What watch are you wearing today???

I love hand-wound mechanical watches made by Indian microbrands like Hedge & Golay, IST, Camy, Olympic, etc. You'll barely find information on the internet. A lot of them popped up around the '80s and died in the early '90s. Thanks to the digital revolution and dominance by HMT.

Below are NOS I got them recently. Will be posting more post lockdown.

IST Badal shot under not-so-great light, it's a dark brown dial. Looks black on photos.

IST was one of few brands that tied up with Swiss brands (not sure which one) hence Indo-Swiss printed on the dial. AFAIK, the only other brand to had a Swiss partner was Hedge-Golay and its sister concern Sreeshalya.
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Lincon Sameer
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asingh said:
^^
Never knew such brands existed. Can you tell us more.
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Sadly there's very little information on the internet. No blogs, forums, social media pages barely discuss them which triggered my interest to collect them and find more about them. These brands faded out even before LPG in 1991.

IST: Indo-Swiss Time, they started around mid-'70s and assembled watches by importing from a swiss based company. You find a lot of IST watches on this FB forum.

Lincon: Another small microbrand from the 80's assembled watches with the Swiss/Japanese movement. I need to open the case back and check what movement it uses.

Another brand am currently researching is Siwa, a Hosur based company that assembled watches. Others include Timestar, Westar, Hedge&Golay, Shivaki, Camy, Olympic, etc. More stories on this thread soon.

There was one common pattern among these watches, they followed HMT's naming convention ex: IST Mayur, Hegde Golay Siddarth, etc.
 
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kalph09 said:
Sadly there's very little information on the internet. No blogs, forums, social media pages barely discuss them which triggered my interest to collect them and find more about them. These brands faded out even before LPG in 1991.

IST: Indo-Swiss Time, they started around mid-'70s and assembled watches by importing from a swiss based company. You find a lot of IST watches on this FB forum.

Lincon: I have no idea. I need to open the case back and check what movement it uses.

Another brand am currently researching is Siwa, a Hosur based company that assembled watches. Others include Timestar, Westar, Hedge&Golay, Shivaki, Camy, Olympic, etc. More stories on this thread soon.

There was one common pattern among these watches, they followed HMT's naming convention ex: IST Mayur, Hegde Golay Siddarth, etc.
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Such intriguing info...
 
WOTD Timestar, another Indian brand whose history dates back to the '60s. At a time when HMT had just started to make watches.

Copy-pasting excerpt from a collector forum.

Timestar was a Franco-Indian collaboration, specifically between a number of French manufacturers, notably Lorsa, and Indian partners, Indo-French Time Industries Ltd., in Bombay, India. This was in the 1960s when it was still illegal to import complete watches into India - a ban that was lifted in 1980.

Timestar-branded mechanical watches, the movements were of Lorsa design and were the P62 variety, which was a medium grade serviceable movement of relatively modern design at the time, having a Glucydor screw balance and 17 or 21 jewels. Indeed, it has been said that some of the French watch movements of the 1950s and 1960s were as good as their equivalent Swiss counterparts. The first Timestar watches will presumably have used French-made movements, but there is some evidence that after a while, Lorsa sold their Indian partners some obsolete tooling for movements and so some of the Timestar watches may contain Indian-made P62 movements.

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kalph09 said:
WOTD Timestar, another Indian brand whose history dates back to the '60s. At a time when HMT had just started to make watches.

Copy-pasting excerpt from a collector forum.

Timestar was a Franco-Indian collaboration, specifically between a number of French manufacturers, notably Lorsa, and Indian partners, Indo-French Time Industries Ltd., in Bombay, India. This was in the 1960s when it was still illegal to import complete watches into India - a ban that was lifted in 1980.

Timestar-branded mechanical watches, the movements were of Lorsa design and were the P62 variety, which was a medium grade serviceable movement of relatively modern design at the time, having a Glucydor screw balance and 17 or 21 jewels. Indeed, it has been said that some of the French watch movements of the 1950s and 1960s were as good as their equivalent Swiss counterparts. The first Timestar watches will presumably have used French-made movements, but there is some evidence that after a while, Lorsa sold their Indian partners some obsolete tooling for movements and so some of the Timestar watches may contain Indian-made P62 movements.
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May I know where are you sourcing these from?
 
kalph09 said:
WOTD Timestar, another Indian brand whose history dates back to the '60s. At a time when HMT had just started to make watches.

Copy-pasting excerpt from a collector forum.

Timestar was a Franco-Indian collaboration, specifically between a number of French manufacturers, notably Lorsa, and Indian partners, Indo-French Time Industries Ltd., in Bombay, India. This was in the 1960s when it was still illegal to import complete watches into India - a ban that was lifted in 1980.

Timestar-branded mechanical watches, the movements were of Lorsa design and were the P62 variety, which was a medium grade serviceable movement of relatively modern design at the time, having a Glucydor screw balance and 17 or 21 jewels. Indeed, it has been said that some of the French watch movements of the 1950s and 1960s were as good as their equivalent Swiss counterparts. The first Timestar watches will presumably have used French-made movements, but there is some evidence that after a while, Lorsa sold their Indian partners some obsolete tooling for movements and so some of the Timestar watches may contain Indian-made P62 movements.

View attachment 106315
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Also in very good condition
 
kalph09 said:
Mostly from my circle of watch collector friends, watch repair shops I visit on weekends, and then there are few sellers* like this guy (Gautham) or this one (Sanjiv) who have some really nice watches in stock.

*Some of the watches they sell are repainted but tastefully restored or rather modded better than what came out of the factory.
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Which city are you from?
 
kalph09 said:
Mostly from my circle of watch collector friends, watch repair shops I visit on weekends, and then there are few sellers* like this guy (Gautham) or this one (Sanjiv) who have some really nice watches in stock.

*Some of the watches they sell are repainted but tastefully restored or rather modded better than what came out of the factory.
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Wow those watches are done so well. Of course some dials are re-painted. Who cares!
 
Has anybody been able to order anything from Ali Express?

I really wanna pick up the Pagani daytona but I dont know if it will get here. What do you guys recommend?
 
Googly said:
Which city are you from?
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Bangalore.

My WOTD, corny name. Not something I would wear for my next watch enthusiasts group meets lol. Just love the mint green-black gradient dial.

St.Climax or Saint Climax, Made in India, 17J hand-wound mechanical watch. Unfortunately, no verified information available on the forums (FB and WUS) Looking up on the internet just sheds NSFW results.

If you guys know more about this watch, drop a reply.

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A2D82FDB-7C01-4B1A-9AD4-34D6E4D5CFBC.jpeg
 
kalph09 said:
Bangalore.

My WOTD, corny name. Not something I would wear for my next watch enthusiasts group meets lol. Just love the mint green-black gradient dial.

St.Climax or Saint Climax, Made in India, 17J hand-wound mechanical watch. Unfortunately, no verified information available on the forums (FB and WUS) Looking up on the internet just sheds NSFW results.

If you guys know more about this watch, drop a reply.

View attachment 107198

View attachment 107199
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Lovely watch and great condition....
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Liked the bare look of the watch while browsing through Titan website...the hands and Roman numbers give it a classy appeal...also like the Ceramic like finish....and finally found the ideal dial size for me....
 
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Not so common HMT Pilot Grey!
It has simple pastel colors and that bright Red seconds hand [actually the pic below has gained warm tone due to yellowish light from the chandelier].

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And here is a short video of the watch:


PS: There are few HMT Watches available including few Pilots right now on hmtwatches.in!!
 
WOTD, Yet another India-Made, 17J mechanical hand-wound watch. Not much information is available. On the back, it has 'Uttam Time Industries' sticker.

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kalph09 said:
WOTD, Yet another India-Made, 17J mechanical hand-wound watch. Not much information is available. On the back, it has 'Uttam Time Industries' sticker.

View attachment 108257
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Beautiful Dial...
xkcd0137 said:
How did you get it for ₹500 bucks!!? What model is it? Resembles SKX007.. does it share the movement as well?
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Perks of staying in remote India....I have picked up some beauties here....this one though is probably Franken or 1st copy from Dubai of SKX007
 
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