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"Very rare, beautiful, vintage Beitling Sicura Jump Hour Watch 70s"
That's what your typical ebay seller would have you believe anyway! Back in reality though, watch enthusiasts know better. You can remove the words "very rare" and "Breitling" from the description for a start. Beautiful is a rather subjective term though they look beautiful in my opinion and I do own the three pictured below.
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For a start, at any given moment there are about a dozen or more Sicura Jump Hour watches for sale on ebay, so there's generally no shortage of them.
The prices on ebay tend to vary, from less than £50 to above £500 depending on the condition, though I can't imagine anyone buying one at more than about £250. Many of the ones you will find for sale are quite battered, with chunks missing, scratched chrome and chips out of the glass. If I was in the market for one, as someone who doesn't have all the kit to perform my own repairs, I would definitely avoid buying one which needs repair work. I can't imagine tarnished chrome is as easy to fix as stainless steel, and the glass are such an unusual shapes I wouldn't have thought getting a new one was that easy.
There are a number of factors to consider if you are thinking of buying a vintage jump hour watch.
Firstly, there were quite a few companies making similar jump hour watches in the 1970s and a decent inexpensive model isn't too hard to find. For me, I always wanted a Sicura from the second I saw one. The only I really wanted was the silver coloured model with a blue dial. I just adored the bold shape and the shade of blue along with the interesting display. There never seemed to be one at the right price, so whilst waiting impatiently to find one I managed to snag the gold chrome version instead. This is an automatic which the seller said was a 1969 model and I paid about £60. It isn't in perfect shape by any means, but it's condition is pretty good for it's age. As with the other models, it displays the hour on the left, minutes in the centre, the date on the right and the second had is in the middle. It needed a little clean when it arrived though nothing major and the white strap it was on was just plain horrible and got taken off. I would recommend this watch more than the others for a couple of reasons, it's a jaw dropper and always gets comments when I'm wearing it. It's an automatic (unlike the other two) and keeps pretty accurate time. I'm not anal enough to measure it's accuracy but I'm always impressed the watch neither gains or loses time. The other important thing is that the gold jump hour watch with it's oval shaped and bright, clear dial proves easy to read compared to the others. Not only that, it doesn't sit quite so high on the wrist compared with the other two which means it slips easily under a shirt cuff. This is pretty essential as I often don a DJ, smart shirt and sip Vodka Martinis in casinos at night.
The next arrival was the watch on the left, the silver coloured one with a red dial. At this point I'd given up getting a blue one so spending another £50 seemed like a bargain. When it arrived, it was in decent enough condition though again, it had a manky strap which disintegrated upon initial handling. Not that I was bothered by this, I gave it a clean then dashed off to the local jewellers to bag a new strap. I thought a black leather strap with white stitching would compliment the red dial. The longer I've owned this watch the more I've appreciated the great colouring in the dial, I love the way the red gets lighter towards the centre of the dial, a nice little touch. With it being a manual wind, I find it a little less convenient to wear, and the dial is slightly harder to read.
No sooner had it arrived, I spotted an ebay listing which was selling two Sicura Jump Hour watches, one of which was for spares. Another gold coloured, oval version of the jump hour watch was for spares, along with a blue dialled version which I'd really been after. Most of the pictures on the listing were for the watch which was going for spares so I don't think many people were bidding on the item. I managed to pick up both watches for roughly £70 which I was pretty pleased about. The funny thing was the watch which was for spares, was absolutely fine, if a little scuffed. Perhaps the previous owner didn't realise it was an auto because it worked from the second I picked it up? I used it for a couple of months with no problem so put it on ebay for a £1 starting price, selling it eventually for about £95.
Jump Hour watches lend themselves very well to a variety of straps, as you can see from my 3, they are on 3 completely different straps. I have found changing the straps easy enough. They wear smaller than they appear in the pictures. I expected that they would be colossal however they are from the 70s and modern watches tend to be bigger on average than 40 years ago. These watches would have been large for their time though don't particularly stand out for their size compared with a modern diver.
These watches are a bit of fun, and look great. From my experience they keep excellent time for their age. For a lot of people this is all you need from a watch, so they do have a place. However, they aren't anything more than curious looking dress watches. You can't really tell the time at a quick glance as it normally takes a second or two to work it out. If you're used to a modern watch with decent lume, it's going to bug you that can't read the time in the dark and I definitely wouldn't take them swimming.
Also, if you are in the market for a Sicura, don't believe the rubbish about them being Breitling. Yes, there is a connection between Sicura and Breitling. I won't bore you with what is the connection between the two companies (you can google that if you're interested!), all you really need to know is Breitling did not ever have anything to do with the production or mechanisms for Sicura. In fact, Sicura were never renowned during their time for producing time pieces of the highest quality. If like me, you like the unusual look of a Sicura Jump Hour watch, don't let the above comment and disingenuous ebay sellers put you off, just look at for a good deal a buy it because you like the look of what you're buying. You'll have a bit of fun being the owner, it's just unlikely you're buying a gold mine on the cheap.
That's what your typical ebay seller would have you believe anyway! Back in reality though, watch enthusiasts know better. You can remove the words "very rare" and "Breitling" from the description for a start. Beautiful is a rather subjective term though they look beautiful in my opinion and I do own the three pictured below.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
For a start, at any given moment there are about a dozen or more Sicura Jump Hour watches for sale on ebay, so there's generally no shortage of them.
The prices on ebay tend to vary, from less than £50 to above £500 depending on the condition, though I can't imagine anyone buying one at more than about £250. Many of the ones you will find for sale are quite battered, with chunks missing, scratched chrome and chips out of the glass. If I was in the market for one, as someone who doesn't have all the kit to perform my own repairs, I would definitely avoid buying one which needs repair work. I can't imagine tarnished chrome is as easy to fix as stainless steel, and the glass are such an unusual shapes I wouldn't have thought getting a new one was that easy.
There are a number of factors to consider if you are thinking of buying a vintage jump hour watch.
Firstly, there were quite a few companies making similar jump hour watches in the 1970s and a decent inexpensive model isn't too hard to find. For me, I always wanted a Sicura from the second I saw one. The only I really wanted was the silver coloured model with a blue dial. I just adored the bold shape and the shade of blue along with the interesting display. There never seemed to be one at the right price, so whilst waiting impatiently to find one I managed to snag the gold chrome version instead. This is an automatic which the seller said was a 1969 model and I paid about £60. It isn't in perfect shape by any means, but it's condition is pretty good for it's age. As with the other models, it displays the hour on the left, minutes in the centre, the date on the right and the second had is in the middle. It needed a little clean when it arrived though nothing major and the white strap it was on was just plain horrible and got taken off. I would recommend this watch more than the others for a couple of reasons, it's a jaw dropper and always gets comments when I'm wearing it. It's an automatic (unlike the other two) and keeps pretty accurate time. I'm not anal enough to measure it's accuracy but I'm always impressed the watch neither gains or loses time. The other important thing is that the gold jump hour watch with it's oval shaped and bright, clear dial proves easy to read compared to the others. Not only that, it doesn't sit quite so high on the wrist compared with the other two which means it slips easily under a shirt cuff. This is pretty essential as I often don a DJ, smart shirt and sip Vodka Martinis in casinos at night.
The next arrival was the watch on the left, the silver coloured one with a red dial. At this point I'd given up getting a blue one so spending another £50 seemed like a bargain. When it arrived, it was in decent enough condition though again, it had a manky strap which disintegrated upon initial handling. Not that I was bothered by this, I gave it a clean then dashed off to the local jewellers to bag a new strap. I thought a black leather strap with white stitching would compliment the red dial. The longer I've owned this watch the more I've appreciated the great colouring in the dial, I love the way the red gets lighter towards the centre of the dial, a nice little touch. With it being a manual wind, I find it a little less convenient to wear, and the dial is slightly harder to read.
No sooner had it arrived, I spotted an ebay listing which was selling two Sicura Jump Hour watches, one of which was for spares. Another gold coloured, oval version of the jump hour watch was for spares, along with a blue dialled version which I'd really been after. Most of the pictures on the listing were for the watch which was going for spares so I don't think many people were bidding on the item. I managed to pick up both watches for roughly £70 which I was pretty pleased about. The funny thing was the watch which was for spares, was absolutely fine, if a little scuffed. Perhaps the previous owner didn't realise it was an auto because it worked from the second I picked it up? I used it for a couple of months with no problem so put it on ebay for a £1 starting price, selling it eventually for about £95.
Jump Hour watches lend themselves very well to a variety of straps, as you can see from my 3, they are on 3 completely different straps. I have found changing the straps easy enough. They wear smaller than they appear in the pictures. I expected that they would be colossal however they are from the 70s and modern watches tend to be bigger on average than 40 years ago. These watches would have been large for their time though don't particularly stand out for their size compared with a modern diver.
These watches are a bit of fun, and look great. From my experience they keep excellent time for their age. For a lot of people this is all you need from a watch, so they do have a place. However, they aren't anything more than curious looking dress watches. You can't really tell the time at a quick glance as it normally takes a second or two to work it out. If you're used to a modern watch with decent lume, it's going to bug you that can't read the time in the dark and I definitely wouldn't take them swimming.
Also, if you are in the market for a Sicura, don't believe the rubbish about them being Breitling. Yes, there is a connection between Sicura and Breitling. I won't bore you with what is the connection between the two companies (you can google that if you're interested!), all you really need to know is Breitling did not ever have anything to do with the production or mechanisms for Sicura. In fact, Sicura were never renowned during their time for producing time pieces of the highest quality. If like me, you like the unusual look of a Sicura Jump Hour watch, don't let the above comment and disingenuous ebay sellers put you off, just look at for a good deal a buy it because you like the look of what you're buying. You'll have a bit of fun being the owner, it's just unlikely you're buying a gold mine on the cheap.
Last edited by Elwood on Mon Dec 05 2016, 00:25; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : correction)
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