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Housing: Roamer MST, Solothurn, approx.. 1965, gilded, patented housing construction, Brev. 305467,305776,307382,308491., high-grade steel work tank is pressed with glass in the housing, divided elevator wave, marked crown, reinforced Hersalithglas, 35 x 34 mm volume: Wempe Jeunesse, leather, gilded thorn latch work: Roamer MST, Kal. 471, 44 Jewels (basis work: 19. reduction transmissions: 8. free-wheels: 2 x 5, rotor camps: 7)auf ruby balls stored central rotor, elevator into both directions of rotation over patented Freillaufkupplungen and 3 reduction wheels, Glucidur balance spring, Incabloc, patented Rueckerfeinstellung over Excenterschraube and mobile Spiralkloetzchentraeger, Antikorodial antikorodial-Federhaus, 21,600 A/h, gangreserve 44 hr., present/immediate datumswechsel dial: silvered, sun cross section, indices presented, date with 3 o'clock, leuchtpunkte and pointer, presented elevator ring with Minuterie condition: G1-2, z0-1, w1-2, b1, glass must be polished, second wave on dial height broken, course deviation over 48 hours under 2 minutes Technical cream bit: For the Kal. Roamer, actually Meyer & Stuedeli S.A., 4 patents announced 471: for the ingenious, waterproof housing construction, the free-wheel and the Rueckerfeinstellung. Contrary to other housings the work is pressed here including glass and soil into the upper section. The construction permits a waterproof housing without screw connections (please now, after 30 years, no more do not try out).
MST was been around for about 100 years and used to make clock movements; ni the teens and twenties they went with the flow and made watch (pocket and wrist) movements. They were ok - not great not awful, about the same quality as any other mass producer of movements. Then sometime in the 70's an utterly freakish thing happened, they built an automatic movement that was 30 years ahead of it's time, by that I mean the ETA 2892-A2 (sp?) and Rolex 4130. The problem with all automatics is the stress on the selfwinding gear train and these gears get chewed up on a regular basis. At some point all the replacement gears are gone. This is what makes the 23 jewel Bulova movements worthless today - no parts - which is a shame because they're adjusted to six positions, highly finished and good to a second a day in many cased. Not bad for a watch you can by for 11 dollars off eBay all day long. So, there is one MST caliber that stands out: Cal 436 (437 has date); this watch has 44 jewels, including 5 ruby ball bearngs for the rotor and 5 ruby roller bearings in each of the two reversing wheels. To date nobody on the planet has made such good reversing wheels and unlike other bogus high jewel count movements all the jewels are functional. The gearing is set so low on these it takes almost no effort to swing the rotor and there is very very little torque transmitted trhough the selfwinding geartrain. Morseo the gears are utterly massive. This thing will just never weat out and sure enough none of mine show the sligheest evidence of wear. It's like riding a bicycle, pretend you're in high gear and try climbing a hill. That's what every other automatic movement is like. Now switch to low gear - that's the MST/Roamer. Oh, MST decided to produce watches as well as movemnts and invented the name Roamer. The finish on these things, a thick rhodium plate is very well done and they have a glycidor balande and navarox spring and a good (offset? I forget) regulator. Th're accurate, look great and are the only vntage automatic that will not wear out or chew itself to bits. The movement was made *completely* in house, even the screws. Apparantly the ruby ball bearings cracked in some cases and the later version Cal 471 (473 has date) used steel bearings and ruby bearings are NLA. So, anytime you see a roaer with "44" on the dial it's one of these. Ditto, "28". For all but the earliest watches the caliber numbr is part of the serial number on the back of the watch. look for 436, 437, 471, 473. Now, they made these in the 70's so case styling is typical for the era, that is some of them, particularly the Mustang series are (at least to me) just freakin hideous. But they also made dress watches that look like a plain Omega Seamaster DeVille from that ear. Very plan. They're "container" cases, so the bezel pops off leaving a container of the back and crystal; you pry thew xtal off, pull the stem off and now it's all in your hands, When the seals are new they're quite waterproof.
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