Vintage Swiss Watches
Girard-Perregaux Gyromatic 39 Jewels
In the 1950s and 60s, most Swiss watchmakers bought in ébauches (base movements) from specialist movement suppliers which they then modified to their own requirements. Girard-Perregaux was no exception and sourced their base movements for the most part from A. Schild, Peseux and ETA. The Gyromatic branding had appeared on earlier full-rotor automatic watches based on the automatic ETA 1256 but is more authentically associated with GP’s own ‘world’s most advanced automatic watch’ based on an ébauche from Peseux.
GP proclaimed this new watch as ‘the first 39 jewel self-winding watch in history’ featuring a revolutionary new winding-system. The base ébauche was the 17-jewel hand-wind Peseux 335 and the transformation to 39 jewel automatic was accomplished by a separate automatic module fitted to the base movement. The design that GP conceived for the automatic module used a pair of reversers, named Gyrotrons, driven by a pinion located at the centre of a weighted rotor. The role of the gyrotrons was to convert both clockwise and anticlockwise motion of the rotor into the unidirectional winding of the mainspring. Each Gyroton is fitted with 7 polished circular disks of synthetic ruby and together with another 8 jewels in the winding module, the total jewel count was raised from 17 to 39.
An account of the full restoration of this late 1950s example of the Girard-Perregaux Gyromatic 39 can be found here.
Omega Seamaster De Ville 165.020
Through the 1950’s and 60’s, Omega established a reputation as a maker of luxury watches to suit pretty much all applications. Omega catalogues from the early 1960’s presented a coherent range of watches, with a number of different sub-brands each fulfilling a particular niche. The top of the precision tree was occupied by the Constellation Chronometers, fitted with officially certified chronometer movements. The Seamaster, whose origins date back to the second world war when the British Armed Services commissioned Omega to produce a watch that combined sturdiness under combat conditions with precision, maintained that essential proposition.
The Seamaster Deville provides the best of both worlds in combining ‘the ruggedness of a sports watch with the elegance of a slim dress watch’. This seemingly conflicting combination of elements was achieved by dispensing with the conventional removable case back and fitting the movement and dial from the front into a one-piece case. Water resistance was provided through a combination of a specially-sealed acrylic watch crystal and a water proof crown.
The story of the restoration of this parts bin Seamaster Deville 165.020 from 1963 can be found here.
Breitling Top Time 2002
In constructing their marketing strategy for the newly optimistic 1960’s, Breitling struck upon the idea of targeting the “staggering purchasing power of the youth market”. “Today’s young man wants an instrument panel on his wrist, not just a watch” and “even young women are discovering exciting new elegance in the aggressive look of the chrono-type timepiece”. The fruit of that concept was the Breitling Top Time, produced from 1964 and positioned as an entry-level chronograph sitting at a price point considerably lower than the Navitimer and Chronomat flagships.
By the time of the introduction of the Top Time, Breitling had long-since transitioned from in-house to third-party movements, with the Chronomat and its successor Navitimer using Venus 176 and 178 pillar wheel chronographs, respectively. The new Top Time models employed the Venus 188 cam lever chronograph movement, but within a year or two, the Venus movement was phased out in favour of the Valjoux 7730.
The story of the restoration of this long since abandoned watch-in-pieces from 1965 can be read in three parts here, here and here.
Silvana Skindiver
The little-known Silvana brand was founded as product line of A. Reymond SA (ARSA) in Tramelan in 1921. The company moved to Bienne in 1931 where it became Comptoir des montres Silvana SA only to move back to Tramelan 5 years later. Silvana expanded rapidly over the following 10 years at which point the company became Fabrique d’horlogerie Silvana SA in recognition of the fact that it no longer manufactured movements, but instead bought in movements from Ébauches SA.
Silvana was best known for producing simple, classic wristwatches housed in stainless steel cases. It survived as an independent company until the end of the 1960s when it merged with a number of other brands under a holding company that included Solvil & Titus, Invicta, Sandoz and even the American company Waltham.
An example of Silvana’s output from the 1960s is this lovely little jewel of a diver’s watch, powered by an ETA 2472 automatic movement. The story of the restoration of this classic ’60s skindiver can be found here.
Omega Seamaster 300 166.0324 self-build
There was a time, not so long ago, when one could freely buy Omega casing parts with none of the restrictions in availability that have applied for at least the past decade. Consequently, it was feasible to build new stock facsimiles of classic models such as the Seamaster 300 by pairing an appropriate movement sourced from a donor watch with new stock service parts sourced from Omega, via watch materials houses. For a while, an Australian company, WatchCo, would build complete watches to order and for this reason, new build classic Omega diver’s watches became known as WatchCo Omegas.
In 2012, I took it upon myself to build my own SM300 and the account of that adventure is described here.
CWC G10 Fatboy
The Cabot Watch Company is arguably the best-known maker of British military watches. It was founded in 1972 and produced watches for a number of different applications suited to the varying demands of the different branches of the British armed services. The most ubiquitous of these is the G10, a general issue service watch produced in large numbers from 1980 until the present day.
The G10 was the first quartz watch issued to the British Armed forces and through its 28 year life as an issued watch, the thickness of its case tracked the bulk of the movements housed within. The earliest watches were fitted with the ESA 536.121, whose thickness warranted a mid-case of suitably generous girth. Those early watches were subsequently nicknamed ‘Fatboy’ in recognition of their bulk compared to the slimmer case designs that were to follow.
The G10 Fatboy was produced from 1980 until 1983, with a change in dial logo in 1982. In 1983, the movement was changed from the ESA 536.121 to the Marinium–branded ESA 947.111 seven jewel movement. The restoration of three examples of the G10 Fatboy spanning 1982 to 1984 are described here.