Vintage Lambda - Made In Hong Kong
In the late '70s, Hong Kong made a lot of these watches and ship it worldwide. They all marked a very important role in the history of Hong Kong.
These are not high quality watches like those made in Japan by Seiko and Citizen. Back then, Hong Kong was a rising star in making a lot of lower cost electronics, for examples, resistor radios, simple home appliances, electronic toys, and digital watches. Some small factories will import the chip and manufacture their own module. Some factories made only the metal casing, some did the acrylic crystal and did the printing for the face plate, and some only manufacture the bracelets. They will all then put semi-finished product together and sell it under different brands, at a lower price comparing with those Japanese and Swiss products. Targeting just the entry-level market.
Some of these components, were manufactured in a very classic way, that is by hand. And being put together by the workers at home as told, then deliver the finished goods back to the factory for final checking. Those were the days how these mini factories worked, and how the people made their living. Of course, this is no longer the case in Hong Kong nowadays, and digital watch manufacturing no long takes an important role.
Lambda was a reputable local brand at that time, and this is believed to be one of their watches made in the late '70s, before the plastic watch era. You can see how raw the module is, almost all connections inside were hand soldered, and pretty sure it was being put together by hand individually. It was found from a street seller and was sold to me as junk at a cost of close to nothing. Taken it all apart with the LCD screen off completely, cleaned all the contacts and lubricate the case and tunnels as usual. After reassembling it from scratch, it powers up flawlessly. The cracked crystal, however, is almost impossible to be replaced nor repaired, but I don't really mind.
I am very happy to have this. This is a piece of Hong Kong history, that we all should not forget.
