Sweephand's Vintage Citizen Watch Blog

I’ve had a spare 67-9038 (8110A chronograph) case lying around for some time. On an original solid link but somewhat stretched bracelet, it has been polished a little over zealously, and the black bezel had also been polished back to metal. Still, it seemed usable to me so I’d been looking for a dial and movement for it, but nothing had come up for at least a couple of years. Then last week I spotted an eBay auction……

Although the auction images didn’t show a 67-9038, it did show what looked like a very nice black 67-9038 dial and hand set installed in a black case. I could see this was from a 67-9551 (single register 8100A model), whilst the back was from a 67-9020. All looked to be in good condition though. So I bid for it, and was successful 🙂

The watch arrived today, so I set to work to transplant the movement and dial – fortunately this is an easy process given my limited technical skills. After I had seen the auction I decided first to paint the bezel on the case. I used my pristine blue dialled 67-9038 as a reference to do this – the finish of the bezel is what I would describe as ‘semi-gloss’, not matt, satin or full gloss. I mixed gloss and matt enamel paint to get as close a match as I could. It won’t be very durable, but it will look authentic! I also got a new crystal since that was missing from the case.

Here’s the donor watch, which actually looks rather nice:

As you can see that dial looks very good indeed (edit: well, it does, but it turns out that it’s an after-market dial…see separate post). The original bezel on this case should be polished metal, and this one has been painted – note the chip which the seller was very clear about in his auction description. The case back, although from a different model, is also in very good condition, as is the black case:

Once I had removed the movement I could see that the bezel was a later addition to the case, rather than the original one, which explains why it had been painted.

So what is the result? In my opinion a perfectly wearable 67-9038:

The stem and crown  from the donor watch do not fit the 67-9038, but since it shares these parts with the 67-9313 ‘Speedy’, I’ve used them from a second ‘Speedy’ I have for now.

Here it is alongside my blue example:

I also want to add a few words about the seller – often sellers of non-authentic watches get a lot of stick, sometimes rightly so when they present them as ‘all-original’ and a ‘must-have for any collection’ . However, after contacting the seller (who made no such claims) I’m sure he had no reason to think it wasn’t authentic, given that a fair bit of knowledge is required to properly identify them. He has been very positive when I explained the issues about the watch and has visited the blog 🙂