braindead

[digibloke]

I spent about an hour last night fiddling about with different strength magnets in the hr and min slots on the back of my new GF dress pulsar trying to set it without success.

I took the module out this morning to take a closer look and it's an auto set...

I feel a bit stupid (On the bright side it's now working perfectly).

[notonly1]

That's pretty funny, but hey, it did have the hour and minute slots! I'm a little curious however, did the slots have the HR and MIN stampings or were they blank?
P.S. It's nice that you can laugh at yourself and share this with us.

[digibloke]

Yep, it's got HR and MIN stamped in the slots. Still I should have guessed what was going on after the magnets just switched first the date then the time on (over and over again for an hour). Duh.

At least now I got over my initial disapointment at the lack of a magnet compartment in the clasp...

[notonly1]

It sounds like someone has switched either the caseback or the module. If it was sold originally as an autoset model, it most likely had no recesses for the magnet. However, some Pulsar autoset models came with a back that had the recesses for the magnet but didn't have the HR or MIN lettering. I'm not sure if they ever did this with the dress model. Perhaps someone else could shed a little more light on this. :)

[bruce wegmann]

I ran into this in a group of 18K Pulsars [a mix of P3s, P4s, and Ladies' models]. These were all original, NOS watches, so there was no question as to whether the modules were just as they left the factory. On the Ladies and P4s, it could be determined if the watch was magnetic or autoset by looking at the HR and MIN lettering [it was there in all cases]. Blacked in = magnetic set, left plain = autoset. There were no exceptions. Bracelet date codes suggested these watches were shipped in late 1975 [perhaps before the tooling for the new, smooth, autoset case backs was done]. Of course, if these parts were all that was in stock at the time, there would have been a lot of pressure to get the watches built and out the door, and this was a simple and clever means to use the same cases on both versions.

[azimuth_pl]

This was also the more economical (cheaper) solution to get rid of the supply of old case-backs and then order the new ones without the HR and MIN recesses.