009 - Titoni Airmaster handwinding (ETA 2750)

009 - Titoni Airmaster 

Up today is a Titoni Airmaster from the 70s.Nothing especially fancy about this watch but it is representative of a watch that a better-off workingman from the time would have worn. 

Basically it has a steel case, decent jewelled movement and some water-resistance which is one step above the cheaper chrome-plated case and pin-lever movement watches which were the bread and butter of the time.

Here we can see the dial is marked Titoflex and Airmaster. Titoflex I believe refers to the mainspring and Airmaster was a brand Titoni used in the 60s and 70s when aviation was expanding fast. Also just above the 6 o'clock marker there is a little crystal, I believe it was mentioned as being Swarovski back in the day. I have a few Titoni where the crystal has fallen off and it was just left off, if you don't know about it you won't miss it. The dial looks a bit dirty but that's due to the close-up picture. In real life it doesn't really look so bad.

Inside is a 21J hand-winding ETA 2750, nothing spectacular but it gets the job done. I have cleaned and oiled the watch and it is currently running about 11 seconds slow/day. I am ok with that.

It still has its original crown.

And like most other 70s watches, the caseback detail is nice.

The original clasp is still present but I suspect the bracelet itself has been replaced at some point.

The brand Titoni seems to be popular in Asia and is practically unknown in Europe and in the USA. It started out as Felca and got the name Titoni in the 50s. The Felca name continued for a while but was eventually killed off.

The nice thing about these handwinds is they sit well under the cuff, unlike the automatics from this period which tend to be a bit chunkier.

Cheers!