It’s been a good while since I’ve written about a Wittnauer on the blog (8 years!), so let’s have a look at this vintage World-Time chronograph.
(Click pictures to enlarge)
Wittnauer was founded in New York in 1880 by Albert Wittnauer, selling Swiss watches imported for sale on the US market. The company’s fortunes ebbed and flowed over the years and Wittnauer was bought out several times by companies including Bulova, Hella Deltah and Westinghouse Electric Company. However, it’s their ownership by Longines between 1950 and 1969 that is the most recognised union and the one that gets mentioned when Wittnauer’s are advertised for sale, regardless of whether the watch was produced during that period or not.
Although Wittnauer produced some fine watches and co-branded some models with Longines, they were never held in as high regard as their Swiss counterpart. Even Wittnauer marketed their watches as being second best to Longines, which not something you could imagine anyone doing today – “Remember, being second best to Longines is far better than most anything else.”
One of the most recognisable vintage Wittnauer chronographs is the sibling of the watch in this post and is featured in the advert above, the Ref: 7004A. With its burgundy bezel and large size it’s a favourite with vintage chronograph collectors and demonstrates the similarity with Longines’ watches when compared with the Longines Ref: 7981-3 Skin Diver from the same period.
The 7004B World-Time is not as commonly seen as the 7004A chronograph though both watches were built around the same platform; a 40mm case fitted with a Landeron cal. 248 movement, a well respected vintage calibre used by many manufacturers during the 1960’s. (Later versions of the 7004A can also be found with a Valjoux cal. 7733.)
Also available in Wittnauer’s World-Time range was a simple 3-hander fitted with a city bezel.
The subject of this post arriving in running condition but needed a movement service and a couple of aesthetic issues addressing. Some chips needed polishing out of the crystal and the lume had deteriorated, especially on the dial where the hour markers were completely black.
Re-luming the hands and the hour markers with a vintage cream lume really freshened things up and with the movement serviced, the case cleaned and the crystal polished, the watch could be rebuilt.
With most World-Time or GMT watches having a dedicated (and sometimes independently settable) hand, you may be wondering how the city bezel works on these watches.
Using the picture above as an example, the bezel is rotated until a city in the current time zone is aligned with the hour hand, in the case above Buenos Aires. If the current time is 20:08, then the time in Paris is 01:08, Calcutta 06:08, Wellington 12:08 and so on…
Rich.
** Many thanks to Chris Chen for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **
