural Revolution period, there were many kinds of slogan in China, and many watch manufacturers responded one after another. They launched "Serving the People" and "Long Live XXX" mouth number watches, such as: Liaoning Trial, Beijing Shanghai, Five-type, and Diamond Watch, etc.

The above watch piece is my favourite. Firstly, because the red word "People's Service" is on top and "People" is really put in the top position of the watch dial while many placed it on the bottom. Secondly, the dial is a white lacquer surface made in the early days of Liaoning, which has a kind of simple and warm beauty.

红旗表未定型品牌之前的试制品shizhi“试制”牌

红旗表未定型品牌之前的试制品shizhi“试制”牌 白漆面金刻度 无十字线 保存品相一流 白漆面自然状态油光度极美. 

Hongqi is a really significant piece in any vintage Chinese mechanical collection, even in China. As far as the SL-2 goes, the WIKI Liaoning entry notes: "the SL-2 movement built on imported Swiss tooling", and "These earlier HongQi watches enjoyed an excellent reputation and continue to be sought after by collectors.

From the information from watch forum, among China made watches, there are some with "shizhi" on the dials, and the first of them are those 18 watches of Shanghai's first batch prototypes. One of them was sold for RMB 111000.00 on the 40th anniversary of Shanghai Watch Factory on Sept.24th, 1996. The rest 17 watches had never surfaced since then. So compared to Shanghai's prototypes, Hongqi shizhi watches are lucky as they were buried in Vintage Chinese watches piles in the 1990's and was picked up and preserved by collectors. A conservetive estimate would be about 10 watches but the upper limit is hard to tell. However, since they are called shizhi(prototypes), the number should be much less than any volume production model watches. They are precious collectables.

There are 4 ways to tell a Hongqi prototype: 

1. the brand name is shizhi and this is unique among Vintage Chinese mechanical watches  

2. a blank case back. 

3. an in-house movement

4. there many versions of dials and marker designs and are the same as that of production models. And that is why they are called Hongqi Shizhi watches, but not prototypes.

Even for the early prototypes, there are two versions namely the very early lacquered white dial version and the later silver dial version.  

Other Examples from the Internet 

From the net :

中国国产手表中，在表盘商标处标明"shizhi"（试制）的试制手表。首当其冲是1955年的上海第一批18只试制手表，曾发现一只，并于1996年9月24日上海手表厂建厂40周年纪念日拍卖出11.1万元天价。其余那17只"第一次试制样品1955.10.1上海"试制手表，却再也没有在大庭广众之下露面。正因有上海试制表的天价新闻普及因此，当红旗试制手表于90年代淹没在大大小小废旧表堆里时，就被有心人慧眼识珠，购买、保存下来。红旗试制手表是幸运的。幸存的红旗试制手表，保守估计在10只左右，上限很难判明。但试制毕竟是试制，总比任何批量、限量生产的手表少之又少，当之无愧的弥足珍贵。

红旗试制手表有四大特点：一、表盘商标为拼音shizhi（试制）。表现出是国产表we中第一和唯一能够直呼试制手表的手表。二、表后盖光板，无厂铭，表露严谨的制表作风。三、区别于任何国产表的独特机芯，表明先于全国解放并敢于解放全国的敢为天下第一的开国精神—-红旗精神。四、试制手表的表盘、指针等外观设计有多种多样，并均与正式出品的早期红旗手表相对应。

这正是称其为红旗试制手表，而不叫试制手表的因由

早期特別版紅旗表和後期彩色版

收藏古董中國錶的難度高，同樣是中古紅旗錶，但是價錢卻有天與地的分別！貴的原因在於品象和数量少有。而且，喜欢怀旧国产表的朋友越来越多，随着购买数量成倍的增长，国产表的数量也随之减少，随之即来的是造假的也是越来越多！无论是上海 红旗 北京 五一 乃至一些地方表 都有假的版面浮出水面，也因為很多高仿，假表，和旧表換上新面等的出現，真正原装古好的中古表也因此变得稀少，价格也因此上涨了。

早期特別紅旗表

第一排 : 最早期白漆红旗红字  . 拉丝红旗红字, 玫瑰刻度 指针 红旗标

第二排 : 红旗日历, 一面小紅旗玫瑰金字, 一面小红旗銀字

第三排：最早期白漆小汉字紅旗, 早期试制第一批拉丝面小字版白字紅旗少了Fang Zhan, 玫瑰金刻度样本机芯

後期彩色版

早期试制第一批拉丝面小字版白字紅旗 Smaller logo Hong Qi watch white silvered dial

很多人看不起中國手錶，認為這些手錶很便宜。 嗯，這有一半是正確的因為在中國也有高收藏價值的中国手錶，特別是在經驗豐富的中國收藏家中。實際上，這些原裝少有的內地手錶也可以要求高價。 由於人們對這些復古手錶的高度興趣，許多假貨和半真假手錶出現了．⋯⋯這是隻早期试制第一批拉丝面小字版白字紅旗.

Many people look down on Chinese watches and think they are cheap. Well, this is half true as there are also highly collectible Chinese watches in China, especially among experienced Chinese collectors. In fact, these original and rare mainland watches can also command high prices. Due to the high level of interest in these vintage watches, many fakes and half-authentic watches have emerged. ⋯..This is the first batch of early trial production of the brushed surface small-print version of the white-letter red flag.

辽宁手表厂于1970年先后生产“红旗”牌手

早期1970-1973中旬以SL2A机芯主结构.

 后期以3101统一机芯为主结构

雖然看似一樣，但是翻寫過。小心 (Below are watches with repainted dials)

最早期白漆”小标志” 紅旗 White Lacquered dial watch

最近的最愛是白漆表，这是最早期白漆面一款带有”小标志” 的简单白色小字，0570机芯。

My recent favorite is the white lacquered dial watch. This is the earliest white lacquer watch with a "small logo" and simple white characters, 0570 movement meaning its from May 1970.

第一批红旗表 字也要比普通的小很多

辽宁手表厂于1970年先后生产“红旗”牌手

早期1970-1973中旬以SL2A机芯主结构. 

后期以3101统一机芯为主结构