Comments:
Eterna Madison: Quite a rare bird
Just received my latest watch today. While it was not a Black Friday purchase, the price was still very attractive.
And the watch is quite interesting: An Eterna Madison Sperodrive, a tonneau-shaped time only (hours, minutes and central seconds) manual wind watch with a rectangular shaped manufacture movement made by Eterna. The specialty of the movement is the spring barrel, which is supported by a ball bearing mechanism with 5 small ceramic balls.
There's also an 8-day version of the watch with power reserve display and a big date, but I like the look of the more dressy time-only version of the watch a lot more.
For such a classic-looking dress watch, the size is a bit on the larger side (47mm long from lug end to lug end), but it's quite thin (9.3mm according to the Eterna web site) and wears comfortably, but only after I had swapped the folding clasp by a tang buckle.
And here are the pictures.
Nice wooden box:
The watch in the box:
Wrist shot:
Side shot with the Eterna logo-styled crown:
Backside showing the (in my opinion) attractive layout of the bridges:
I hope that Eterna continues its current path of developing more of their own movements, and I can definitely see myself adding another Eterna to my collection in the future.
And the watch is quite interesting: An Eterna Madison Sperodrive, a tonneau-shaped time only (hours, minutes and central seconds) manual wind watch with a rectangular shaped manufacture movement made by Eterna. The specialty of the movement is the spring barrel, which is supported by a ball bearing mechanism with 5 small ceramic balls.
There's also an 8-day version of the watch with power reserve display and a big date, but I like the look of the more dressy time-only version of the watch a lot more.
For such a classic-looking dress watch, the size is a bit on the larger side (47mm long from lug end to lug end), but it's quite thin (9.3mm according to the Eterna web site) and wears comfortably, but only after I had swapped the folding clasp by a tang buckle.
And here are the pictures.
Nice wooden box:
The watch in the box:
Wrist shot:
Side shot with the Eterna logo-styled crown:
Backside showing the (in my opinion) attractive layout of the bridges:
I hope that Eterna continues its current path of developing more of their own movements, and I can definitely see myself adding another Eterna to my collection in the future.
Glad to see this one
You don't see much talk of modern Eterna's, but I have to say that this one looks nice, especially the movement layout and design. Are those heat blued screws on the movement?
Congratulations on this acquisition and thanks for sharing with us.
Not sure about the bluing process...
The screws might be heat-blued or chemically blued with bluing salt.The only thing I can say is that the slots of the screws are blue too, so there was no nickel coating anywhere on the screws at the time of bluing.
Original and interesting. Thanks for the presentation of your watch. [nt]
No message body This message has been edited by amanico on 2014-11-28 23:12:53
Finally! I'm thrilled to see a Purist taking the plunge . . .
. . . on one of the few watches that have been on my wish-list for many years other than GS or G O. Why?
A manufacturer in the truest sense of the term.
A case that's utterly pleasing.
Fitting dimensions and proportions.
An austere dial of classic design.
Manual winding movement.
A technological innovation unseen elsewhere.
Sensible cost, and very like good value.
What's not to love?
I've tried to see one in the metal on at least two occasions, but foiled both times by circumstances. A Madison is near the top of my current wish list; it may never come to pass, but my admiration is deep nonetheless. If you can, please describe the feedback from manually winding the movement.
Cordially,
Art
Winding the watch
Glad you like the watch. The reasons you described are pretty much in sync with my views on it.
As for the winding, it feels quite smooth. I'd say it is comparable to the two manual wind Reversos that I have. It's not as smooth as my Rolex Prince (which is the smoothest winding manual winding watch I have), but smoother than the JLC Master Ultra Thin (whose winding smoothness is just average, maybe suffering a bit from the small crown).
The five indents on the crown make it very easy to grip and wind, and there is a substantial feedback/pushback from the main spring. Not quite sure what causes that, but it might very well be a property of the sperodrive feature. Based on what I can see on the back of the watch, the barrel wheel is not larger that usual, so I'd expect a standard length mainspring. Getting 56h of power reserve out of it should therefore be a result of the minimized friction of the barrel wheel when the main spring unwinds. And it seems that this low friction can be felt while winding the watch.
As for the winding, it feels quite smooth. I'd say it is comparable to the two manual wind Reversos that I have. It's not as smooth as my Rolex Prince (which is the smoothest winding manual winding watch I have), but smoother than the JLC Master Ultra Thin (whose winding smoothness is just average, maybe suffering a bit from the small crown).
The five indents on the crown make it very easy to grip and wind, and there is a substantial feedback/pushback from the main spring. Not quite sure what causes that, but it might very well be a property of the sperodrive feature. Based on what I can see on the back of the watch, the barrel wheel is not larger that usual, so I'd expect a standard length mainspring. Getting 56h of power reserve out of it should therefore be a result of the minimized friction of the barrel wheel when the main spring unwinds. And it seems that this low friction can be felt while winding the watch.