Why We Love It

This is something very, very special. And you don't need to be a collector to know it. 

The year is 1950, it's the post war era and the mood is at its brightest and so is fashion. Men start using wristwatches to have the time on their wrist and tend to go for more precious metals. Dress watches become quite common and it's a must have on the aristocracy's wrist. 

This Gorgeous Universal Genève is one of them and is an excellent example of the capabilities that the brand had been so focused on honing. starting with the elegant 36mm case with gently sloping straight lugs to the sloping two-tone dial with applied Arabic markers and hour indices, this piece simple vibrates with superlative craftsmanship and design, and in its current (read: immaculate) condition.

The Story

Universal Genève produced some of the most interesting timepieces of the post-war Golden Age with build quality that rivaled the big Swiss manufactures.   

From humble beginnings as a contract manufacture, Universal Genève grew in the post-war years to become a small but leading quality manufacture of chronographs and calendar complication peaking with small runs of high-quality sporting chronographs in the 1960s and 70s.  

Those early years, especially the late 1940s and early 50s, are when Universal Genève tested itself and its limits, producing more self-branded pieces and experimenting with various dial, case and movement designs. The result was an era of superlatively constructed watches that offer as much insight into the brand's technical ability to manufacture as it does it's desire to craft beautiful timepieces.