Universal Genève Field Watch, c. 1938–1939

Dealer description — Analog/Shift

Universal Genève is a true vintage watch nerd's type of brand, and we're happy to see it's been growing in popularity and getting the recognition we feel it deserves. Dating back to 1894, Universal earned its reputation by building beautiful watches powered by their innovative in-house movements, rather than using off-the-shelf parts like many of their Swiss counterparts. They were an early pioneer of chronographs with their Compax line in the 30's and 40's, brought us the timeless Polerouter in the 1950's, and put the world's thinnest automatic movement into the stunning White Shadow in the 1960's. That's quite a track record, but there is so much more to UG than just those models: Indeed, some of their simple field watches offer incredible value and are beautiful to behold, to boot. Dating to circa 1938-1939, this UG Reference 7480 field watch is housed in a 32mm stainless steel ‘stepped’ case with an acrylic crystal, an unsigned crown, and a thick, smooth bezel. This attractive case houses a satin silver dial with a black outer railroad minutes track, a sub-seconds register at 6:00, Radium Arabic indices, and a matching blued-steel alpha handset. Powered by the manually-wound Universal Genève Calibre 262 movement, this military/field-style timepiece comes paired to an awesome brown ‘Bund’-style leather strap with a signed steel pin buckle. Small in size but big in character, this piece provides an excellent jumping-off place for the enterprising collector looking for something just a little bit different — especially a collector interested in military-style watches.