Tissot PR516 Mechanical Chronograph 41mm Mens Watch Black

Ref. T1494592105100

The original PR516 landed in 1970 as a slender 36mm manual-wind oddity — unusual enough for Tissot that the Ref. 40528 remains genuinely rare. The 2024 relaunch grows the case to 41mm and shifts it into the automatic era, but the more interesting story is what happened to the movement. Tissot took a Valjoux 7753 and deleted the automatic winding mechanism entirely, replacing the rotor bridge with a decorated plate engraved "TISSOT 1853" and fitting a fixed mainspring bridle in place of the original sliding one. The result, calibre A05.291, is a hand-wound chronograph with 68 hours of reserve and a Nivachron balance spring that resists magnetism without a Faraday cage. It is the first watch to carry it. The three-register layout — subdials at 3, 6, and 9 — marks this immediately as the mechanical variant and reads more cleanly than the asymmetric arrangement on the quartz siblings. Orange accents on the seconds hand and counter hands cut against the blacked-out case without turning the dial busy. At 160 grams on the bracelet the watch has presence, and the domed crystal adds enough height at the sides to be visible from across a table. The tapered case and matching three-link bracelet are lifted directly from the period references, and the fit across a range of wrist sizes is one of the things reviewers consistently note.

Reference

T1494592105100

Brand

Tissot

Case size

41mm

Case material

Stainless steel

Case shape

Round

Dial

Black

Crystal

Sapphire

Movement

Automatic

Calibre

A05.291

Functions

Chronograph, Tachymeter

Water resistance

100m

Bracelet / strap

Stainless steel bracelet

Strap colour

Silver

Clasp

Deployant clasp

Lume

Super-LumiNova

Retailer

Goldsmiths