Site Blog and News

Tuesday, December 12th, 2023
Sales through our website have resumed. We had paused accepting online orders for about a year. We appreciate your patience and look forward to serving you. Thank you!

Tuesday, December 12th, 2023
Unfortunately the United States Postal Service has continued to increase rates, as well as change service from First Class Package to Ground Advantage. Our flat rate shipping has increased to $4.95 as a result. We continue to offer free shipping for orders over $50. We have NOT raised the price on our watch crystals, and expect our watch crystal prices to remain where they are for at least the near future.

Monday, March 28th, 2022
GS AT and ST partial restock. Over a dozen sizes of Angle-Tite and Step-Tite are back in stock. We expect to continue partial restocking of most GS round styles throughout spring 2022.

Friday, March 11th, 2022
GS PA restock is complete. Not all part numbers are back in stock, however there are now limited quantities available for many that were out of stock.

Friday, December 4th, 2020
USPS CCP virus temporary rate increases went into effect on October 18, 2020. We have absorbed that increase until today, but unfortunately we can no longer do so, therefore our flat rate shipping has been raised from $3.25 to $3.50. We strongly encourage all of our customers to file a complaint with the USPS. They have already announced additional price increases for 2021, and there appears to be no ceiling, no limit for rate increases.

Monday, February 17th, 2020
Our flat rate shipping has been raised from $2.95 to $3.25 due to this year's USPS rate increase. We held our shipping price at $2.95 last year when the United States Postal Service made not only another price increase, but also changed first class from a flat rate to zones, thus resulting in a very big increase. One would think that with such a large increase yet another increase would not be so soon, especially with no increase in fuel costs, but just a few years ago our cost was about $1.00 for a 1 to 3 oz small package. Now the price at the window is up to $4.20 (retail pricing) or printing postage online is up to $3.18 (commercial pricing). LONG GONE are the days of a reasonable 5% or 6% occasional increases. Rates have risen well over 400% in the past several years! During the last 5 years international rates have raised from about $6.75 to $14.75-$16.50. We were providing a great service to the international vintage watch community, but with the cost of postage well over the cost of the watch crystal, very few of prior international customers continue to order. Our international sales have fallen from a few each day to about one or two a month. We expect to discontinue servicing the international community soon. We have chosen to make this message more than just a notification about a change in our shipping rate on our site in order to make it more widely know just how much both domestic and international postage rates have risen.

Saturday, April 27th, 2019
GS CDE Diamond Edge watch crystals, and GS CFT Round Flat Top watch crystals were both partially restocked.

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020
SUC partial restock is complete. Throughout January our SUC Rocket Cylinders were partially restocked. We are still out of stock on some SUC fancy cylinders, however more than half of those that were out of stock are back in stock.

Saturday, April 27th, 2019
GS CDE Diamond Edge watch crystals, and GS CFT Round Flat Top watch crystals were both partially restocked.

Saturday, April 13th, 2019
GS PKH open face pocket watch crystals were partially restocked.

Monday, April 8th, 2019
GS PA model specific round watch crystals were partially restocked.

Saturday, February 23rd, 2019
GS PHD Hi-Dome watch crystals were partially restocked.

Saturday, October 13th, 2018
Both GS ET Evr-Tite White and Yellow were partially restocked.

Saturday, September 15th, 2018
GS DT Diver-Tite partially restocked. GS EW Extra-Wide Rings restocked.

Saturday, September 8th, 2018
GS AT Angle-Tite, MT Magni-Tite, and XHD Extra Hi-Dome partially restocked. Again, even though a size may be shown as out of stock, please ask! In addition to having stock that has not yet been counted into inventory, we also have some of these round styles and sizes in other brands that we will never list on our site. For example, we have some Stella brand extra high dome crystals left in stock, and they are priced less than the GS XHD crystals.

Saturday, August 4th, 2018
GS CMY restocked today, CMX was restocked in July, and that completes our GS fancy cylinder restock… sort of… We have since purchased additional stock, and therefore have more that has not yet been counted into inventory. Which brings up the point that anything on our site that is marked as sold out may actually be in stock, since we always have stock that has not yet been counted into inventory. Just ask and we will check for you. We usually can also offer other options too. For example, almost all SUC, and GS fancy crystals and fancy cylinders are also in stock in a glass version made by American Perfit, BB, Federal, Fulton, Watch-Craft, etc. Again, just ask.

Saturday, June 9th, 2018
GS CMT restocked.

Saturday, April 28th, 2018
GS CMS restocked. Only three more shape codes now remain for our GS fancy cylinder restock project, which we expect to complete within the first two weeks of June.

Saturday, April 14th, 2018
GS CMH through CMR restocked. CMH525 for the Bulova American Clipper is now back in stock! It is a popular model and always one of the top selling of all the GS fancy cylinders.

Saturday, March 17th, 2018
GS CMC restocked.

Saturday, February 10th, 2018
GS CX restocked, including some of the popular Hamilton and Seiko crystals that were listed as sold out.

Saturday, March 3rd, 2018
GS CY restocked. For everyone that has been asking for the Hamilton Fontainebleau watch crystals restock, please note that they are back in stock in limited quantities, and are available now as GS CY has now been restocked. Note that we will not be restocking during the week of March 4th. Restocking will resume one to two weeks after that with GS CMC.

Saturday, February 10th, 2018
GS CX restocked, including some of the popular Hamilton and Seiko crystals that were listed as sold out.

Saturday, January 13th, 2018
GS CT restocked.

Monday, December 4th, 2017
GS CQ, CR, and CS fancy cylinders were restocked. CO was restocked two weeks ago. If a watch crystal between CT and CMY is still shown as out of stock, please feel free to send an email and we will check our stock that has not yet been counted into inventory for you. It is probably available, and if not, there is a good chance that it is available in another brand.

Saturday, October 14th, 2017
GS CF fancy cylinders restocked. Remaining GS fancy cylinder shapes will also be restocked during the remainder of 2017.

Saturday, July 15th, 2017
The Germanow Simon regular fancy watch crystals shapes MX and MY were added to our site today (over 560 more crystal part numbers) to complete the GS regular fancy crystals category. So now basically this entire line of crystals are available online for the first time in the history of the internet (read further below for additional information).

Saturday, May 13th, 2017
While we continue to add the original Germanow Simon regular fancy watch crystals to our site, we have also begun to restock the GS fancy cylinder crystals. GS CC was restocked today. Please note that some of the more popular sizes have limited quantities available.

Saturday, April 22nd, 2017
We continue to add the original Germanow Simon fancy watch crystals to our site. Shapes S and T are now listed, with the remainder, shapes W through MY, to be added during the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Saturday, April 15th, 2017
The original Germanow Simon fancy watch crystals are now available at tiptopcrystals.com! Shapes C through R are now online, with the others following in the coming weeks. We have decided not to post shapes D, P, U, V, Z. Almost all of these were manufactured back before GS had stable acrylic, and therefore yellowed, shrank, discolored, and or warped. Around late 1937 or early 1938 GS resolved this problem, and starting sometime around 1937 GS began to print on the back of some of the packages that their crystals are guaranteed not to shrink or discolor (by 1940 all had this guarantee printed on the back), but by that time a number of crystal part numbers were discontinued. Germanow Simon continued to produce these fancy watch crystals through the 1940s, and around the late 1940s or early 1950s they began to offer some in P Super Quality, as well as the originals were still offered and now labeled as R Regular Quality. About this same time GS also began to change over their tooling to offer injection molded C Cylinders, which have sidewalls. We have put the early form molded Germanow Simon fancy R Regular Quality and P Super Quality crystals into a separate category from the newer injection molded C Cylinders to help our customers avoid accidentally purchasing a different type of crystal than intended since there is a difference in both shape and quality of plastic.

Saturday, November 5th, 2016
GS C fancy cylinders restocked! Most all of the crystals from GS supplement 48, supplement 49, supplement 50, supplement 51, and supplement 52 have been restocked. We also are continuing to work on bringing the older regular quality and super quality fancy crystals to our online catalog. Expect to see that begin to take place sometime in December.

Monday, September 26th, 2016
GS TR Thin-Ringless, and TT Thin-Tite watch crystals have been restocked! We previously only had about 7 sizes left in stock of the TR Thin-Ringless style, and now we have 62 of the 106 sizes available. We have almost all of the 211 TT Thin-Tite crystals back in stock. The good and the bad news on the TT Thin-Tite crystals... An ongoing reminder that these TT Thin-Tite are NOS (new old stock) crystals, therefore the metal tension ring may be perfect or may be less than perfect due to the age and the nature of metal (some tarnishing and/or corrosion is possible), however we usually offer these unofficially with a free spare. Additionally, unlike the newer production of the TT Thin-Tite crystals, these were manufactured and packaged with both the white and yellow rings (silver tone and gold tone). The BB Bubble-Tite crystals were also partially restocked, however our stock of these rare crystals is still limited.

Saturday, September 17th, 2016
GS HC Hunting Case (Savonette) watch crystals have been restocked! These HC crystals were made in quarter size increments from size 15 through 52, for a total of 149 sizes. To give an example of our restocking, our site showed only about 1 to 2 each of approximately 80+ sizes in stock, but now after this restock we have over 140 of 149 sizes in stock, with an average of over 4 each. We also have sizes 52-1/4 through size 55 in stock in other brands of HC crystals not listed on our site. Just send us a message if you would like any of those larger sizes.

Monday, August 15, 2016
GS ST Step-Tite waterproof watch crystals, with white and yellow step rings have been restocked!

Saturday, July 23, 2016
GS DG Digi-Tite Red For LED Watches have been restocked!
GS EW Extra Wide Rings have been restocked!
GS KT Kleer-Tite Clear For Thin Round Watches have been restocked!
GS MT Magni-Tite Extra Large Magnifier, Waterproof With White And Yellow Rings have been restocked!

Tuesday, July 5, 2016
GS CFT Flat Top watch crystals have been restocked! Next to be restocked will be other round styles such as DG, HC, KT, etc.

Saturday, June 25, 2016
GS AT Angle-Tite watch crystals have been restocked! Flat Top, Angle Side, Step Style Ring (one of each color), and at one time GS described these crystals as Seiko Style. We are still out of stock on some sizes, but we did restock some sizes that were previously out of stock. This was a very minor restock site update. An ongoing reminder that as with all our crystal stock, that these are NOS (new old stock) crystals, and also that the metal tension ring may be perfect or may be less than perfect due to the age and the nature of metal. Many of our regular customers know that we often give free spare crystals, and with these AT crystals we will be making even more of an effort to give a free spare whenever possible.

GS CDE Diamond Edge watch crystals have been restocked, and the price lowered also! Your watchmaker discount will lower it even further too. CFT restock will be coming next week.

Monday, March 28, 2016
GS ETY Evr-Tite With Yellow Ring watch crystals have been restocked! As with all our stock please contact us if you see a size that you would like to purchase and it is marked as out of stock. We always have stock that has not yet been added to our inventory count, as well as we often have sizes in either other brands or open packages that we discount. Please note as with all our crystal stock, that these are NOS (new old stock) crystals, and also that the metal tension ring may be perfect or may be less than perfect due to the age and the nature of metal.

Saturday, March 26, 2016
GS ETW Evr-Tite With White Ring watch crystals have been restocked!

Saturday, February 13, 2016
GS LT Lok-Tite watch crystals have been restocked! 50 of the 52 different sizes are in stock, but there are only limited quantities available of some of the more popular sizes. LT Lok-Tite crystals are very similar to the PHD Hi-Dome crystals, but have a slightly different profile. In fact, when G-S discontinued the Lok-Tite crystals, the PHD crystals were labeled as a combination PHD/LT crystal to help watchmakers with the nomenclature.

GS PK Lo-Dome watch crystals have been restocked too… and unstocked… We restocked the PK Lo-Dome with step, and removed almost all of the narrow polished edge crystals. We like the ones with the step better, however just send us a message if you would like to check availability of the PK Lo-Dome narrow polished edge crystals.

Saturday, February 6, 2016
GS XHD Extra Hi-Dome watch crystals have been restocked! Since almost a month has passed since we posted our last restock, we are working on accelerating our restocking of the remaining round crystal styles going forward.

Sunday, January 17, 2016
USPS Rate Increase: The United States Postal Service rate increase went into effect today. We did not raise our rates after the previous USPS rate increase. We simply paid part of the postage for our customers that we value greatly. It is with great regret that we must raise our rates to the new actual postage rates of $2.60 domestic, and $13.75 international. The previous rate for international first class was $6.39 for 1 to 2 ounces, and has now more than doubled! In our opinion that is too large of an increase, especially considering that the cost of oil, and therefore all transportation fuel products, is at record multi-year lows.

Monday, January 11, 2016
GS PHD Hi-Dome watch crystals have been restocked. All sizes, except for two, are now back in stock.

Friday, January 1, 2016
Happy New Year! GS PKH pocket watch crystals are now restocked. We've started the new year by restocking the PKH lo-dome crystals for pocket watches and timers. You can always send us a message to check if we have additional stock that has not yet been added to our site's inventory count. Otherwise just check back soon as we continue to restock the various styles of GS round crystals over the next couple of months.

Saturday, December 26, 2015
GS DT restocked! The GS DT Diver-Tite crystals have been restocked. Some sizes are still sold out, but our inventory stock level has about tripled. The DT Diver-Tite crystals are a double thich waterproof crystal with a white tension ring (silver tone). They are basically like the ET Evr-Tite crystals, but are about twice as thick. As stated earlier this month, we continue to restock the various styles of GS round crystals over the next few months.

Monday, December 14, 2015
GS PA restocked! Our inventory count of the GS PA line of crystals has more than doubled, and many part numbers that were out of stock are now back in stock. We will continue to restock the various styles of GS round crystals over the next few months.

Monday, December 7, 2015
Standard Unbreakable Watch Crystals are now available! That's right, basically the full line of SUC Rocket Cylinders fancy watch crystals are now available for the first time in the history of the world on the internet, only at tiptopcrystals.com! In general, the SUC Rocket Cylinders are a heavy duty crystal that is thicker than other brands of fancy plastic watch crystals. From the SUC catalog cover: Molded from the new, improved, heat resistant optical Lucite. Featuring SUC's exclusive Blended-Edge the tapered edge blended to follow the contour of the watch bezel.

Thursday, September, 2015
PKH partial restock.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015
CDE partial restock sizes 20.4mm through 34.6mm.

Friday, April 10, 2015
We would like to first thank everyone for your business, support, and also for taking the time to read about what is new here at Tip Top Crystals. We appreciate all of the messages and calls (keep them coming), but also recognize the need to have a page were you can quickly get news and updates. Therefore this new site blog and news page…

Restock: We restocked the G-S PA Crystals on April 4, 2015, including about 60 different part numbers that were out of stock are now available again.

G-S F Flat Fancy Crystals added: These were added to our site's selection on March 21, 2015.

Round Crystals: We will begin to add all of the styles of G-S round crystals within the next few days, and continue to add more almost each week.

We have pushed back the date to add BB glass crystals, and SUC plastic fancy crystals. Instead of adding some this past winter, we are working hard here behind the website to bring the FULL SUC line of fancy crystals online this summer or maybe as soon as late spring. It is no small nor easy task working with thousands of crystals, which is why more and more vintage watch hobbyists and watchmakers are coming to us. We help our customers to save time, money, and just simply make it easier!

We will probably bring the round BB B and HB glass crystals online before adding the SUC fancy crystals. As a reminder, we do have most of the BB and C.E. Marshall Watch-Craft and Rock-Craft glass crystals in stock, and for now, a number of our regular customers just send us a message or call, and we send a PayPal invoice out right away.

YES, WE BUY: and yes we know that crystal systems are a lot of work to manage, and maintain. So whether you are retiring, decided to just give up on keeping up your crystal system, or any other reason, please contact us. We are always buying and restocking all brands of wristwatch crystals.

Crystal Catalogs NEEDED: There are a number of vintage watch crystal catalogs that we are still looking for. We buy, sell, rent, trade, borrow, and swap for catalogs that we are missing, especially for a 1937 or earlier BB catalog. We have a system that has proven to be successful to rent/borrow your catalog for us to copy, scan, and return it to you along with store credit, free crystals, payment, and additional catalogs for you to keep.