A Bullhead-Hommage - with a Chinese vintage Swiss movement!

[Mr.Jones]

We all know Teleshopping promises more than their products can fulfill, but this is interesting...



The case looks to be a 1:1 copy of the Seiko Bullhead, same with the bracelet (although the links seem to be a little broader).
The movement, however, is a Chinese Seagull ST1940 - a copy of the Swiss Venus caliber, with added auto-wind.

Now since this is German teleshopping and a german watch company (they buy their parts in China, but assemble in Germany - or so they say), all information I could find is in German.

Here are some more (and nicer) pics:
watchthusiast.de/test-constantin-weisz-die-qvc-ueberraschung/

Translated by Google:
translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwatchthusiast.de%2Ftest-constantin-weisz-die-qvc-ueberraschung

And here is the teleshopping website where they sell it for 399,- Euros:
www.qvc.de/CONSTANTIN-WEISZ-Automatik--Chronograph-Saphirglas-Edelstahlband.product.627177.html

There is also a video showing the watch from a few more angles.

What do you think? Nice "Homage" or blatant rip-off? I understand why they could not mount it so that the subdials are on 3 and 9. Hardware limitations... The colors I like, actually. The hands and indices... eh.

[tritto]

There have been fake bullhead kits (cases, dials, day and date wheels, hands etc) being sold out of Germany on eBay for a while. Perhaps teleshopping has just decided that these cases can be valued-added with a Chinese movement and alternative dial etc. It looks ok and must be about the cheapest mechanical bullhead on the market.

[tritto]

Yep, having read the review, it's not bad if you can get past the ripped off case and bracelet. A better use for them than making fake Seikos.

[Mr.Jones]

I have not thought about that - but yeah, if they produce Bullhead cases "to spec", it might have made sense to someone in the know to sell them separately.

As I can't compare the case of this Constantin Weisz model to my Bullhead, I cannot say if they are interchangeable... They should have sold the see-through casebacks for the Bullhead!

[pollythecat]

Alpha stamp out Paul Newman copies for £120 so there must be some profit in there for 399 euros.  I would say though the bracelet looks better made than the Seiko item (not difficult) and the Venus chrono is a great little movement, the one in my Alpha had incredible timegrapher stats.

Would I buy one?....nah.

[eeki]

The logo also instantly reminded me of the one Christopher Ward used some time ago, so maybe it is a double-homage? Anyway, this is not a watch for me. Partly this is because I don't like homage/copy/replica-watches altogether, and even though they have chosen different dial&hands, it is not something I would spend any money on.

[Deleted]

A small note on the ST19xx movements: they are not copies of the Venus movement.
Sea-Gull bought the old Venus tooling from whoever last owned them. The machines had been sitting unused for some time since the Venus calibres had been discontinued.

Sea-Gull not only bought the tools but they upgraded them for more efficient manufacturing. They made other small tweeks that produced the well repected Sea-Gull version of the old Venus.
The addition of auto winding is a relatively new upgrade since the original was hand wind only.

Most anecdotal evidence suggests the Sea-Gull ST19xxx provides the same excellent timekeeping as the old Venus movements.
The fact that the ST19xx has been used in so many mushroom brands(this is one of them) and that they appear to be bomb proof when properly assembled!

I agree that the price for watches with this movement really don't deserve prices of much more than $200USD at best.