Bruno.M1
4160
It IS old Stock Dean
Mar 21, 2014,07:59 AM
Look at your watches and look for the serial number on the movement or on the COSC certificate
mine for example is 7.15X.XXX
now, a sentence in a press release that might disturb some people is this
The calibre has been in continuous production since then and has been used in competition timepieces, marine chronometers, pocket watches, and watchmaking school watches.
But this is imo misinterpreted by most people. As far as I know they stopped making these movements long, long ago. The problem was that nobody was interested in marine deck chronometers nor very expensive pocket watches. I have a Zenith catalog from 1997 and you must know such a pocket watch ( silver so not an expensive material) was about 3 times more expensive than an entry Zenith dress watch like for example 3 hands Elite. The Gold pocket watch with 5011K movement was only 25% cheaper than a Patek Philippe pocket watch ( also found in a 1997 Patek Catalog)
So I'm sure they still had some ols stock of these movements but they just didn't sell. not in marine deck chronometers and not in expensive pocket watches.
Yes, in 2000 they were still in the catalog as a pocket watch but even at that time the movement in the pocket watch was old stock !
A few years ago Mr Dufour decided to put them in the now legendary TYPE20. I'm 99.99% sure they used these old movements they sill had inside sold pocket watches. Or waiting to be used one day in a pocket watch.
So yes, maybe they still have a few left but when looking at the serial number you will see these are made between let's say 1965 and 1975. All the pieces I saw had an OLD serial number.
so look at your number and I'm sure you'll have a number made around the 1970's