Are Seagull watches any good?

I'll be honest, I've never looked into Chinese watches before so I don't know how much they usually go for in shops. I was actually in Hong Kong a few weeks back and thought whilst I'm here I may as well look into it a bit and see if I find something I like, as sort of a memorabilia. To my surprise all the Seagull watches I saw were retailing for roughly around £400-£1k+ but most of them were within the £400-£700 range.

I always thought Seagull were just cheap Chinese watches and couldn't possibly justify such a price tag, expected most of them to be £100-£200, am I wrong in assuming this? I guess Seagull watches cater to people with all kinds of budgets, similar to Seiko.

couple of things:

1. List price vs actual pay;
2. Much cheaper if shop online via shopping platforms in China;
3. Tonnes of fake items via (2);
4. Never want any Seagull and probably will never do simply because of the styling and designs;
5. £400-£700 can get you a decent Seiko that you can wear proudly.

Actually I'm rather fond of this,,
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c0fb07356f.jpg

I do not actually own one but am always drawn to several views when they appear in Sales Corner

I have a Marloe Lomond Chrono which uses a Seagull ST1901 movement and very happy with it so far, guess time will tell on the quality front, looks nice:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/11...g?v=1525957356

At one point, Sea-Gull claimed to be the largest producer of automatic movements in the world, and they even manufacture double-axis Tourbillons.

I’d also like to try that above Chinese Air Force 1963 at some point – a manually-wound, column-wheel chronograph which is a clone of an old Swiss Venus movement.

This is a good article by a watchmaker comparing that 1963 movement (his own personal Sea-Gull watch, I suspect) with a Swiss ETA 2824-2 – pretty much as you’d expect, in that the Swiss appear to exercise better quality control: http://watchguy.co.uk/comparison-sea...eacock-sl3000/

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Originally Posted by Stringer

At one point, Sea-Gull claimed to be the largest producer of automatic movements in the world, and they even manufacture double-axis Tourbillons.

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I have a fascination with tourbillons and actually ended up getting three of these and they are really well made considering the complication and the price point. I wore one for a couple of days and it functioned flawlessly. The boxes they came in were laughable, but the watches themselves pretty impressive - flying tourbillon and all. I bought them out of curiosity to someday take apart or install them in another case (I would never do that with a Swiss tourbillon movement - at least 10-20 times the cost!), but as with most of my overly ambitious projects, never got around to it..

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Originally Posted by GTuned

I have a fascination with tourbillons and actually ended up getting three of these and they are really well made considering the complication and the price point. I wore one for a couple of days and it functioned flawlessly. The boxes they came in were laughable, but the watches themselves pretty impressive - flying tourbillon and all. I bought them out of curiosity to someday take apart or install them in another case (I would never do that with a Swiss tourbillon movement - at least 10-20 times the cost!), but as with most of my overly ambitious projects, never got around to it..

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Isn't the given accuracy for those quite poor though, with 30 seconds +/- per day given as within tolerance, or am I thinking of another manufacturer? Somewhat defeats the point of a tourbillon if they're that poor for accuracy.

I own a Sea-Gull Bauhaus inspired automatic that looks and runs great. It runs about +8 seconds a day, which is pretty good, imo.

The Seagull 1963 that's pictured earlier in the thread runs within 5 seconds per day, I don't see what the fuss is about.

n2

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Originally Posted by hughtrimble

Isn't the given accuracy for those quite poor though, with 30 seconds +/- per day given as within tolerance, or am I thinking of another manufacturer? Somewhat defeats the point of a tourbillon if they're that poor for accuracy.

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If I recall reading an article in a watch magazine correctly, most modern day Swiss tourbillons were not as accurate when compared to simpler, high-quality Swiss movements designed for accuracy. They are obviously generally very good, but I got a feeling that it was mostly about the "look of the movement". There were a few notable exceptions of course such as Jaeger LeCoultre's Master Tourbillon which coincidentally was the watch that started this whole fascination for me especially when they released it in a steel case and a way better price point.

The seagull-powered one I wore kept time fine, although I only used it for about 3 days, I then realised it was a Girard-Perregaux Seahawk homage (similar case and bezel) and took it off as I was disappointed - I had thought it was an original design. I haven't thought of putting the ones I have on a timegrapher, however I'll try to do it this weekend and take some photos.

I've got 20 Sea-gulls and happily adjust those that don't arrive within + or -5s I easily regulate. Decent watches for the price, although they have gone up a little bit since I bought mine. My tourbillon, last time I measured, was +10s. I'm not brave enough to regulate it as you have to stop the cage to regulate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GTuned

If I recall reading an article in a watch magazine correctly, most modern day Swiss tourbillons were not as accurate when compared to simpler, high-quality Swiss movements designed for accuracy. They are obviously generally very good, but I got a feeling that it was mostly about the "look of the movement". There were a few notable exceptions of course such as Jaeger LeCoultre's Master Tourbillon which coincidentally was the watch that started this whole fascination for me especially when they released it in a steel case and a way better price point.

The seagull-powered one I wore kept time fine, although I only used it for about 3 days, I then realised it was a Girard-Perregaux Seahawk homage (similar case and bezel) and took it off as I was disappointed - I had thought it was an original design. I haven't thought of putting the ones I have on a timegrapher, however I'll try to do it this weekend and take some photos.

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Many thanks for this. Shame about the homage piece.

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Originally Posted by hughtrimble

Isn't the given accuracy for those quite poor though, with 30 seconds +/- per day given as within tolerance, or am I thinking of another manufacturer? Somewhat defeats the point of a tourbillon if they're that poor for accuracy.

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My tourbillon from China is + 5.
The precision of those is no problem whatsoever.

This "5 Star" reissue cost me £60. Sure, it's not the most well made watch I've ever owned, but it was only £60. It's slim, light and comfortable. Completely at odds with modern watches. The applied markers are very nice.

Hand winding feels nasty. I just get the second hand moving and then let the auto part kick in while wearing it.

Time keeping is all over the place. More often than not it's accurate to within a few seconds a day. On the odd occasion it gains minutes, which could be down to the fact I don't fully wind it.

As mentioned above, not on the same level as a cheap Seiko. I'm happy with mine, for the money at least.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b0cb7bec0f.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stringer

At one point, Sea-Gull claimed to be the largest producer of automatic movements in the world, and they even manufacture double-axis Tourbillons.

I’d also like to try that above Chinese Air Force 1963 at some point – a manually-wound, column-wheel chronograph which is a clone of an old Swiss Venus movement.

This is a good article by a watchmaker comparing that 1963 movement (his own personal Sea-Gull watch, I suspect) with a Swiss ETA 2824-2 – pretty much as you’d expect, in that the Swiss appear to exercise better quality control: http://watchguy.co.uk/comparison-sea...eacock-sl3000/

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I think this is the key thing with Seagul movements; a slightly inconsistent and unpredictable quality and manufacturing tolerance. It means you may well get a movement that is superbly accurate and reliable, or you may get a bit of a duffer ticking away in your new watch. Swiss movements of course are a lot more expensive but have better control on both. A 'chinese 7750' is therefore not the same as an ETA 7750 or SW-500. That's not to say the odd ETA or Sellita movement can't go wrong. My experience is about 1 in 25 swiss 7750's are duffers, so quality control is good but not perfect. Nothing in this world remains in the current status-quo, so in a few years time you could well find the chinese manufactured movements are on par with swiss ones. Bit like cars really in that German ones used to be the by-word for quality and reliability but now it's Japanese cars.

I have a rarely worn PRS-5 display back with a Seagull movement. Never noticed any issues with quality or timekeeping.

Thanks

Kapish

I have owned a few Seagull watches mostly variants of the "military" pilots watch. They have all been generally well made the downside being though when something goes wrong with them it goes badly wrong and parts seem to be of poor quality resulting in the view of "You may as well replace rather than repair" I gave up bothering buying another which is a shame as this seems to be a general problem with Chinese made watches. I was looking at Beijing watches a while back and was considering getting one of their hand wind watches until I read a few online reviews about the overall finish of the watch and movement being generally poor.

For the money there are so many better options, Seiko, Citizen even Vostok or Raketa.