Finally, I got it! The watch I already teased back in my first review of UMF Ruhla watches. The reissue of the Ruhla digital jumping hour watch in burgundy – a reissue of the watch I wore in my youth. Before you continue reading, I recommend checking out an interesting article about the original Ruhla digital watches and 24-34 movement, which you can find here.
To be honest, the original Ruhla digital watch was a terrible watch. The UMF 24-34 movement inside was based on the basic UMF 24 movement, which had no jeweled bearings and no shock protection. It was completely normal for the watch to run at around +/- 2 minutes per day, but the worst part was that it loved to stop with every little bump or shake. And because it didn’t have a seconds hand, you never even noticed it stopped, so in reality you never knew what time it was, even though you were wearing it. I clearly remember an anecdote from back then – after the watch kept stopping all the time, I took it to a watchmaker and asked him to service it. He just looked at me and said: “What do you expect me to do with this thing, it doesn’t even have a single jewel! The best way to service this watch is to throw it away and buy a new one.”
From the extensive article, I’ll quote a part that shows my watchmaker wasn’t entirely wrong: “The UMF 24 is a cheap pin pallet movement and some parts are prone to wear out. The conical balance pivots f.e. can be so worn, that the movement keeps stopping despite being cleaned and oiled. If there is no way to get the movement consistently running and keeping time, but the digital display module is still good, the module can be easily transplanted to another movement.”
So my watch ended up lying in a drawer more or less permanently. It still works, but even if I look at it the wrong way, it stops…
If you’ve read the article, then you probably figured out from my first photo that my watch belongs to the later period of the UFO models and that it’s the Type 3 chrome-plated case. And that UMF Ruhla, when designing the reissue, followed the shape of the TV-case models much more closely – those were much rarer and originally weren’t even meant for Ruhla’s digital watch. (As you can read in the linked article, the case was originally made for the GUB Glashütte Numatic, an automatic jumping hour watch that was supposed to be based on the GUB 75 movement with Ruhla’s jumping hour module. But the watch only made it to prototype stage, never entered regular production, and the “leftover” cases were later used by Ruhla for the TV series of digital watches.)
Because of that, my comparison between the two versions isn’t entirely fair – as I said, the reissue doesn’t follow the widely spread UFO version, which is where my original watch belongs. Why UMF Ruhla decided to base the reissue on the “special” TV edition instead of the regular UFO one, I honestly don’t know.
So let’s focus on the reissue now.
The first thing that jumps out is that the reissue is noticeably larger than the original. Yes, the UFO was smaller than the TV model, but even the TV was significantly more compact. Here are the numbers:
| Watch | Width | Height | Thickness | Lug size | L2L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UFO | 35mm | 41mm | 13mm | 18mm | 39mm |
| TV | 35,6mm | 41,5mm | 13,3mm | 20mm | ?? |
| Reissue | 41mm | 46mm | 13mm | 22mm | 45mm |
I took the TV edition measurements from the article.
The increase in size is, of course, also visible on the dial – the dimensions went from 27,5mm x 17mm to 32mm x 20mm.
Still, the dial is actually the part that has been reproduced the most accurately (I’m talking about the last version of the original dial, the one that already had the “digital” text on it). I have to give credit where it’s due: the design follows the original really well (the borders, the little arrow from the hour window pointing toward the minutes, the white line starting from the minutes, the layout of the text). But I do need to point out a few important differences.
The most important one is that even though the dial is overall larger on the new model, the hour window is smaller than on the old one (2,5mm x 2,5mm vs. 3.5mm x 3.5mm), the minute window is just higher but not wider (5mm x 9,5mm vs. 5mm x 8 mm), and the font used in the new watch is also a bit smaller and narrower than the old one has. And that’s not great. For eyes with age-related problems, legibility in lower light conditions is already quite problematic.
The next visible differences are in the text. On the new model, the white line is filled with the word “AUTOMATIK” (which, at least for me, feels unnecessary), while the other changes are kind of “inevitable.” The UMF Ruhla logo replaced the old “ruhla” logo, and the country of manufacture has changed as well. The German Democratic Republic (yes, Ruhla was part of socialist/communist East Germany) has, of course, been replaced by Germany.
If the reissue looks quite close to the original from the front, the story is completely different on the back. The back now has a glass caseback proudly showing off the new UMD 24-34-2 automatic movement, while on the old model the movement was hidden behind a closed caseback. The engravings on the back are, of course, very different as well.
And since I’m already mentioning the difference in caseback materials, this is probably the right moment to point out the other major differences between the two watches. The obvious one is the case itself – the chromed case has been replaced by a stainless steel one. The plexiglass is now sapphire. The crown is now signed, whereas before it was just plain. What’s quite unusual is that the crown is screwed-in, which for this type of watch is really odd (and unnecessary). But the really important difference is the movement. To put it simply: the old, weak hand-wound movement has been replaced by an automatic movement, symbolically named 24-34-2. The movement has 26 jewels and beats at 28,800 A/h. And even though there’s no seconds hand, the glass caseback lets you notice that the movement has hacking seconds.
Even though I asked around quite a bit and did some digging, I didn’t manage to find much information about the movement itself. Judging by its construction, I’d guess it’s of some Chinese origin – I suspect Hangzhou – and they probably just fitted it with a UMF-signed rotor. It’s also obvious that the movement is - similar to original one - built in a modular way – the jump hour module is simply added onto a generic base movement. That’s why the movement has a dummy first crown position, which would normally be used for setting the date.
Even though the watch is marked “Made in Germany,” I seriously doubt this is a genuinely German in-house movement. My skepticism about a true in-house German caliber also comes from the fact that the regular retail price of the watch is only 499 EUR. That’s just way too little for Ruhla to have developed its own movement for a watch limited to only 1,200 pieces (four color versions, 300 pieces each).
Regardless of where the movement comes from, I have to give huge praise for the accuracy of the watch. As I said, the watch doesn’t have a seconds hand, but it does allow you to stop the seconds. So to test the accuracy, I stopped it exactly at the hour jump at 8:00 in the morning. Then I wore the watch continuously for a full 7 days. After seven days, the jump to 8:00 happened with a delay of six seconds! An amazing result! If the original digital was known for being completely unreliable, this one is clearly a very dependable successor.
The jumping hour change doesn’t actually happen completely instantaneously. The transition to the next hour begins about 3 minutes before the full hour. The hour disc then slowly starts gliding toward the next number, and just before the full hour it reaches about halfway to the new numeral. Exactly on the hour, the jump happens and the new number snaps into its final position.
The watch comes with a very high-quality, thick, solid, yet still comfortable leather strap that’s perfectly color-matched to the dial. It’s actually the same type of strap I described in my review of the UMF Ruhla Spring Lid watch. Even back then I was wondering why on earth they went with a racing-style strap, and here that decision makes even less sense to me. This watch has absolutely nothing in common with the racing character of the strap.
And just like with the Lid model, this watch also comes in a simple leather pouch, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve that I really like. The sleeve is printed with photos from the seventies, which makes for a nice connection to the original digital watch.
To wrap it up, let’s take a look side by side at how the old and new models sit on my 19 cm wrist. The difference in size is obvious. Even though the reissue is only 41 mm wide, it actually wears larger on the wrist. You can clearly tell it’s not the diameter of a round watch, but the side of a rectangle!
Final verdict: For all nostalgics and for anyone who’s ever owned a vintage jumping hour watch, I can warmly recommend it. I’m really glad Ruhla didn’t go overboard with the price – at 499 EUR you get an accurate, very interesting watch with a retro vibe and a great conversation starter.
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