Seagull Caliber TY3600

The Seagull caliber TY3600 (aka ST3600 or simply 3600) is a mechanical hand-wound watch movement with 17 jewels, made in China. There are no engravings or inscriptions on the movement, not even a jewel count.

It is said that this caliber ships from the factory without first being oiled or regulated. If you have a brand new, yet poorly performing timepiece with this movement, it’s possible that the watch brand did not service it during assembly.

ETA 6497 Clone:

The Seagull TY3600 is essentially an ETA 6497 clone movement. One thing to note is that the official diameter of the cal. 3600 is listed as 37.2mm, but ETA lists the 6497 as 36.5mm.

Watch Culture:

This movement used to commonly be referred to as an “Asian 6497” or “Chinese 6497”. It was also often implied that these were fake ETAs. These labels were from a time before phrases like “ETA clone” or “clone movement” were popularized in part by Caliber Corner. Interestingly, Sellita or other Swiss made movements were not considered to be fakes, even though they were based on the same expired patents and designs as the Seagull and other Chinese-made movements. Perhaps the made in China clones were produced before the patents expired, which would technically qualify them for the label of fake, but more research needs to be done to confirm that theory.Either way, today the XX3600 is largely regarded as a clone and not a fake.

TY3600 VS ST3600:

This movement is reportedly the same as the Tianjin caliber ST3600. Tianjin and Seagull are the same company (Tianjin Seagull Watch Group), but they have offices in Tianjin, China as well as Hong Kong. Apparently the different caliber numbers correspond with where the movements ship out of.

For what it’s worth, Sea-Gull does officially refer to this caliber as TY3600 (3600) in their marketing materials.

Similar Calibers:

Since the calibre 3600 is the Sea-Gull equivalent of the ETA 6497, you may be wondering if a Sea-Gull version of the 6498 exists. It does, and it is known as the caliber TY3620 (st3620, 3620).

Read: 6497 VS 6498 Differences Explained

There is also a skeletonized version of the TY36/ST36 family known as the caliber ST3600K.

Replacement Prices:

At the time of this post, replacement prices for the Seagull caliber TY3600 were found online in the range of $39.00 – $55.00 USD.

Pros and Cons:

Pros: Based on a solid infrastructure that has been used for decades; Affordable compared to similar Swiss movements; Easy to work on; Excellent movement to learn assembly, disassembly, and movement cleaning.

Cons: Said to ship from the factory without oil or regulating, therefore if the watch brand doesn’t service the movement during assembly then the watch may have trouble in the future; Parts for Chinese watch movements are not well-organized and not easy to find, so you may need to get parts from another watch, or swap the movement entirely.

Watches with this movement:

The example TY3600 pictured on this page is from an Android (Aragon) Enforcer pocket watch. Note that the crown is positioned at 12:00 on the case, placing the small seconds at 6:00 on the dial. The typical layout on a wristwatch powered by the TY3600 would have the crown at 3:00 and the small seconds at 9:00.

Additional Resources:

• Tianjin Seagull on Wikipedia