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Fortis 17j ST96 caliber,legit?

13K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  tinknocker 
#1 ·
Guys I just purchased off ebay a mens circa 1970 17 jewel mechanical with yellow dial/24 hour.Unfortunately I was unable to upload andy pics.The watch looks legit says incabloc caliber st96.If you go to ebay their is a picture of it on the website.Indian seller 100% positive reviews was wondering if its legit.If I get a chance will try to post a link for it later
 
#3 ·
Need pictures. Indian seller, does the dial look new?, a lot of re-dials come out of India because of the weather conditions.
The problem then is, how weathered did the movement get, if it's the original. All speculation without pictures
 
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#5 ·
In the absence of any pictures, I'm going with poor quality redial, possibly a franken-watch, with numerous replacement parts, some or all of which may not be correct for that model or even for that brand.

It would not surprise me if some of your watch is glued together.

I'm basing this assessment on the fact it's a yellow dialed vintage watch sold from India.
 
#7 ·
#8 ·
Fortis watches tended to have only Swiss movements, ETA and A.Schild movements.
The ST 16 is a Chinese movement made by the venerable Sea-Gull watch group. They are good movements, tending to run forever with proper service. The movement started being made in the early 1980's. SO if the watch is supposed to be older than that, its certainly not the real deal.

I am being honest, I don't mean to insult. I am just giving you info. A HUGE portion of watches coming out of India, the Philippines, Russia, Indonesia, and Malasia are NOT original watches. Especially India. Do an experiment. Find a Seiko for sale on Ebay in India, that states its model number on the listing and its case back {example seiko 6309-8800]. Then google search the Seiko model number separately. I bet you will find quite a few watches look nothing like the original watch, and the original will be FAR less colorful looking than the ones from India.Most "remade" Indian Seikos will say only "japan made " on the dial bottom, Seiko puts only "japan" and the model number.

India is pumping out thousands of watches daily with repainted dials. Seiko's from India can often have totally different dials than the original model.
If you can find a case that looks similar to the watch you want to mimic, you can put just about ANY movement into the watch you want so long as it fits. Then a well equipped watch making operation can repaint a dial, and solder new dial feet to the dial to fit ANY movement they choose. They use left over new old stock cases that may look like the original watch case, it might even BE an original Fortis old stock case. But I am VERY doubtful that Fortis EVER used a Chinese Seagull movement.
Just my experience.
Rod
 
#9 ·
He's saying it's an ST96 movement, which is a Fontainemelon or FHF 96, as I posted above.
 
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