Column-Wheel Chronograph

Most serious chronographs of this era were grand objects in gold, sized for the saloon rather than the field. This one is different: 41.2mm, bright chromed metal, a snap back, a watch made to be carried, used and read at speed.

The silvered dial does the work of three instruments at once. A thirty-minute recorder sits at twelve, running seconds at six, and around the edge run two printed scales, a blue tachymetre on Base 1000 and a red telemetre calibrated in kilometres, timed against blued leaf hands over bold Arabic numerals. Signed Ulysse Nardin, Le Locle & Genève, the printing is crisp and complete; the silver is toned and flecked with scattered dark spotting, heaviest over the two registers, the honest surface of an instrument that was carried and used rather than kept in a drawer.

Inside the back are the stamps of its journey: the Ulysse Nardin anchor, the country mark Suiza, and the code NOA, used exclusively on Ulysse Nardin pieces imported to the United States. A small stamp, and a documented transatlantic history.

Ulysse Nardin chronographs mostly survive in gold, larger and grander. A compact example in a working everyday case, its multi-scale dial intact and its chronograph healthy, is a much less common thing. The chronograph starts, stops and returns to zero with a clean, positive action, the minute recorder falling into line; the watch winds and sets positively, runs well, and the crystal is without a mark.

The movement, the marks and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the patent stamp and numbers are recorded in The Record.