Vintage Sicura World Timer

I was surprised to have learned that I haven't posted about my Sicura world timer here. Sicura is supposedly famous for its links with a big brand that is Breitling. As the story goes, Breitling was on the verge of bankruptcy after being greatly affected by the quartz revolution of the 1970s. The owner of Sicura came in to rescue the company and decided to retain the brand. Note that Breitling continued its tradition of producing high quality watches that are now considered luxury models. It does not mean Sicura became Breitling overnight or that their watches and movements were Breitlings. The luxury brand did rub-off to make Sicura's more expensive than they were. But don't get me wrong here...Sicura holds its own with good design and good quality movements. Otherwise, their watches wouldn't even be desirable to collectors over time.

The watch has a date feature and two crowns. One crown is for adjusting the time and the other is for the inner bezel. The outer bezel can be adjusted by directly rotating it.

Side view showing the two crowns. The crown at 3 o'clock is for the winding, and time and date adjustment. The watch caliber does not have a quick set mechanism for the date.

Case back showing the Sicura emblem or coat of arms

The other side view showing other parts of the world time bezel

Close-up of the dial showing the lumes, which are still okay

Wrist shot

The watch is supposed to be powered by a Cal. Sic 40 movement. So far I haven't obtained detailed info about this movement other than it was probably an in-house movement by Sicura. I have a photo of the movement somewhere that I will post here soon.

I still haven't fully figured out what the 400 vacuum tested really meant as close examination of the watch shows it isn't really a diver. For one, the crowns are not screw down and even if this were new, it didn't look like it would survive 400m even when it was new unless this was a compressor watch. I have put this up for sale through a page run by friends as I was consolidating my collection (more Seiko watches these days) but there are no takers. I didn't want to accept the low ball offers because I assume they will just sell it off for a profit.

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