Salmon Dial, Engraved Art Deco Steel Case

The salmon dial sets the character of the watch. Only the even hours are numbered, in black Art Deco numerals: 2, 4, 8, 10 and 12, with six given over to the seconds and batons running in from the railway track at the odd hours. It leaves a dial with more open colour than print, and the salmon carries evenly from the signature below twelve out to the edge of the track. The signature is in small serif capitals, a quieter letterform than the numerals, so the name sits back behind the hours.

The subsidiary seconds is sunk below the main surface and turned with concentric guilloché, so the same salmon takes the light differently there, a shade brighter and finely ringed. The hands are slim tapered batons in blued steel, and against the salmon they read almost black, which keeps the whole dial to two tones: salmon and black, nothing else competing with them.

The case is steel, and the front is kept spare: a wide polished bezel, a knurled crown and a square stirrup bow. The decoration is saved for the back. Over a ground of fine engine-turned lines, two stepped blocks are engraved and linked by ladder-ruled bars, a composition that runs from the upper left down to the lower edge. It uses the same vocabulary as the dial, blocks and bars where the front has numerals and batons, so the two sides of the watch read as one design.

The large case gives the dial room for that spacing. The design looks back to the 1930s: the even-hour layout, the railway track and the architectural back are all Art Deco, while the movement number places the watch itself in 1943. It is the style in its late form, carried into the war years and executed in steel.

Inside, the gilt Longines calibre 37.9 is in clean order, with its sunburst-finished winding wheels and capped balance, and the watch winds, sets and runs well. The case shows light, even wear from use, and the dial is clean.

The marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.