# Another inside look: the Seagull 1901



## lysanderxiii (Oct 4, 2006)

As a follow-up to the last batch of reviews I have found a Seagull 1901 in need of a service, so I figured it would be a good time to take some pictures and discuss the movement.

Technical details: The Seagull 1901 is a 23 jewel, column wheel controlled, chronograph, lever movement operating at 21,600 bph. It has a running second dial at the 9 o'clock position, a 30 minute counter sub-dial at 3 o'clock, and a sweep second counter mounted centrally along with the timekeeping minute and hour hands. The chronograph functions are controlled through two buttons, one (at 2 o'clock) for starting and stopping the chronograph, one (at 4 o'clock) for resetting the second and minute counters. The column wheel prevents the action of the reset while the chronograph is running.

The 23 jewels are in the following locations:

Balance staff - 2 bearing, 2 cap, total 4
Impulse - 1
Pallet - 2
Pallet pivot - 2
Escape wheel pivots - 2
4th wheel pivots - 2
3rd wheel pivots - 2
Center wheel pivots - 2
Top Chronograph second counter pivot - 1
Top Chronograph minute counter pivot - 1
Slider Gear pivots - 2
Intermediate minute counter wheel pivots - 2

Here is the front, with the typical Chinese front plate. This does nothing but increases the thickness of the movement and retains the hour wheel (Something the Swiss prefer to do with the dial.)










And, the back










Some may not know what exactly a column wheel is, or how it works. So, here we have a close-up of the column wheel: (pardon the grease)

Chronograph engaged









Chronograph disengaged









As you can see, the column wheel is castellated, each function is controlled by an arm that has a nose that either fits in between the castellations, or is forced out from in between them. This keeps you from resetting while the chronograph is running, and such, and gives the column wheel chronograph its smooth action. You may also note that the noses are rather slight, but don't worry that you will bend one, the action of the buttons does not bring direct force against these small delicate parts, the only force on these parts is their springs, even depressing the start/stop lever and the reset lever should hurt anything as there are no limiters on these, except when the button bottoms out in its well.

At the far left, is the start/stop lever, when the start button is pushed, the pawl moves out ward and rotates the column wheel clockwise one step. This will allow the nose of the slider gear carrier to drop in between two of the castellations and engaging the slider gear and the chrono-second wheel starting the chronograph (first figure). This will also block the hammer from falling (see the hammer nub at about 11:30 o'clock relative to the column wheel. Pushing the start button a second time (as in the second picture) will rotate the column wheel another step and the advancing castellation will force the slider gear carrier nose out disengaging the chronograph and freeing a space for the hammer nub to fall into. The hammer has its own sear triggered by the reset button not seen here.

Here are all the chronograph function parts. A comparison to the VAL 7734 and Poljot 3133, both cam operated chronographs, will reveal this has more parts (nearly 40% fewer on the cam action chronographs). From left to right: bottom row (screws not detailed): start/stop lever, start/stop spring, slider gear carrier spring, slider gear carrier and slider gear, hammer spring, hammer; second row: reset lever spring, reset lever, hammer sear, hammer sear spring, brake lever, intermediate minute wheel carrier and brake lever spring, intermediate minute wheel carrier and wheel, column wheel spring, column wheel; top row: chronograph bridge, minute counter wheel (below) chronograph second wheel.










Here is just the movement minus the chronograph parts










And the gear train










The balance with a nicely formed hairspring










Close-up of the pallet fork









The tension spring for the second hand










Layout of the basic time parts










The keyless works disassembled










Close-up of the escape wheel










A close-up of the balance cock and anti-shock setting



















Anti-shock jewels










The movement is well made and runs extremely well, this one was timed to run, on average, 7 s/d. It runs very consistently. The chronograph functions are relatively light and crisp, unlike cam operated chronographs, which tend to be a bit stiff.

The Swiss have, in my opinion, missed a boat by ceasing the production of handwinding two resister chronographs and focusing exclusively on automatics. Most of the chronograph market (98% or more) use the 7750, 2894 or el Premero the 7750 (or a variant) mainly for the low to middle price range, the el Premiro for the higher price range and the 2894 the mid-range.

The workmanship on these movements is better than the run-of-the-mill Chinese ST16 and DG28, The gears are slightly thicker and the teeth, especially the fine teeth of the chronograph second wheel, are clean and well formed. The adjustments of the chronograph functions on this example (slider gear mesh on both sides, and intermediate minute wheel engagement) was adequate, but the second hand jumped slightly on engagement. Not all that bad, though.

Column wheel chronographs were abandoned by the Swiss, in general, due to the rather high surface finish requirement on the column wheel and the start/stop lever, mainly the claw that actually advances the column wheel. If these are not very well finished the column wheel will require more force to advance, giving the start/stop button a "sticky" action.

These movements are almost exact copies of the Venus 175, the chronograph parts, apart from the gearing of the chronograph second wheel, are exactly the same. Are these movements delicate, as several have asked? No. Not delicate, but these are much more sensitive to improper adjustment.

The major adjustment eccentrics of the Seagull 1901 (and Venus 175), (A) adjusts the engagement of the skider gear with the chronograph second wheel, (B) adjusts the engagement of the slider gear with the upper fourth wheel, (C) adjusts the engagement of the intermediate minute counter wheel and he trp finger on the chronograph second wheel and (D) adjusts the indexing of the minute counter wheel.










The major cause for concern, as far as I can see is in the casing. Improper casing, poor attention to dust elimination and just simply putting your thumb in the wrong place while installing a movement (be it Swiss, Russian or Chinese) will lead to problems. Precista uses the Seagull 1901 movement in the new version of the PRS-5, these are cased by Fricker, in Germany, and have a very low failure rate, which is on par with their Swiss movement watches. This tells me most problems seen in other watches are a result of the casing, not faults of the movement.

I like this movement, I hope to see Seagull come out with a date (at six) or an actual hour counter version in the future. Then someone can do a Benrus Skychief homage. Also, it might be possible to do true "fly-back" version, this would be nice.

The finish is not the movement's strong point, this is my only gripe, and a relatively minor one. The Geneva stripes are rather coarse and uneven. These have been made with a fly-cutter, not grinding compound and a disk and the cross-feed was to high. The screws are chemically blued and almost baby blue in color, not the preferable blue-black of a good charcoal blue. There was to my surprise pearlage on the exposed portion of the mainplate around the balance, but it was so light I didn't notice it until examining the mailplate under a loupe.


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## Pawl_Buster (Mar 12, 2007)

Thanks for the tour Lysander :-!

Another one for the reference section |>


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## Gordon (Feb 13, 2006)

:-! Ditto! :-!

Thanks for spending the time and effort to do the write up and great pics!


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## GuySie (Jan 14, 2008)

Gordon said:


> Thanks for spending the time and effort to do the write up and great pics!


Agreed, it is much appreciated!


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## ezcheese (Dec 5, 2008)

Another fantastic write-up. I love reading these posts. Keep it up!


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## gigfy (Apr 13, 2007)

Great review lysanderxiii, thanks again for all of your time and effort. This is a lot of good reading while I'm supposed to be doing something else. :-d



lysanderxiii said:


> Technical details: The Seagull 1901 is a 23 jewel ...


I thought that Ivo (watchunique) established the ST1901 is a 21 jewel movement, hence the 21 Zuan on the dial of his 1963 re-issue? Hmmmm??



Alpha-Getty said:


> Thanks for the tour Lysander :-!
> 
> Another one for the reference section |>


Done!

Cheers,
gigfy


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## Pawl_Buster (Mar 12, 2007)

gigfy said:


> Great review lysanderxiii, thanks again for all of your time and effort. This is a lot of good reading while I'm supposed to be doing something else. :-d
> 
> I thought that Ivo (watchunique) established the ST1901 is a 21 jewel movement, hence the 21 Zuan on the dial of his 1963 re-issue? Hmmmm??
> 
> ...


Unfortunately most of the sellers don't really know what the jewel counts are on the Chinese movements in watches they sell. Partly this has to do with the manufacturers playing games with customs tariff regs. Sea Gull used to print 7 jewels on the ST16 when it actually has 22 or more jewels :-d

Every time Lysander opens one up; we get a pleasant surprise :-!


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## gigfy (Apr 13, 2007)

Alpha-Getty said:


> Unfortunately most of the sellers don't really know what the jewel counts are on the Chinese movements in watches they sell. Partly this has to do with the manufacturers playing games with customs tariff regs. Sea Gull used to print 7 jewels on the ST16 when it actually has 22 or more jewels :-d
> 
> Every time Lysander opens one up; we get a pleasant surprise :-!


But Ivo even had his watchmaker tear one down and count the jewels. :think:


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## Pawl_Buster (Mar 12, 2007)

gigfy said:


> But Ivo even had his watchmaker tear one down and count the jewels. :think:


See...another surprise :-d

Remember the surprise I got when I opened this one up...

















I'm not even going to tear this one down to count the jewels...it will probably only have 15 :roll:

So, the only sure way to know what is in a Chinese movement is to actually take it apart and count the jewels


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## foxint (Dec 26, 2008)

Mate 

Absolutely fabulous. 

One stupid question: I have a movement ST1901 that I bought direct in the raw - it has the little dial/cover - as you said to keep the wheels form falling off and the Swiss use the dial. Should I take this off when I am putting it in the case? or does if provide additional protection.?

What case - I have not decided, probably a Rodana - but will have to trial fit and get a movement ring plus other stuff. But that will have to wait. I will certainly post photos of it. 

Dan


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## lysanderxiii (Oct 4, 2006)

foxint said:


> Mate
> 
> Absolutely fabulous.
> 
> ...


If you look at the very first picture, you will see the hour wheel (the one visible wheel in the center) has a gear in the center that has no other gear meshing with it. This gear is for all the other complications that could be installed on the dial side of the 1901 to make the 12 hour sub-dial, moon phase, etc. Removing the cover plate will allow this gear to protrude above the rest of the main plate and foul the dial.

The cover plate has to be installed.


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## lysanderxiii (Oct 4, 2006)

gigfy said:


> Great review lysanderxiii, thanks again for all of your time and effort. This is a lot of good reading while I'm supposed to be doing something else. :-d
> 
> I thought that Ivo (watchunique) established the ST1901 is a 21 jewel movement, hence the 21 Zuan on the dial of his 1963 re-issue? Hmmmm??
> 
> ...


There are two hidden jewels, the lower jewel for the slider gear, and the lower jewel for the intermediate minute counter wheel. Unless the movement is disassembled, and these two parts flipped over and examined, you could miss these two in a jewel count.

If the manufacturer tells a seller it is a 21 jewel movement and the seller takes off the back and looks, he would conclude, it is, as two are not visible on an assembled movement.

Conversely, these two jewels could be replace by bronze bushings (at no real loss of performance, most Swiss manual chronograph had all bronze bushings in the chronograph section) in 21 jewel movements, these 21 jewel movements would look identical to the 23 jewel movement.

The original 19 jewel movements left out all four jewels in the slider gear and int. min. counter.


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## Martin_B (Apr 11, 2008)

Thank you for this wonderful post! :-!

I myself also wondered why there are so few hand-wound two register chrono's left. I think they are the best looking variations. Look at the old Landeron 248 chronos, or Pateks 

Regards,

Martin


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## usc1 (Jun 25, 2007)

awesome break down. thank you.


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## foxint (Dec 26, 2008)

Thanks for the answer to my question.

Again thanks for the post on the 1901 and all you others. It certainly has been a steep learning curve for me.

From no Chronos a month ago to now owning 1 Air Force re-issue and a new movement to 6 cases and on the hunt for more movements. 

Truly insipirational
Dan


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## Blackrover (May 6, 2006)

Thanks for the break down it really helps my to understand the movement in my watch.


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## scoff (Aug 20, 2008)

OMG. I can't believe a human being can put it back together :-!


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## raisedbyrats (May 31, 2008)

Nice article. :-!


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## Reno (Sep 23, 2008)

raisedbyrats said:


> Nice article. :-!


+1 and beautiful pics |> |> |>

I'm afraid I'll never have the patience to go through the exercise, but I bow down to the effort |>


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## Stevo1969 (Feb 25, 2009)

Great Review !
IYO what maker is a good comparison to the SeaGull ?


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## gigfy (Apr 13, 2007)

Just putting this information here to clarify.



lysanderxiii said:


> Having seen the insides in several 1963s, I now say it is 21 jewels.
> 
> The Seagull brand watches using the ST1900 are 23, as are the spares you can get from Cousins.


cheers,
gigfy


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## wakingLife (Apr 14, 2010)

Sweet thread.

How old was the watch and how did you know it needed servicing?

I recently bought a seagul m172s, love it... any idea how often it will need servicing? I will be wearing it ~5x per week.


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## hockeyhead019 (Mar 24, 2020)

Does anybody have an updated version of this thread? I'd love to be able to see the photos since the links on photobucket have expired?


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## Lawlex (Oct 12, 2019)

Thanks for sharing, learned a lot!


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## Jake31 (Nov 1, 2015)

Holy crap, how did I miss this thread?!

Thanks OP!


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## Y Cymro (Nov 16, 2018)

lysanderxiii said:


> If you look at the very first picture, you will see the hour wheel (the one visible wheel in the center) has a gear in the center that has no other gear meshing with it. This gear is for all the other complications that could be installed on the dial side of the 1901 to make the 12 hour sub-dial, moon phase, etc. Removing the cover plate will allow this gear to protrude above the rest of the main plate and foul the dial.
> 
> The cover plate has to be installed.


I googled this same question and 13 years after the original post was made it still provides great answers!
Many thanks lysanderxiii and WUS


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## Marzook1 (Apr 4, 2018)

Great post very informative!
Which watches currently carry this movement?


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Marzook1 said:


> Great post very informative!
> Which watches cuurently carry this movement?


Look for any sub-$500 new non-automatic mechanical chronograph watch currently on the market from anywhere in the world, and it will be powered by a Sea-Gull ST19. There is only one manufacturer of this movement.


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## Marzook1 (Apr 4, 2018)

Ok so just to be certain Seagull 1901=ST19?


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Marzook1 said:


> Ok so just to be certain Seagull 1901=ST19?


ST19 is the family of movements. ST1901 is the basic version with two subdials. There are many more variants, but that is the most commonly used.


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