It's that time again, I have a few more watches that I have in my possession you may or may not find interesting. This time I have done a little research but as always any info or comments (good or bad) and corrections are most welcome. Hope you enjoy.
First off is a couple of Bentima ‘s . From the limited info I could find it seems that they started off as a British company making clocks and around ww2 stated using a few Swiss movements and became the importer and agents for Oris. They seem to have been registered as a Swiss company in 1948 and soon were making Swiss made watches under their own name, usually ‘Bentima star’ and the higher end Bentima watches were sometimes assembled with an Oris cal.92 movement or even by Edox with an AS1951 movement .
They continued to make mechanical Swiss made watches into the 1960’s including some pocket watches as well. The name continues now and the brand name is used by Acctim.
(Some extracts above borrowed from Always”watching” Moon Phase . Thank you.)
So the first is a ‘ Bentima star ‘ it has a 15 jewel movement I assume made by Precimax watch co and as far as I can work out looks like a Precimax 400 from about 1955 (although I could only find 17 jewel movements ) The hands move and it seems to wind but I think the main spring is broken. It’s vital statistics are 34mm dia (36mm with crown) , 45mm lug to lug , 9mm thick (including 4 of domed acrylic crystal ) and 16mm lug width . The back is s/s but the body is chrome plating.
More to follow. DW.