Alba Disney Mickey & Minnie Y950 Ana-Digi

In April 2013, I blogged about a vintage Alba watch with an analogue dial and an LCD in the glass. One of the conclusions of the blog post was that it was quite an uncommon model.

This watch shares the same module as that watch, the Y950, but this time it is a Disney version.

The Y950 watches came out in the early 90s and was one of the designs which seem to have been reasonably high tech and expensive for the time. The Y950 has a 3 hand dial which uses a crown for setting purposes. The glass has an LCD display built in with various display options. At the top and bottom of the LCD are two lines of digits, the top one able to show letters too. By default, these show day and date at the top and time at the bottom, but are also used by the alarm and stopwatch modes. In the centre of the display you can normally bring up a full month-view calendar with this module, however in this watch, the calendar has been replaced with an LCD picture of Mickey & Minnie.

This particular version is done as part of the collaboration between the Seiko brand Alba and Disney which has been going on maybe since the Alba brand was established. The watch face features a picture of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and above the face are the words 'Mickey & Minnie'.

This watch was made in 1983 (same as the previously blogged model) and has a full model number of Y950-5030.

Seiko Alba Y950 Ana-Digi with Calendar Display

The old LCD watches came is all shapes and sizes. Some were very basic and cheap-looking, but others, like today's, were much more classy looking.

This watch is by the Seiko sub-brand Alba, and is a high spec Ana-Digi watch. It comes from 1983, and looks like it would have been a relatively expensive model. It now seems to be relatively uncommon, with not too many Internet references.

The dial is operated with the crown, and is a 3-hand dial with a rounded square shape. The LCD display is built into the glass in front of the dial, and has various display options, or can be switched off entirely.

The basic display covers time and date, with day and date in a row to the top, the time (6 digits) at the bottom, and the middle blank. The alarm and stopwatch modes also use the same lines of digits.

The last mode is a calendar display. In this one, the day and date are still along the top, but the bottom line covers year and month. In the middle is a full calendar, showing the whole of the current month, with a letter S marking the column of Sundays. While showing the calendar, the right hand buttons scroll forwards and backwards through the months. The numbers in the calendar don't actually move, just the S for the Sunday column.

Full model number of this one is Y950-5010. Other watches were released with the same module, but different designs (and also under the Pulsar sub-brand).