El Primero — the automatic chronograph that changed the rules

In one line

January 1969: the first automatic chronograph shown in public, and the only one in that race running at 36,000 vph. It times to a tenth of a second. In 1975 it came within an inch of the scrapyard.

Before anything else: 3019 PHC and 400 are the same calibre

This page carries both names because both numbers are in circulation and hardly anyone is sure whether they refer to different movements. They do not.

The digits are not a serial number, they are the specification in shorthand. The 30 is the diameter in millimetres, the 1 is where it falls in the order of movements at that diameter, and the 9 marks the chronograph family.

Sources disagree on exactly when the renaming happened: some put it in 1986, others in 1987, after a round of improvements. What they all agree on is that the movement is the same one.

El Primero against the Rolex 4030: what Rolex changed

Rolex did not buy the El Primero in order to leave it alone. It made around two hundred modifications before the movement went into the Daytona 16520.

The irony is a good one: the watch collectors call the Zenith Daytona beats slower than any Zenith. Rolex dropped the frequency to reduce wear and stretch the service intervals, which is exactly the price of running at 36,000.

The agreement was signed in 1984, ran for ten years, and the first movements reached Rolex in 1988. Then Rolex built its own chronograph and that was the end of the story.

Seven years' work and an attic

Zenith began work in 1962, intending to launch in 1965 for the company's centenary. It took four years longer. On 10 January 1969 it presented the 3019 PHC: 282 components, a column wheel, a chronograph built into the movement rather than bolted on top as a module, a central rotor on a ball bearing, and 36,000 vph. That frequency is what allows the tenth-of-a-second reading, and none of its rivals had it.

Because there really was a race. The consortium of Breitling, Heuer, Hamilton-Büren and Dubois Dépraz showed its Calibre 11 Chronomatic a few weeks later, with a microrotor, a modular chronograph and 19,800 vph. Seiko put the 6139 on sale in Japan in May, at 21,600. Zenith was first to announce and last to sell: its watches did not reach the shops until September.

In 1975 the whole thing nearly ended. Zenith was owned by the Zenith Radio Corporation, which decided to move to quartz and sell the mechanical tooling for scrap. Charles Vermot, foreman of workshop 4 — where every El Primero was assembled — disagreed. Working at night with his brother Maurice, he carried some 150 presses, cams, cutting tools and manufacturing drawings up fifty-odd steps to a store room on the top floor, then bricked up the wall. It took the pair six months. When Rolex came knocking in the early 1980s, that material was the only thing left anywhere in the world with which to build the calibre again.

Three things that get left out

• First to be announced, third into the shops. Press conference on 10 January 1969; the consortium's Chronomatic in March; the Seiko 6139 on sale in Japan in May; the El Primero in September. The name held true on the press-conference calendar, not on the shop-window one. The argument about who was genuinely first has been running for more than fifty years and is not about to be settled.
• Ebel rescued it before Rolex did. Pierre-Alain Blum, then running Ebel, came across a batch of unfinished El Primeros and bought them for his own chronographs, renamed as the Ebel calibre 134. It was the first sign that the movement still had a market, years before Rolex turned up.
• The original models were made in tiny numbers. Management was cautious at the time: each of those references from 1969 to 1972 was built in the order of one thousand to four and a half thousand pieces. That is why an original A386 in decent condition costs what it costs, and why there have been so many reissues.

Technical data

What to look for before you buy one

The frequency is paid for in maintenance. Running at 36,000 vph means everything inside moves twice as often as in an 18,000 vph chronograph, and the oils break down sooner. A period El Primero that has gone fifteen years without being opened is not healthy, however well it appears to run: look at the amplitude, not just the daily rate.

Spares for the first period are scarce for a very specific reason: between 1975 and 1984 not a single part was made. That ten-year hole in the supply chain is still felt, and a full service on a 3019 PHC costs a good deal more than one on a hand-wound chronograph of the same age.

And do not confuse the 3019 PHC with the 3019 PHF. The second has a triple calendar and moon phases, is far rarer and sits in another price bracket altogether. Listings mix the two up cheerfully.

Watches that used it

• Zenith El Primero A386 — the original 1969 reference, with the three coloured sub-dials
• Zenith El Primero A384 — angular case, same calibre
• Zenith Chronomaster — the modern line, by then under the 400 numbering
• Ebel, with the El Primero renamed calibre 134
• Rolex Cosmograph Daytona 16520 — with a heavily modified El Primero, as calibre 4030

What did the Daytona use before 1988? A hand-wound chronograph, the Valjoux 72. And from 2000 on? Its own calibre, the Rolex 4130.