Any watch enthusiast opening the Precista PRS-5 is likely to look somewhat puzzled by what he or she finds – for beating at the heart of this watch is an unsigned traditionally constructed manual wind chronograph with a column wheel. Any such enthusiast would be forgiven for identifying the movement as the Venus 175 calibre which was produced between 1940 -1964. In many ways, this is the Venus 175: during the 1960s the Venus Watch Company of Switzerland needed to raise funds in order to develop the Venus 188; to do this they put on sale the tooling for the calibre 175 which was purchased by the Tianjin Sea-Gull Watch Factory of China. One reason for this purchase was that an aviator’s wristwatch was required for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Thus, the remanufactured Venus 175 was produced in the guise of the Sea-Gull ST1901 and housed in a modestly sized case for use by pilots of the aforementioned Air Force. Indeed, with the recent rise in prominence of China produced watch movements there has been a re-edition of the original pilot’s chronograph known as the ‘Sea-Gull 1963’ – this watch itself has now become quite sought after. There have been glitches with regard to manufacturing tolerances but these would now appear to have been ironed out and many people report on the excellent performance gained from this somewhat anachronistic movement. For sure, many people are now sitting up and taking notice of the watch movements coming from Tianjin. A final note on the Sea-Gull ST1901: given that the movement is produced using the Venus tooling, then parts are fully interchangeable.
