Digitrendy - Amida Digitrend Prism Jump Hour

"Hmm...How can I make a sideview LED style digital watch and still be mechanical? I got it! Make two dials for hour and minutes, print the numbers backwards and have a prism reflect the corrected mirror image through the side crystal."

- Likely thoughts of Swiss mechanical digital inventor Joseph Bamat when creating the 1970's Amida Digitrend mirrored prism jump hour digital mechanical watch. (also made by Crehor & Hudson)

Patent information describes it in further detail;

DIGITAL WATCH (filed November 1970)
Abstract A timepiece includes a pair of rotatable discs carrying respectively hour and minute indicia on one surface adjacent their peripheries. The indicia are arranged to pass, on rotation of the discs, adjacent the geometric central axis of the case of the timepiece. A window is formed at a position corresponding to the geometric central axis of the case, in a cover of the case, for viewing the indica.
More photos here

Jump hour disks with backwards digit printing

L.R.D. Light Reflecting Display - Original Amida Digitrend Advertisement

A very rare advertisement of the from the 1976 Basel Fair. Now it's clear that the brand was creatively competing with the electronic digital (LED & LCD) watch market with their "New Generation of Digitals", the mechanical "LRD" (Light Reflecting Display).

The watch was previously featured here-->Link

The Amida Digitrend simply created a hand-wound jump hour digital watch, printed the numbers backward in orange (emulating LED digits), and reflected them sideways through a prism correcting the numbers in the display. Genius!

The reverse-printed dials

Made with a few different names
This one by Hudson

Related Stories;
All Jump Hour Posts
All Digital Posts

1970s Influence on Modern Horology (Featuring Watchismo!) Internatonal Herald Tribune

Fellow Brooklynite and famed watch writer and editor of Couture International Jeweler magazine Victoria Gomelsky visited Watchismo headquarters allowing me to show her some of my favorite (and obscure) 1970s watches. All for this big feature in the International Herald Tribune showcasing the influence of that special decade on some of the coolest timepieces in recent years.

A real thrill to have some of my oddball watches featured next to a Horological Machine and Patek Philippe Nautilus. Even more exciting to see the article close with a quote from me! Click the photos to read the article in its entirety or visit the Int'l Herald Tribune-->Here.


The end of the article (where I'm describing the wild variations of Swiss mechanical digital watches trying to survive during the quartz revolution of the 70s);

"Which is why when the Swiss tried some outlandish things in the mechanical arena, they, too, were failures - some of the best examples of which can be found on Watchismo.com, founded in 1998 by Mitch Greenblatt, a New Yorker. Not only does the site sell far-out designer timepieces from the cult French brand Lip, it also has watches, like the Amida Digitrend LRD (Light Reflecting Display) and the Jaz Derby Swissonic, whose retro looks epitomize the decade's eccentric vision.

"They tried to keep up with affordable watches that satisfied the new trend for digital timekeeping," Greenblatt said. "It was an act of desperation that culminated in something really cool."

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Swiss Digital Envy - 1974 Sicura Instalite Electro-mechanical Jump Hour

Swiss mechanical watches were faced with a huge challenge by the growing popularity of digital LED & LCD displays of the seventies. Taking an older concept called the Jumping Hour or Direct Read (rotating discs with numbers printed on them instead of hands) and adapting it for watches like the Amida Digitrend with its reverse-reflected sideviewing LED imitation or the Sicura Instalite featured here. The Sicura was the first mechanical jump hour watch with a separate electric lighting function - batteries powered the lamp and manual winding for the watch. Pushing the top button lit up the display as well as three oddly placed portholes on the space-age case.

Available-->Link



Related posts;
Jump Hours


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Faux-Electronic Mechanical Digital Watches

You see many types of jump hour watches here at my blog, but these two actually try their best hiding their Swiss mechanics by imitating the popular & new LED and LCD technology of the early seventies. This Fashiontime Instalite Digital has two mechanical discs with printed LCD style bar digits (dark gray on light gray) and a display light activated by the button on the upper right.

This Tegrov Digital took it a step further by creating a fake LED display with red crystal tinting the mechanical jump hour discs. Also with a lamp function to give the full faux emitting diode effect.

Close-up of faux-LED display

Related Posts;
Amida Digitrend LRD (another faux digital)
Dynamic Scattering LCD (earliest of the style)
Sicura Instalite
All Jump Hour Stories

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1940s LeCoultre DuoPlan Drivers Watch

Triangular cased watch by LeCoultre (circa 1940). Angled on the wrist allowing time-viewing while driving. Featuring a stainless steel case, stepped bezel, 15 jewel movement and back-winder. Drivers watches by LeCoultre are very rare.

The Duoplan movements, developed in 1925 to aid reliability in increasing miniaturization, were arranged on split levels leading to the creation of the world's smallest Caliber 101.

Duoplan two-tier movement

Related posts;
Amida Digitrend Jump Hour
Jaz Derby Swissonic
Sideview Timewarp Article
Sideview Solar LED
Parmigiani Bugatti
Other Drivers Watches


Photo - Antiquorum


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VINTAGE WATCHING

A new feature where I'll be curating some rare vintage finds, most I'd like to buy for myself but exercising my restraint muscles keeps me from going broke. So take advantage of my obsessive hunting and semi-controlled collecting habits.

This week's edition features a rare chronograph, several unusual jump hours, an asymmetric tuning fork, a vibrating alarm diver, and a quarter million dollar wandering hour.

Link-->1969 Zenith El Primero Chrono

Link-->1970s Amida Digitrend Prism Jump Hour

Link-->OPUS V by Felix Baumgartner (modern)
$269,995

Link-->Asymmetric 1973 Bulova Accutron "D"

Link-->1955 Elgin Jump Hour

Link->Vintage LeCoultre Memovox Diver Alarm

Find other watches

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1970 Jovial Vision 2000 - Today's Time with Tomorrow's Styling

Every so often, I find a really odd watch I've never seen before, never heard of before, and can not live without after. This 70's "Jovial Vision 2000" is one of those, and now one of many vintage Holy Grails I must seek out. Having never seen the actual watch, I'm satiated for now with this original advertisement from an early seventies Basel Fair.

One of a few watches that had half-dials with compressed hours for the covered portion. I am organizing a future posting (next week) of all the unusual vintage varieties with this strange display. If anyone ever does find a Jovial Vision 2000, please email me, share the photos for a follow up and prepare to receive an offer from me. I'd be more than jovial...yes, I just said that. Ugh.

Ad copy; "Vision 2000 The watch that tells today's time with tomorrow's styling"

Sideview

Ad copy; "You may not be able to go to the moon yet but you can already wear this VISION - 2000 watch of outer space concept"

Related Posts;
Paul Smith Half Dial
Double Dial Watches
Amida Digitrend AdOther Vintage Watch Ads



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Watchismo's Timewarp for QP Magazine - Vintage Sideview Displays

My new column, 'Watchismo's Timewarp' for British QP Magazine (Issue #23) is now available.

For the series premiere, I write about one of my favorite species, the Sideview display like the 1958 Patek Philippe 'Cobra' prototype below. Its radical use of digital and graphic rollers was likely too ahead of its time. Originally featured --> Link



Others featured in the article;

1970 Amida Digitrend

1974 Jaz Derby Swissonic

1976 Benrus Pop-up LED