seagull st5

[cluu1]

hello,
i did some searching and could not find an answer so i decided to post,
I recently got a seagull watch with an st5 movement,
it is not striped, are there non striped st5 in seagull watches?
another thing is it beats at 21600bph,
is this normal? or is something wrong?

[AlbertaTime]

roHi cluu1, and WELCOME to the WUS Chinese Mechanical Watch forum

Normally, the ST-5 striped movement is 21600bphm, and the earlier un-striped version is 18,000...

That said, it appears that some recently available ST-5 "NOS" pieces on Ebay (mostly---but not only---from one seller) do not conform to these expectations, and my conjecture is that the movements have possibly been recently assembled form NOS (or newly manufactured replacement) parts. There are also ST-5 watches on China's Taobao that are the same: not all original in my opinion.

My conjecture may be wrong; it's also possible that there was a transition period between the two movements where parts were interchanged, but I have no confirmation of that.

Although that might detract from the watch's purist historical or collectors value if the watch is likely not entirely original or in "direct from the factory" condition, it certainly doesn't mean that it's a bad watch either way. I have a couple of ST-5 watches with movements just as you describe, and they are very solid daily-wear timekeepers and they look great.

[Torsten]

Ron, not on the road yet?

[Torsten]

the answer to your first question is yes. there are striped and non-striped ST5 movements in the watches from Tianjin.

Dongfeng brand (predecessor of Seagull) in general uses non-striped ST5 movements with a beat rate of 18,000.

Seagull brand in general uses striped ST5 movements with a beat rate of 21,600.

However, I have seen non-striped movements in ST5s beating at 21,600. I would assume that these have been produced during the transitional phase (technical improvement and brand change over) moving from 18,000 to 21,600. Another reason simply might be repairs done over the during the last 25 years which let to the swap of balance parts increasing the beat rate.

[cluu1]

thank you all for the quick reply,
i bought it from a*a*a*a*a*

i was just wondering.

[Torsten]

And there is your answer. This seller has been discussed in the past....