Roaming one of my fav thrift shops in the rain this afternoon, I was
cruising through the misc shelved "stuff" and sitting dead in the middle
of the cheap Chinese quartz clocks sat a genuine Seth Thomas
"Quartzmatic" deck clock I've found out was one of the first mechanical
quartz clocks Westclox/Seth Thomas ever made. It's circa 1972-75. On
the label it says:

Cat: 1028A
Name: Sea Sprite II
Model: 1028-001

Caution: Do not leave dead battery in clock.
Use One (1) 1 1/2 volt "C" cell.

The World's Most Accurate Clock

Quartzmatic by
Seth Thomas
division of General Time
A Talley Industries Company
Thomaston, Conn 06787

The case is a heavy grey metal that doesn't rust. It's painted in
military-style wrinkle black with just a couple of tiny scratches,
mostly out of sight on the back. The face is black with white chapter
ring and military-style numbers for minutes around the outside and the
2nd 24 hours inside the big numbers 1-12 hours. The red second hand is
on the same dial as the minute/hours and the movement can be stopped to
synchronize the clock with WWV and instantly restarted to set it right
to the second.

The movement proudly says: "Made In U. S. A." stamped into the brass
frame the nylon gears are mounted in. A real quartz crystal mounted in
a real crystal case like you'd see in an old radio has the frequency
4194.304 Khz stamped into it. An RCA CD22011E is the oscillator and
frequency divider providing TWO pulses per second to a nicely wound coil
that works against a multipole alinco magnet shaped like a little disk
on the primary driveshaft. 16 pulses makes this disk rotate one
revolution, the 2PPS drive motor for a nylon gear train to drive the
hands. It's very nicely made and cased in clear plastic that was also
mistakenly used to hold the big "C" cell power plant. The pressure of
the battery clips are pretty strong and had parted the plastic in 2
places. I repaired it with a low temperature soldering iron used to
remelt the hard plastic across the crack. The plastic is VERY brittle!

A sticker proclaiming QUARTZ and Model 73702 is still sealing a little
access hole you dip your non-metallic tuning tool into to adjust the
very nice trimmer capacitor to set the crystal frequency, exactly. The
plastic is embossed with "1 Div = 5 seconds/day" and the hole has
division markers embossed into it to help you tune it if you don't have
a frequency counter or heterodyne frequency meter available.

I paid the princely sum of 99 cents for it. I think they didn't like
its 3 pound weight! The casting is very heavy, but not brass, but a
dull grey color that doesn't rust. Even the back of the case is 1/8"
thick plate with a setting access hole in it plugged with a plastic plug
to keep the sea air out. A rubber seal seals the plate to the casting
and 3 screws hold the back on that must be removed to replace the
battery...assumably yearly, I hope.

Well, that and a nice 12V 8W battery and DC powered flourescent light
were today's jewels...$2.16 total....(c;

I don't even find it on Google! Nothing on Ebay, either....hmm...

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Roaming one of my fav thrift shops in the rain this afternoon, I was
cruising through the misc shelved "stuff" and sitting dead in the middle
of the cheap Chinese quartz clocks sat a genuine Seth Thomas
"Quartzmatic" deck clock I've found out was one of the first mechanical
quartz clocks Westclox/Seth Thomas ever made. It's circa 1972-75. On
the label it says:

Cat: 1028A
Name: Sea Sprite II
Model: 1028-001

Caution: Do not leave dead battery in clock.
Use One (1) 1 1/2 volt "C" cell.

The World's Most Accurate Clock

Quartzmatic by
Seth Thomas
division of General Time
A Talley Industries Company
Thomaston, Conn 06787

The case is a heavy grey metal that doesn't rust. It's painted in
military-style wrinkle black with just a couple of tiny scratches,
mostly out of sight on the back. The face is black with white chapter
ring and military-style numbers for minutes around the outside and the
2nd 24 hours inside the big numbers 1-12 hours. The red second hand is
on the same dial as the minute/hours and the movement can be stopped to
synchronize the clock with WWV and instantly restarted to set it right
to the second.

The movement proudly says: "Made In U. S. A." stamped into the brass
frame the nylon gears are mounted in. A real quartz crystal mounted in
a real crystal case like you'd see in an old radio has the frequency
4194.304 Khz stamped into it. An RCA CD22011E is the oscillator and
frequency divider providing TWO pulses per second to a nicely wound coil
that works against a multipole alinco magnet shaped like a little disk
on the primary driveshaft. 16 pulses makes this disk rotate one
revolution, the 2PPS drive motor for a nylon gear train to drive the
hands. It's very nicely made and cased in clear plastic that was also
mistakenly used to hold the big "C" cell power plant. The pressure of
the battery clips are pretty strong and had parted the plastic in 2
places. I repaired it with a low temperature soldering iron used to
remelt the hard plastic across the crack. The plastic is VERY brittle!

A sticker proclaiming QUARTZ and Model 73702 is still sealing a little
access hole you dip your non-metallic tuning tool into to adjust the
very nice trimmer capacitor to set the crystal frequency, exactly. The
plastic is embossed with "1 Div = 5 seconds/day" and the hole has
division markers embossed into it to help you tune it if you don't have
a frequency counter or heterodyne frequency meter available.

I paid the princely sum of 99 cents for it. I think they didn't like
its 3 pound weight! The casting is very heavy, but not brass, but a
dull grey color that doesn't rust. Even the back of the case is 1/8"
thick plate with a setting access hole in it plugged with a plastic plug
to keep the sea air out. A rubber seal seals the plate to the casting
and 3 screws hold the back on that must be removed to replace the
battery...assumably yearly, I hope.

Well, that and a nice 12V 8W battery and DC powered flourescent light
were today's jewels...$2.16 total....(c;

I don't even find it on Google! Nothing on Ebay, either....hmm...

==

I'm surprised,,, by your past postings that you didn't try to
"Jew" them down..