Horological Meandering

Rogi
1407

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Just last week at our watch club we were discussing Cortebert :D I love your pocket watch and what great family history to it :) here is some details about the brand and others that used it.

I know the the USSR bought the rights to produce Cortebert in Russia (even some of the machining), it is called Molnija (as pictured in your post) the interesting thing is they were still producing them up to 2010 in a way Cortebert lives on
In addition Mussolini bought Cotebert pocket watches for the railway and had them renamed Perseo (I believe the Cortebert factory named them such, I have the history somewhere in a railroad pamphlet but I can't find it, this is due to the facist ban on any foreign brand goods entering the country, but Cortebert was just that good and too enticing for Mussolini, whether they sold in Italy as Perseo to civillians I wouldn't be surprised, the best thing is that on some of these you can see Cortebert's Wheel and Wings logo hehehe.
The movement your grandfather's pocket watch has is the Cortebert 616 it is the best (by my opinion) of the movements they produced and certainly one that other producers and countries saw as exceptional. The most popular line was certainly the 600 series as listed in your chart,
The Chart you listed below may have an error as the 616/618 are practically interchangeable, I believe the 618 was provided for Rolex's use while the 616 was used in everything else. Although I love the brand I'm not too much of an expert on it but would love to add one, one day as it is a great movement and the spare parts will be available to service them for generations to come !