Friday, December 4, 2009

Watchismo's Top Ten Vintage Plastic Watches

Typically, when you think of plastic watches, you think of Swatch. But back in the sixties and seventies, plastic was still a very cool new medium for products. All of the watches featured here are vintage mechanical timepieces, a few with movements by Jaeger and others with automatic winding mechanisms. But overwhelmingly, they are all interesting designs and truly obscure models that you are likely to never find in a lifetime of collecting.

Above, a simple watch with oversized arrows for hands. The case is a somewhat oblong triangle.

This is by a brand called appropriately "Handcuff", this thing is as large as they come and I first read about it in Pieter Doensen's fantastic (out of print) book "Watch - History of the Modern Wrist Watch". I was lucky enough to meet with Pieter back in 2001 and purchased the exact model used for publication. Thanks again Pieter, it's in a safe place!

Ah, again discovered in the Doensen book, this Record Automatic (by Longines) was an amazing find on Ebay about 8 years ago...brand new in box, unfortunately too small for my wrist, made for women. Probably for the best as I would likely have the balls to wear this in public.

The Helmet Jump Hour, not much to say here other than "look at that friggin movement!". Insane. I featured this a while back-->link


Part of watchmaking history, the Tissot Astrolon Idea 2001, the worlds first all plastic watch, including the movement. For more info, go here-->link

And some of my absolute favorite watches to collect but hardly ever wear, the Pierre Cardin 1971 collection (shown above and below). Produced for just for one year, these fantastic watches had manual winding Jaeger movements and designs (both platic and steel) like no other! For more, go here-->link


The beautiful disc/hand dials of the vintage Mondia Moonstone

The only plastic watch shown here made for kids, featuring gadgets for spying (expandable eyesights, etc) and a manual winding movement with an ingenious display for showing the hour through a rotating hole, for more go here-->link

These plastic watches by Nivada are deceiving, the photos do not express their monster size, they measure approximately 70mm wide! The straps would usually match the dial, for more go here-->link

And for related plastic wristwatch posts.
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