The 36000 BPH Watch Collectors Site

Zodiac introduced a series of men's watches with the SST (split second timing) tag on them to underscore their new 36000 VPH movements. Watches with these movements were guaranteed to keep time to within a minute a month. Of all the manufacturers who introduced high frequency movements, Zodiac was one of the first to bring a 36kvph watch to market and was easily the most aggressive in promoting the watches.

Zodiac made two different 36,000 bph movements, the 88D and 86D. The 88 and 86 movements were basically the same movement with the only difference being the 88's day/date feature and the 86's date only feature. Most parts are interchangeable between these movements.

While Zodiac probably sold the most high beat movement watches of any watch company in the 60s and 70s, it wasn't enough to keep the company afloat, and Zodiac went out of business in 1990. In 1998 the remaining Zodiac inventory, and other assets were sold to a U.S. company which began production of watches again, and in 2001 the company was sold to Fossil. Since going out of business in 1990 Zodiac has not produced any watches with 36,000 bph movements, although they have recently reintroduced an Astrographic line of watches. There is no factory support for watches with high frequency movements. All original spare inventory for these watches was sold off when Fossil took over.

Made in two basic styles, traditional and modern, these watches used the Zodiac 86D movement, which featured day/date. While there was only one style of traditional watch with a few different face treatments, there were a plethora of different case and face treatments for the modern styles. Cases were generally large and blocky squares, rectangles, vertical ovals, horizontal ovals and even diamond shaped. In many of the modern styled watches the day and date were positioned on opposite sides of the dial, as opposed to the more traditional side by side presentation, and in some cases the day/date were stacked vertically along the 6 o'clock line.

This watch featured a "mystery" dial and was made in two modern styles, a blocky rectangular shape and a vertical oval shape with a wide variety of dial treatments and colors. The mystery dial was made using clear plastic discs with the hands of the watch on them and a red dot for the second hand. The use of clear plastic discs made the hands appears to float in the watch face, and the minute and hours markers were applied to the underside of the watch crystal along with the company logo in the center and these too appeared to float on the face of the watch making for a very unique look. These watches use the 88D movement, which features date only.

While a smaller ladies version of the Astrographic was made in the 60s and 70s which shares the case and mystery dial style of the men's version, this watch had a Zodiac 78 movement (basically an ETA 2671 28800 bph movement, also used in some women's Rolex models). In the late 90s, the new U.S. owner of Zodiac reintroduced the Astrographic, as the Astrographic 2000 with an updated mystery dial design, but with an ETA 2824 28800 bph movement.

The Sea Wolf was a legendary diving model, which became particularly popular during the Vietnam war. A new Sea Wolf model dubbed the Sea Wolf SST was introduced in the early 70s featuring a unique coffin shaped case with the 86D movement.

The Hermetic was a traditional model in production before the advent of high beat movements which received the 86D movement and a new "modern" design. The new design was a horizontal oval case shape.

The Olympus was another model which was in production prior to the arrival of the 36000 VPH movement. The first version of the Olympus with the high frequency movement incorporated the 88D movement in the traditional Olympus shield shaped case, with the day/date vertically oriented along the 6 o'clock line. In the early 70s the Olympus model was completely redesigned. The new design featured a blocky square face. The case was two toned, with the face of the case finished in blue and a blue centered metal band.