Horological Meandering

Tony C.
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Vintage Longines Chronometer report...

Here is some (updated) detail on an unusual vintage watch which I recently acquired.

It's a rare Longines manual-wind chronometer, cased in 18k yellow gold, and featuring a superb 17 jewel cal. 27 O S movement. The "27" refers to the dimension of the movement (27mm), the "O" denotes ore (i.e. gold), and the "S" denotes sweep second. The movement is a highly finished and adjusted version of the well-known cal. 12.68ZS workhorse. This particular movement dates to 1955, and, thanks to the helpful people at the Longines Museum, I can add that the watch itself was invoiced in October of 1959 to Longines' U.S. partner, Wittnauer.

Thanks to Bill (in Sacramento), who has access to a Swiss Watch Journal for the year in question, out of 73,000 overall, Longines received 73 chronometer certificates for wristwatches from St. Imier in 1955. This underscores just how few of these chronometers were produced by Longines.

I must say that as I purchased this watch from a foreign dealer, and had never seen such a model before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was confident in its originality, but as we all know, even the most accurate descriptions and photos are no substitute for a personal inspection. In this case, I am very happy to report that the watch has exceeded my expectations, and by a fair margin.

I had confidence that the movement would be superb – and it is. I haven't yet had it serviced, but it is still accurate to within five seconds a day. The winding action is impressively smooth and solid. But what has surprised and delighted me are the exceptionally fine aesthetic details. There is no doubt that given the relative exclusivity of the model, a great deal of care and effort went into the design of the case, dial, and markers.

The 18K yellow gold, screw back case is exceptionally well-executed, including an understated, very attractive beveled bezel, and distinctive faceted lugs which compliment the faceted 3, 6, 9, 12 hour markers beautifully. The silvered dial is a fine, simple design, which comes alive in good light due especially to the above-mentioned hour markers. The simple gold, baton hands suit the watch well. And as an interesting aside, you may notice in the photos that the second hand is discolored. This was actually rather typical of gold watches of the '50's and '60's, including some of the high-end brands. Having spoken to several knowledgeable people about the issue, the consensus seems to be that the second hands were often electro-plated, rather than being made of pure gold, hence the tendency to tarnish.

The watch is 36mm excluding the crown, but feels more substantial than many vintage watches of a similar size.

Whoever was responsible for the design of this watch knew quite a lot about jewelry. I say that because the faceting of gem stones is, of course, a crucial variable in bringing them to their full, light-catching potential. And while I have rarely given much thought to such nuances when buying or wearing vintage watches in the past, this one has opened my eyes to the importance of that particular art. The combination of the case metal – 18K gold – and the clever use of faceting on both the case and (four) hour markers, makes wearing and looking at this watch a real treat. Slight movements of the wrist change the lighting accents in both attractive and interesting ways. Unfortunately, even reasonably good photos can only hint at what one sees in person. Hopefully, though, you will get a feel for what I am referring to in the shots below. I will also try to take some others in the near future.

So, in summary, I feel quite lucky to have stumbled across such an unusual, fine, and beautiful Longines. The company obviously set out to make a statement with this model, and in my view they succeeded impressively. As to why there were not more produced, it is likely that the popularity of automatic watches was so overwhelming during that period, that even top-grade manual-wind watches were difficult to market successfully.

Regards,

Tony C.

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