A 25-Year Service Gift, Dutch East Indies, 1953
Produced in the early-to-mid 1940s by Fabrique de montres Moeris of St-Imier, Switzerland, this open-face pocket watch was not sold through a jeweller or passed as a gift. It was a long-service award. The inscription on the inner caseback reads: KPM seal - DJAELAN / 1-6-1953 / 25 TAHUN. Twenty-five years of service. Dutch company, Indonesian employee, colonial era to post-independence.
The Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij - the Royal Dutch Packet Navigation Company - was founded in Amsterdam in 1888 and became the dominant inter-island shipping company of the Dutch East Indies. Its fleet connected hundreds of islands across an archipelago the size of Europe. On 1 June 1953, eight years after Indonesian independence and four years before KPM's fleet was nationalised by President Sukarno, the company presented this watch to DJAELAN for 25 years of service. He had started in approximately 1928, during the Dutch colonial era, and stayed through occupation, revolution, and independence - long enough for the company to mark it with silver.
The watch itself is a Moeris Calibre 17B: a 15-jewel manual-wind movement produced from around 1940, with a bimetallic screw balance, Breguet hairspring, and subsidiary seconds at 6 o'clock. It runs well. The 0.800 silver case is decorated with engine-turned guilloche on the outer caseback - concentric circles radiating from a central cartouche - and opens in two stages to reveal the movement, stamped MOERIS on the bridge. The dial carries gold-tone Arabic numerals, matching hands, and Swiss hallmarks confirm the silver: 0.800 fineness, crown export mark, and case maker punch.
Condition is honest: light age-related spotting on the cream dial, surface wear on the silver consistent with seventy-plus years. Nothing hidden. Documented provenance of this specificity - named recipient, exact date, identifiable company - is uncommon in the mid-century Swiss market.
