Stellaris - the in-house brand for Sears, Roebuck, and Company - incorporated Seiko and Swiss mechanical movements in its watches – and this sharp full-serviced 1970s Stellaris Ref. 10842 manual-wind mechanical is no different.
At its 1886 inception, American company Sears (run by former railroad agent Richard W. Sears) sold watches by mail order catalog; much akin to Amazon selling books at its founding, pocket watches were Sears' first commodity, and Sears would gradually add substantially to its catalog offerings, much like Amazon online.
Although Seiko produced Stellaris for Sears, preceding this Stellaris was a brand name registered in 1963 by Swiss brand Mondia; while not a well-known brand, it produced some intriguing watches, such as the Mondia “Big Eye” chronograph and the Top Second. It also put out a watch model called Stellaris with an unusual fluid case.
How did Mondia and Stellaris evolve to be separate watch brands? No idea – another mystery lost to the ages, akin to how both brands would become victims of the Seiko-initiated Quartz Crisis. Watch periodical Fratello speculated, “Mondia was used as support to make Stellaris trustworthy."
"Or, I suppose another possible scenario is that the Mondia Stellaris became so popular that Mondia decided to make it a separate brand featuring its own range of watches. And there were quite a few of them, mostly later Stellaris electronic models.”
Regardless, the Stellaris font and symbol didn’t change after it was established as a stand-alone brand, the clearest evidence of the relationship between the two.
Aside from Swiss movements, Stellaris watches also featured Hamazawa Ltd – founded in 1954 – automatic movements, and Hamazawa had an unofficial relationship with Seiko. Further, in the 1970s, Hamazawa took out several joint patents with Epson (one of the three core companies of Seiko Group in contemporary times) on non-watch related items.
This Stellaris mechanical comes on a leather strap, and with nylon strap, rugged travel case, and springbar tool.
1970s Stellaris Ref. 10842 Mechanical Watch
DIAL: Fantastic silver Stellaris-signed dial, with applied Arabic numeral hour indices amd matching handset.
CASE: Stainless-steel case case measures 34mm (35.5mm w/crown) x 39.5mm.
CRYSTAL: Domed acrylic crystal, no cracks or deep scratches.
BAND: This Stellaris comes on a brown leather strap; it also comes with a dark blue and white nylon strap.
MOVEMENT: Manual-winding Swiss mechanical movement. We have performed a full service on this Stellaris dress watch.
CROWN: Unsigned stainless-steel crown.