I’ve had a number of these 6139-6002’s in recently, in fact last month I did a little piece on the history of them here. I thought I’d feature the latest one that’s been on the bench to illustrate the transformation a simple thing like a replacement crystal can bring to the watch. It came in for a new crystal and a full movement service. Under that crystal the dial and handset look to be in great shape with little damage and bright white lume, and thankfully no broken crown on this one.

With the caseback removed the movement looks to be complete and undamaged with just the usual dried out lubrication.

 As thought the dial and handset are tip top.

I won’t dwell on the stripdown as I’ve covered that previously but as you can see with the mainplate stripped there are traces of dried out lube around the barrel bushing.

Ready for cleaning now.

The case was stripped and ultrasonically cleaned ready for the NOS crystal. There was the usual gunge build up around the pushers!

The rebuild begins with the mainspring.

Ready for the train bridge.

And ready for the chrono bridge.

The calendar side coming together.

The dial and handset refitted.

Recased and ticking away nicely with a healthy amplitude.

And there we go, the transformation is complete, it’s always nice to see these surviving in such great unabused condition.

And a quick look at the caseback with no gouges or tool slippage marks, June 1976 is the production date of this example.