The 1976 Amida Digitrend in Steel

It is a privilege to experience watches that some collectors have not had the opportunity to see in person. It could be because of the rarity of the watch that might have only been produced in a very small quantity. It could also be a watch that is in absolutely phenomenal condition; and I mean this in both directions of the word condition, whether it is new old stock or has had such an incredible past that the patina on the watch is simply unique. Or, maybe it is just a watch that not too many collectors know about. The later is probably what the Amida Digitrend is about.

We have had the opportunity to cover another Amida Digitrend before. This one was from 1976 and had a very cool black PVD finish to it. Today we are looking at the second version of the Digitrends produced which were all in steel.

Let’s go back to 1976. Baselworld was in full swing and the era of the quartz movement was deeply upon the Swiss watch industry. Brands like Girard Perregaux and Bulova were making really interesting quartz movement, LED technology watches. They were making watches that had unique time displays read horizontally into the watch instead of the traditional vertical readings. To remain relevant, Amida released a mechanical watch similar to the Girard Perregaux’s and Bulova’s known as the Digitrend.

The watch has a 42mm x 38mm steel case that looks much like the back of a 70’s sportscar. Looking down at the watch it has a brushed case with an opening at the front where the time is displayed. The idea with the time display is that when one is holding the steering wheel of a car, they don’t need to tilt their wrist to see the time, but rather can looking into the watch and see the time displayed. They were one of the few brands to create a watch with this concept with a mechanical movement.

The movement of choice for Amida was a 1 jewel, pin-lever movement that was produced by Michael Berger Watch Company (MBWC). The company produced jump hour movements that were relatively affordable and were used in many other watches of this time period. The movements were not the most well-build movements, and so were prone to breaking so many Amida Digitrends you find today do not have the original jump hour movements they were produced with. Many collectors have sourced a 17J movement produced by MBWC and replaced it in their Digitrend watches.

The jump hour movement lays flat in the case of the watch with 2 rotating discs, one for the hours and one for the minutes. The watch has a triangle-shaped plastic prism that projects the horizontal time from the two discs vertically, thus allowing the wearer to see the time. The time displays is very much inspired by the dashboard of a car of the era, making this watch truly inspired by cars.

As mentioned before, there were two versions of the Digitrend produced - one in all steel and one with a PVD finish. The PVD finished version has an extra level of stealth to it, and in a way is even more mysterious to wear especially given the abnormal nature of its design. The steel version is still extremely fun to wear on the wrist and definitely turns heads and encourages questions to be asked.

The watch is available on our store here.

Enjoy!