The Movado Ermeto

Some watches are wound; this one is simply used. Every time it is opened to read the time and clicked shut again, the spring takes another breath, so a watch that travels in a pocket or a bag stays running for as long as it keeps being looked at.

This is the Movado Ermeto in its best specification: solid 18ct gold, made in the 1950s, 33 by 47mm closed, and 63.6 grams of metal. Both sliding covers are worked in fine barleycorn engine-turning inside polished bevelled borders, and a gold bail at one corner lets it hang from a chain or fob. Ermetos were the travelling watch of their era, sold through good jewellers to people who moved between hotels and sleeper trains, and gold examples like this one were the top of the range.

Slide the halves apart and the dial is a square of silvered ground signed Movado over Switzerland, with applied gold Arabic numerals at the quarters, faceted dart markers between them and faceted dauphine hands, ringed by a gold dot minute track. It is a clean, architectural face, and it has stayed that way: unspotted, with every numeral and marker in place, under a clear and undamaged crystal.

Condition is where most Ermetos fail. The engine-turning sits proud of the surface and wears flat with decades of handling, so most survivors are smooth where they should be crisp. Here the barleycorn is sharp across both faces, the bevels still catch the light, and there are no dents or rubbed-through areas.

The pleasure of the thing is in the action. The case slides open with a smooth, weighted resistance and shuts with a clean click, and the watch runs correctly from that motion alone. The self-winding case is set out in The Mechanism; the marks, the movement and the condition are in the drawers below.