ETA Valjoux 7750 Automatic Chronograph Movement

For those of you well-versed in watch movements this isn’t going to be a surprise, but to those who are not familiar with watch movements, this will be a learning experience.

Most of us that buy and collect watches have heard of the ETA Valjoux 7750 movement. The movement was designed in 1974 and in its present-day iteration comes as a 25-Jewel, 28,800 vph chronograph.

The Valjoux is without question one of the most commonly used movements in modern Swiss timepieces. It seems like nearly every automatic chronograph in existence not using an in-house movement has a Valjoux 7750. The Valjoux 7750 is by far the most common Swiss-made chronograph movement in production, with the ETA 2894-2 in second place (featuring a 37 Jewel movement). The ETA 2894-2 is different in that it uses a base 2892-2 featuring a chronograph module attached to it. The Valjoux 7750 is all Chronograph, however, and utilizes no extras to deliver the ultimate in reliability and affordability.

The interesting thing about the Valjoux 7750 movement is that the watches utilizing the 7750 are priced anywhere from $500 to $12,000 and beyond. I feel sorry for people paying top dollar for a movement one could get for $500, even if it is dressed up in a case with a premium name on the face.

Zenith El Primero - Bare Movement

Zenith El Primero - Dissected

People often say of expensive sports cars that the engine is what you’re really paying for; the rest of the car is free. A similar thought might be applied to Zenith, whose El Primero movement is quite simply the 650 BHP V12 of watch movements.  Beyond the performance, its level of technical excellence is matched by only a handful of other movements on the market today.

Unlike a Lamborghini, let’s say, which is one of the world’s most widely recognized sports car manufacturers, Zenith is not a name with which non-watch nut would be instantly familiar (unless we’re talking old television sets). Despite its having supplied El Primero movements to the likes of Rolex for its Daytona model up until recently, Zenith has yet to become a household name…and I couldn’t be happier about it.

This simple fact has prevented Zenith Timepieces from becoming ridiculous status symbols like many high-end Swiss brands of today. It also means relative affordability for most of its watch models.

Now let’s talk specifics about the background of the El Primero, for those who don’t know.  In the late 1960s, Zenith set out to create the world’s first mass-produced automatic chronograph movement. Unfortunately for Zenith, so did a group of watchmakers made up of Heuer, Breitling, Hamilton and Dubois Depraz.  In the end this group was able to deliver theirs to market a month prior to Zenith’s El Primero.

Even though Zenith did not receive the recognition they had hoped for, the El Primero was undoubtedly the better movement. Beating at an uheard of 36,000 vph, it is still the only widely-available mechanical chronograph movement capable of measuring time in intervals of tenths of a second.

The fact that when Zenith was purchased by the LVMH group in 1999, Tag Heuer chose to base its high-end Calibre 36 movement on the El Primero, speaks to its design and quality.  So if you seek performance and quality in a watch, not just looks, the El Primero will undoubtedly fit the bill nicely.