Split-Seconds Chronometre in Stainless Steel

The best documented of the observatory pieces in this collection. A split-seconds chronograph of 65.2mm in stainless steel, entered by Ulysse Nardin in the 1953 pocket-chronometer trials at Neuchâtel, and traceable from the competition bench to its first owner: the factory extract records that on 20 April 1954 the watch was delivered to Rodolfo Oscar Linke, a dealer in Genoa, one of only five of this calibre supplied to him. Few vintage watches of any kind carry paperwork that specific.

The movement is the spectacle. Ulysse Nardin's 24-ligne split-seconds calibre fills the case almost to its edge, and it is finished to be looked at: skeletonised steel bridges in black polish, gilt wheels, gold jewel settings, the clamps of the split-seconds mechanism visible at work around their column wheel. The serial is engraved on the movement and, unusually, printed into the small-seconds register of the dial itself, so case, dial and movement declare their partnership openly.

The dial is white grand feu enamel without a hairline, signed and marked Chronomètre, with bold black Breguet numerals, a thirty-minute recorder at twelve, running seconds at six carrying the serial, and a chapter divided to tenths of a second. The time is told by rose gold Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip; the two blued steel centre hands run, split and catch exactly as they should, and the watch winds, sets and runs well.

It comes with its original red leather travel case, worn at the edges and intact, and with the factory extract that names its trial, its régleur and its first buyer.

The marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the 1953 submission and the delivery record are set out in The Record.