Ronda is today known as one of the very important producers of quartz movement. But it's beginnigs were mechanical movements. One of the widely used family of movements was also alarm movement.

Ronda developed alarm movement with the general idea that movement should be cheap and simple. It's approach was to develop an alarm modul which can be connected to one of existing watch movements. So majority of the parts are the same as are used in Ronda watch movements. Basic movement was Ronda 1213 and this movement upgraded with the alarm movement got the code 1223. Movement is realy simple, it does not even have On/Off function. The cheapest version had only 1 jewel, standard version had 17 jewels. Basic 1223 movement oscilates with 18.000 A/h, improved version also existed with 21.000 A/h and the name for that version was 1223-21.

Same movement as 1223 but made with better materials was the 1243 movement and 1243-21 accordingly. This movement existed only with 17 jewels, downgrade to 1 jewel did not exist.

Near the end of production Ronda added alarm modul also to their automatic movement and this movement was named 126. Watches with this movement are very rare and I don't have it in my collection.

All 1223 movements have seven stars RL hallmark stamp, in 1243 this hallmark should be replaced by six star REX hallmark. In reality a lot of 1243 movements still have RL hallmark or they are without hallmark at all.

Instruction manual:

Instructions are same for 1223 and 1243 family.

Upper crown in position 0: Winding time. 

Upper crown in position 1: Setting time (only by turning crown forward).

Lower crown in position 1: Turning crown forward winding alarm; turning crown backward setting alarm hand.

Lower crown in position 1: No function. The only function is protection agains unwanted alarm hand movement.

Ronda 1223 family:

Ronda 1243 family: