Universal Geneve Polerouter Sub Green, 1960s

Dealer description — S.Song Watches

This, without doubt, is one of the rarest iterations of the Polerouter Sub. What grabs your attention immediately is the deep green bakelite bezel and only a handful of examples came with this colour. While it is popular to see black bezels, the rarer versions included a red or blue bezel. But green? Almost never seen. The Polerouter is one of Universal Geneve’s most iconic watches and the first Polerouters were designed by Gerald Genta, famed for designing the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and Patek Philippe Nautilus amongst others. The Polerouter Sub, a later evolution of the original dress watch, was made for diving and featured a much bulkier asymmetric case and was made for diving. There were many iterations of the Polerouter Sub and this version with its plastic bezel is one of the earlier versions, before they moved on to a different dial design and aluminium bezel. This example has certainly been used well with the entire watch showing wear and patina, but it is an honest piece with lots of character going for it. At the end of the day though, I keep going back to that green bezel. It has aged and developed a tone that is not so dissimilar to a British racing green and it is just so unusual for a watch of that era. This Polerouter Sub is powered by an in-house UG 1-69 micro-rotor movement and it is a really nice movement both architecturally and technically. It was very uncommon to see a movement with a micro-rotor back in the day and without the traditional big rotor getting in the way, you get to see the entire UG movement in all of its glory. On the wrist, this watch is paired with an original Mil-S-46383 Fabric Strap, most commonly seen on the wrists of US Navy Seals. This nicely complements the watch and adds to the overall utilitarian feel of this incredibly rare diving beauty.