Zenith

......would you all remember? "Les architects du temps"? Ebel Chronos with Zenith El Primero in the engine room

I have an ad from a US magazine for this watch, dated 1983 (when the caliber number would have been 3019PHC, in addition to Ebel caliber 134), "intelligently priced" at $1995. That was, of course, more than the Daytona, and the ref. 1134901 Ebel remained the pricier alternative throughout its life. Would that Ebel's importance had sustained that position, though I confess I have ridiculously benefitted from their diminishment.

This one, with a Zenith caliber 40.0 (made in 1986 per Rössler), used the link bracelet designed for the 1911 series, which came out that year. It's one of the highlights of my extensive Ebel collection. And it's the watch I would wear if I ever had an opportunity to meet Pierre-Alain Blum.

....just an opinion but I wonder if my fellow collectors feel the same.  The 1911 chronograph with Zenith movement is like an art sculpture.  Clean curves, outstanding design and incredible dial and of course a movement that is rarely rivaled today at 36,600 BPM. 

I managed to keep mine mint for all these years and wear it occasionally.  18K with croco strap.

 

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Wouldn't dare drilling this masterpiece

...and I did see one recently that was either a fake or had been drilled for a standard strap. The integral straps are part of what makes the strapped versions of these cases have such design integrity. This one was in their 2005 catalog:

....the design is incredibly intricate and integrated. That said Ebel must have one of sadest endings in the archives of swiss watch making. Unfortunately today it has become unreconizable with designs that are almost indistinguishable from Fossil and cheap brands. I'll be keeping this one till the end knowing that it will never come back.

While their pictures of this watch make it look utterly uninspired, in person it is quite beautiful, or really from any angle that shows its actual shape. Only Ebel would finish a watch in this way, even though it does not follow the Sport Classic pattern.



This basic model is still in the catalog. And even such models as the Onde and the Classic Wave are very nicely made and nobody would confuse them with a cheap brand in person. But it is true that the vision of Pierre-Alain Blum and his trusted staff that included such current luminaries as Jean-Marc Jacot (currently CEO of Parmigiani Fleurier) is no longer in evidence, and Ebel is now merely a brand more that a company. It is now just a sign on the MGI Luxury Group SA building next to the train station in Biel/Bienne. But you can't say that MGI didn't at least make a go of it.



But I still love the unique styling of Ebel from the Sport Classic through the BTR and Tekton--so different and yet true to their own unique design language.

As I said, though, their failure in the mechanical-watch market has made it possible for me and my wife to own a couple of dozen Ebels from the last 15 years or so, at pennies on the dollar, so it is a bit disingenuous of me to complain about Movado's current strategy.

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These Ebels are now very underrated unless in all gold.   Such a shame because Ebel recued Zenith over the Primero.   Now I do not bother to look at the website becaue they have lost their way.

I have two calibre 134's; rather tatty old photos attached.   Sorry they are not still as pristine as the others shown here.   The all steel with lovely understated silvered dial was used as my daily wear.   When I had to wait a long time for the AD to service it, I saw the bimetallic calibre 134 for sale, so I bought it and it too became a regular wear.   Both still with their zip boxes, outers and papers.   I still wear them when I need a chronograph to use.   Otherwise I now wear other watches from my small accumulation and often have difficulty in deciding which one for the week!  

I have a couple of barely used sharkskin strapswith the Ebel deployment but I think the wave and bimetallic bracelets better suit these two chrono's.   I am not a great fan of metal bracelets and have gone back to pin buckles, especially as my wrists are slim.

Regards

Clive  

This message has been edited by chippytime on 2016-02-02 08:27:20 This message has been edited by chippytime on 2016-02-02 08:44:09

.....cool, when I opened this thread and posted the pictures I did it quite hastedly and did not count on many views or reactions. Therefore just some additons:

1st Generation Ebel El Primero: there were several "generations". I specifically hunted steel/whitegold and steel/yellowgold version of the first generation. The easy ways to distinguish them are mainly:

- crown: it has this hexagonal "screw-shape" type crown. Most of the ones you will see have the "round-fluted" crown

- hour and minute hand: withouth luminova in the first generation, with luminova in the second generation

- bracelet: fully opening bracelet (with quirky closure, hence big risk of losing the watch...!) versus same bracelet but deployment clasp in the second generation

The other funny thing is that the reference number is way longer than the individual case number which is why people, who put the watch up on Ebay etc. often make the reference number un-recognizable but leave the individual case number readable.  

And lastly, it took a while before I realized that the very rare "steel only" version (one of the two in my pictures) is not "steel only" but actually steel and white gold. This means that all parts that are yellow gold on the "mixed" model are white gold on the "steel" version. If you look carefully at the first picture below you will recognize this.

To conclude: probably one of the most under-valued watches with a unique and brilliant design and a state of the art movement which - with a bit of luck - you can get at an incredible price.

Best, HSTE 

It is a true pleasure to follow this thread and learn from you all. This exchange brought back sweet memories from my time as a PhD student, when I seriously contemplated an Ebel watch with the El Primero. Back then they where more expensive than the original Zenith, so I had to back out.
Now, with the revelations on the 'simple steel' models my interest has sparked again. Does this apply only to the first series?
Thanks again,
Magnus

If it was, the technical reference should be 1134901. Ebel used the same technical referencing scheme from their beginnings until just a couple of years ago. The first 1 is "gold and steel", digits two to four ("134") are the caliber number, and "901" is a model code that I have never decoded, but all Zenith-powered chronographs were 901's and all Ebel 137-powered chronographs in otherwise similar cases (but not quite identical) were 240's.

That first digit in yours is what interests me. 1 is mixed, 2 may be silver (and thus very old indeed), 3 is white gold, 4 is platinum, 5 is rose gold, 6 is gold highlights (such as screws on a steel bezel, or brushed gold-capped steel bezel), 7 is rolled gold plate (not used since the 60's), 8 is yellow gold, 9 is stainless steel, and B is titanium. The "9" on yours suggests to me that the bezel is, in fact, steel. But there should be a notice lightly engraved on the case back--lightly because they would have engraved that notice after pairing the steel parts with the gold parts. Mine, for example, faintly says, "Stainless Steel Case / 18K Bezel" on the back, above the deeply engraved serial and technical reference numbers. Yours seems to lack that engraving, unless they are too faint to see in the photographs. By the way, the steel bezel in my 9080241 1911 Senior looks exactly like the bezel on yours, in terms of profile and polish.

The 701 on yours is where the serial number usually goes. I've never figured out any pattern with Ebel serial numbers, even with our sample of 25.
Fully agree about the hexagonal crown, which I believe was used with all the wave-bracelet versions, including later quartz models that retained the wave bracelet. I believed that the fluted crown came with the 1911 bracelet in 1986, but that is just an impression.

All of the pre-1911 chronographs should have movements that Zenith made before stopping production in the 70's, from the stock of finished ebauches that Blum purchased in 1982, when Charly Vermot revealed his famous subterfuge. According to Manfred Rossler, Zenith did not restart actual production until 1986, with the transitional caliber 40.0, to be replaced a year later by the caliber 400, as it is currently designated. That was the same year that Blum introduced the 1911 line, in celebration of Ebel's 75th anniversary.

The details of the hands are all new for me--fun to learn new stuff. The rings around the sub-dials are a bit different (and wider) than on my later model.
This message has been edited by rdenney on 2016-02-02 13:13:07 This message has been edited by rdenney on 2016-02-02 13:13:34

.........and I will more closely check on that "lightly engraved" bit of your message. As a quick fix, I can for now up-load another picture in which you see clearly that the color of the bezel, screws around the bezel and the crown is warmer and different than the steel color of the stop-watch pushers

I had read this white-gold/steel thing somewhere in the net (I will try to find it) and only reading this made me look really close at my own watch and finding the difference of the "steel" colors which seemed to confirm this.

To be continued......

and I suppose stranger things have happened. I do not see the same difference on my much-later 1911 Senior with the steel bezel (9080241). But I'm still struggling with that technical reference number. Ebel was usually pretty good about such things in the day.

go into Google and type: my first grail Maximilian
you will get an interview with Maximilian Büsser, the owner of MB&F.