Vacheron Constantin

It reads like a John le Carré novel but, instead of dissecting the story afterwards, we have an opportunity to follow along in real time as the plot twists and turns.  Who knows what the ending will be?  I don’t!

Out of the blue!

I really wasn’t prepared for the drama, it just kinda reached out and poked me in the eye.  Like many of you, I follow multiple platforms devoted to watches.  In May of this year I was awoken from the somnambulance of my routine rounds by an odd posting on a message board devoted to military watches.  The author launched an assault against the participants on another forum discussing a particularly notorious Vacheron & Constantin watch months earlier.  It began; “I can’t decide which bit of BS I like the best”, and ended with an invitation to a YouTube discussion between the OP and Vacheron Constantin’s Director of Heritage and Style, Christian Selmoni.  What an odd bit of self-promotion, I thought, and what was the real motivation behind this awkward thread?  Join along as I seek an answer.

A star is born.

Serial number 287275 is no stranger to V&C history nerds but is most commonly referred to as “the Wright Brothers watch”.  I’ve been fascinated by its story since first setting eyes on the watch in 2011 at the Maison.

To understand its evolution, we must journey back to the year 2003 and a supplement to a French watch magazine celebrating the centennial of aviation, as marked by the historic Wright Brothers flight of 1903.  Grégory Pons, a journalist for Business Montres & Joaillerie, was assembling a story to rebut claims which attributed the first pilots watch to Cartier and Santos-Dumont in 1906.  He travelled to Geneva and was invited into the museum of Vacheron Constantin where he was introduced to VC’s entry for the first known aviator’s wristwatch:

“It is a round wristwatch with the classic dimensions of pocket watches of the time, with a dial signed Vacheron Constantin and an unusually long strap.  Its movement numbered 287275 is also signed Vacheron Constantin.  In the records of the Maison, it is one of a series of five certified chronometer movements manufactured in 1890 by the Genevan Manufacture and sold the same year to Vacheron Constantin of New York.  These Swiss movements - powered by a Guillaume balance and equipped with a precision regulator - were purchased a few years later, in 1903, by J.C. Herkner, a Bavarian-born watchmaker based in Dayton, the Ohio town where the Wright brothers lived.  From here comes the mention “Specially adjusted for J-C Herkner by V&C”, a common practice at the time.”

This marked the first attempt to link the watch with the magical year of 1903.  Although no documentary evidence has yet surfaced to establish when the movement was purchased by Herkner, Pons would not be the last writer to invoke that date.  He next turned his attention to the case:

“Now let’s move on to the steel case with screw-down bezel and back.  As engraved on the bottom, it was made by the W.D. workshop, ie, Wright-Dayton, recorded then as a manufacture of bicycles.  We may date this case from the years 1903-1905.  Its screwed back bears the same number on the outside as that of the movement.  The flat mineral glass protects the dial and is intended to prevent reflections.  So, case and movement match: the Wright brothers naturally approached their neighbour and watchmaker J.C. Herkner to equip themselves with quality time instruments.  And he chose Vacheron Constantin, the European benchmark on the American market.”

And then the dial:  

“Examination of the dial confirms the authenticity of the whole.  Signature on white enamel: Vacheron & Constantin Geneve.  We note the small seconds in blued steel at 6 o’clock.  The arrangement of the numbers is not unusual: the 12h - 6h axis is perpendicular to the bracelet, unlike that used by pocket watches of the time.  This is the most logical way to read the time when the watch worn on the wrist with arm extended, or resting on the knee, as we shall see.  Already very readable, this dial is made even more functional by the diamond shape of the hands, which are covered in a red varnish.  We will find these details on future aviator’s wrist watches.”

The writer confronts the most distinctive aspect of the watch; its strap. 

“Confirmation of its sporting vocation, the leather strap is sewn directly onto handles machined into the steel case.  This is also totally unusual for the time and very innovative.  With this bracelet longer than average, it is possible to wear the watch on your wrist, over very thick clothing (winters are cold, even in North Carolina), or hand it around the thigh, just before the knee, which allows viewing at a glance, without releasing the stick that allows you to pilot the aircraft.  Wright Brothers anticipated what piloting would be like, even though their first flights were in the supine position: like the car, the airplane condemned traditional pocket watches.”

Pons recounts another Vacheron & Constantin watch awarded to (but not worn by) an aviation pioneer and the price it achieved at auction.  In what has become a familiar trope, the names of Fangio and Campbell were evoked to demonstrate the brand’s association with famous people and world records.

Cologni carries the ball.

A few years later, in 2005, Vacheron Constantin marked its 250th anniversary with the publication; Secrets of Vacheron Constantin, written by an acknowledged authority, Franco Cologni.  The book’s end flap introduces Cologni as the author of many works on the history of watchmaking and jewelry, including similar tomes on Cartier and Piaget.  I can complete Cologni’s background by also noting his Chairmanship of Vacheron Constantin and position on Richemont’s Board of Directors.

Turning to page 97, one is greeted with a full page image of the watch accompanied by the notation; “Aviator’s watch 1904. Conceived and designed by the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, this watch was equipped with a Vacheron Constantin chronometer movement.  It was worn on the thigh.”

Eventually the official discussion forum of Vacheron Constantin; The Hour Lounge, was recruited into the storyline, albeit in a more subdued manner.  A review of an exhibit at the Maison in 2009 titled; Vacheron Constantin and the American Market, included this timepiece: “1903: Aviator chronometer in steel with enamel dial.  Only the movement was sent to the US and was later cased.  The long strap enabled the watch to be worn on the thigh while flying as for the pilot not to take his hands off the instruments.”

A surprising revelation.

There followed a long gap in the narrative of 287275, enlivened occasionally with discussions among watch enthusiasts trying to sort out its veracity.  One such discussion in 2013 on the same military watch forum elicited this revelation by a well-known watch dealer and collector: 

“A colleague and I actually sold that watch to the VC museum.  It was originally found in a flea market in France.  We felt their claim to it being the Wright Brother’s watch was tenuous at best.

“So VC may have a good story, I don’t believe it.  We did get a nice modern VC in exchange and their coffee table book.  

“Their claim is that WD stood for Wright Dayton.  I guess that could be the case, but with a serial number and an arrow separating the letters and the history I have given, it just isn’t likely.”

The British are coming.

Fast forward seven years, to October of 2020, when the University of Oxford History of Science Museum opened an installation by the Institute for Digital Archaeology titled; Heartbeat of the City: 500 Years of Personal Time, sponsored in part by Vacheron Constantin.

On display from Vacheron Constantin’s collection was Exhibit #16; 

“Vacheron Constantin early aviation thigh-mounted flight navigation clock.  Steel-cased, 17j lever escapement watch with crown at 12 o’clock position - possibly a converted pocket watch - 44mm diameter, circa 1930.  During the early years of aviation, cockpit instrumentation was essentially non-existent.  To facilitate hands-free consultation of a pilot’s most crucial piece of air-navigation gear - a timepiece - watches were sometimes fitted with long straps and worn on the upper thigh.  The unusual crown arrangement here was either designed to improve comfort in use or might suggest that this watch was adapted from a pocket watch (or both).”

The Institute for Digital Archaeology’s online exhibit list fills out the description further with a bewildering mixture of the relevant, tangental and irrelevant.  

“Per Vacheron factory records, the watch was thereafter delivered in 1903 to retail jeweler J.C. Herkner in Grand Rapids, Michigan (via Vacheron’s agent in New York City).  The Herkner retail signature is decoratively engraved on the movement.  Not later than 1911 (on the basis of its military case engravings), the watch had acquired the present crude steel outer casing that enabled it to be worn on the wrist (over a heavy flight jacket) or on the thigh, and delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, UK.  The Wright Brothers, who were known to shop for luxury goods in Grand Rapids, and were acquainted with Herkner (a prominent Civil War veteran and civic leader), traveled multiple times to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) between 1907 and 1911, and presented officials there with various undocumented gifts as the Wright Brothers sought to sell their aircraft designs to the UK government.  The threads of the apparently home-made outer casing show a pitch and profile used only in the United States.  The Wright Brothers were skilled machinists who produced a wide range of threaded metal objects in their machine ship in Dayton, Ohio.  There is no evidence that any other early American aviation pioneers from the Grand Rapids area visited the RAE between 1903 (when Herkner received the watch) and 1911 (by which time it had become the property of the RAE).  During the early years of aviation, cockpit instrumentation was essentially non-existent.  To facilitate hands-free consultation of a pilot’s most crucial piece of air-navigation gear - a timepiece - watches were sometimes fitted with long straps and worn on the upper thigh.”

Vacheron Constantin enters the story - again

Vacheron Constantin supported its contribution to the Oxford exhibition with a media release titled; The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) and Vacheron Constantin Celebrate Time.  It was difficult to parse out a theme unifying the twelve watches of Vacheron Constantin’s line-up.  Did they represent 1,000 years of horology or 500 years of Swiss watchmaking, as declared?  I didn’t see it, but then who needs a reason to admire such beautiful creations.

Back to the story, I found mention of our watch in the release:

“Steel aviator’s watch, enamel dial - 1903.  The history of wristwatches often refers to watches worn by aviation pioneers and meeting their needs for particularly prominent time indications.  Vacheron Constantin played an important part in this evolution, particularly with this model of steel wristwatch with an extremely long leather strap serving to attach it to the thigh.  As a result, this model with a white enamel dial bearing a generously sized small seconds hand for the sake of legibility features laterally positioned lugs and a 12 o’clock crown.” 

Our story next travels back across the Atlantic to New York in January of 2021 and a YouTube presentation hosted by the Horological Society of New York.  “Journey Through the Secrets of Vacheron Constantin” was ostensibly in support of the opening of Vacheron Constantin’s newest retail outlet in the city and featured Christian Selmoni speaking with Roger Michel, Executive Director for the Institute of Digital Archaeology based in Oxford, UK.

A new player, but what’s the game?

At this point it should be evident that the gentleman from Oxford and the poster from the military watch forum are one and the same.  Although the Institute had only sprung into being in 2012, its well-pedigreed founder Roger Michel was connected and media savvy.

Our watch occupied 10 minutes of the script and Selmoni began the discussion:  

“We wanted to talk about some of the secrets of Vacheron Constantin, some of the mysteries, so let's talk about this mystery, I think it is a fascinating story.  This is an early aviator’s watch which is supposed to be from 1904.  It has been brought back to VC in the early 2000s.  This person didn’t know the story about this timepiece and so the VC heritage team bought the watch for our private collection.

“And what do our archives show?  The movement and dial were manufactured in 1890 and most probably shipped to New York.  That is what we know.

“Now the legend will start.  In 2003 a French journalist wrote an article on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of aviation, and in this article he was talking about this timepiece, saying that the movement was shipped to the USA and sent to a watchmaker in Dayton, Ohio.  You know in Dayton the Wright Brothers had a bicycle company and the journalist wrote that the Wright Brothers manufactured the case and that could be the reason why there is a WD on the back, meaning Wright Dayton.  And so this watch could be one of the very very very early watches to become an aviator’s watch.

“So that legend was, I have to say, adopted by the heritage team of VC twenty years ago partly because they love that story.  But I would say, to be very honest with you, when I joined the heritage department I said to myself sometimes it sounds like a fairy tale and what do we have in the archives?

“We made quite a lot of research and were not able to find any connection between New York, where we shipped the movement, and Dayton where the Wright Brothers were.  So its still a mystery.”

On cue Roger Michel, with the celebrity watch in hand, continued the dialogue.  

“I have a few little gifts for you.  I had some folks in our research department do some careful examination and some research and I’ll add these additional facts.

“On the bridge of the watch is inscribed; Specially Adjusted for J.A.C. Herkner, so there is no question it did end up with Herkner in Grand Rapids.

“We looked at the case very carefully, made of steel, and its engraved, as you say, on the back WD with the arrow symbol and then a repetition of the movement number on the back as well.

“This is how watches were marked by the War Department in the UK during the period roughly 1907-1908 and as late as 1915-1916 maybe 1917.

“One might conjecture the case was manufactured by the British at the same time it was engraved, but we had our expert folks here take a good look at the threads of the case and the threads are American-style, the so-called American Unified Coarse threads which were not in use in England at that time, they used the Whitworth thread in the UK at that time, so this was a watch case absolutely made in America.

“It has a screw back and a screw front, there is evidence of gutta percha seals around the hole through which the step projects.  This was a watch which was waterproofed, and of course the Wright Brothers aircraft, as all of these early aircraft, was absolutely open to the elements.”

Also helpful was a piece of documentary evidence flashed briefly on the screen; a scan of the original build ledger from the archives of Vacheron Constantin.  It recorded the production of six 19-ligne ebauches numbering 287274 to 279, and thus covering our 287275.  Work was completed in September of 1890 and all were shipped to New York in November of that year.

In questions following the main presentation, someone asked if the type of steel used for the aviator’s watch case was known.  Michel’s response illuminated his working theory:

“Yes we had a good look at the steel and its very poor quality steel so its highly contaminated which suggests two things.  One; its quite early, and we already knew that, so if indeed it was made in the Wright Brothers machine shop or a similar machine shop somewhere in the Grand Rapids area that would have been the kind of steel that would have been available to them.

My guess is that it was also scrap metal.  I mean, whats interesting about the case is that the style of this case, the idea of having lugs something like this that fit over a pocket watch, was not so uncommon and indeed we find a number of patents for stand-alone devices that you could simply put over a pocket watch and then wear it on your wrist or strap on your thigh.  This is something different, the early days of a fully bespoke case that’s threaded front and back in a very complicated way that I unfortunately can’t show you right now but I’d be happy, with Christian’s permission, to put something online later on.  It was machined-up from a solid piece of steel but, again, its early steel contaminated probably with a lot of magnesium.  Its already starting to pit in a number of places but, look, its a hundred and twenty years old and its still shiny and doing its job.  Its good enough, as they say.  It would have been the kind of steel the Wright Brothers would have used to make bicycles out of.”

Where are we now?

So we have come full circle, back to May of this year when my morning was jarred by Michel’s thread on the military watch forum, seemingly coming out of nowhere.  But now I see it as the point of a spear, launched into the air some twenty years earlier and still trying to find its target.

The watch is currently featured virtually at the New York boutique in a digital display of Vacheron Constantin’s history in the American market, where it is described thusly; “Aviator Watch.  In 1890, a 19” movement is sent to our New York agent, Ch. Léo Abry, who then produced an oversized box simplifying the way to read the time in flight.  It is probably one of the very first large wristwatches for aviators.  It can be attached to the thigh.”

A update to the story was postponed from June until mid-September when Michel promises he will have an event in New York where this watch will “heavily feature”.  As well, IDA’s installation at the Oxford Museum has been extended until October of 2021.  

This postponement was completely understandable since the Institute was preoccupied with another very important project; the discovery of an ancient shipwreck which may have similarities in size and construction to one which sank 900 years ago while ferrying the heir to the English throne from France.  The discovery was promoted alongside a book on the sinking written by Michel’s Oxford classmate, the Earl Spencer, brother to the late Princess Diana.  To the monarchy-obsessed British, this story held a major fascination and easily trumped our little watch.  If interested, you can order a copy from Spencer’s website, with personal dedication at no extra cost.

Leaving aside minor quibbles with the endless conjecture which has surrounded this watch since the Business Montres & Joaillerie story, especially that fetish for the year 1903, I am looking forward to any validation this watch was ever in the hands of the Wright Brothers.  Will the spear finally come to rest, its quarry pinned to the ground?  Sometime in September we should find out.

©Tick Talk

20 August 2021

PS: for those still with me, here is another Herkner V&C.  Founded in 1867 and still operating in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Joseph C. Herkner was one of hundreds of American private label jewellers supplied by Vacheron & Constantin.

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