Friday, 6 June 2025

Vintage Coka Cola watch from the 1950s

I love Cica Cola as a kid and I have been searching for vintage watch with Coca Cola logo for a while.. 

This rare Coca-Cola vintage mechanical hand wind watch made by Helbros from the 1950s is highly collectible among Coca Cola lovers and perfect for enthusiasts of Coca-Cola memorabilia. 

The watch features a red dial with no hour marks, housed in a nickel plated steel case with a fixed bezel. It is a casual style wristwatch for unisex adults, showcasing the iconic Coca-Cola brand plus a bottle of Coca Cola on the dial. Besides the logo, the sector dial further adds to its appeal. This unique timepiece is a valuable addition to any watch collection, especially for those who appreciate vintage pieces with historical significance. One would expect to see many of these mass watches around the market but strange enough, its like a hen's tooth.









This is another Coca Cola gold filled watch made by a more famous Universal Geneve which use the bumper automatic time piece. The dial is still clean for its age with the original "Coca Cola" dial.









From lug to lug this Universal Geneve case is 41mm long and wide less the crown it is 35mm. The case is a screw in back with a mirror finish. The case serial number is 9,961,1XX signed "Star Watch Case Company". 


The movement is a Universal Geneve in house caliber 139 and as mentioned it is a bumper automatic movement. There are 17 clean and inspected jewels to this gem and for sure keeps great time. Produced at the Universal Geneve Swiss factory in the year 1952.

It is interesting to note that during the early years, it used the Drink Coca Cola as its main logo while the later Coca Cola watches became Enjoy Coca Cola. The quality of the latter enjoy Coca Cola watches seemed to deteriorate using cheaper quartz movements.

I have seen three watches by Universal Geneve Coca Watches in the internet but it all belongs to the same watch owned by various owners in the past. There is another hand wind watch without the minute markers




This is another hand wind watch with a different movement.









There are also 25 years service Coca Cola watch as below :








Friday, 30 May 2025

Rolex Big Bubbleback ref 5031 from 1946-47

Of all the Rolex Big Bubbleback, my favourite is the Rolex 4467, 5030, 5031, 6031,5075 series, with the straight lugs that resemble the look of the normal Rolex Bubbleback. My first Rolex steel and gold bezel big Bubbleback ref 5031 was found in September 2007, another ref 4467 in solid gold in the year 2011. From then onwards, I have started to focus on collecting the Big Bubbleback series.

Fortunately, from 2007 till now, during the span of 18 years, I was able to find 4 references 5030/5031/6031/6075 from Hong Kong, USA, and Germany. The latest one is 18k rose gold 5030, all with the signature straight lugs.


Found. In year 2007

Rolex 6031 from Germany from April 2021

Ref 5075 April 2021

Rolex 5030 Jan 2025 comes with a nice Rolex American bracelet.

Last week, i was able to find one Rolex 5031. The watch was produced in 1947. It will fit nicely with the rest of his brothers in August when I am back Singapore for a short break.





















Friday, 23 May 2025

1940s Universal Genève Tri-Compax ref 12264

I have always long for a Tri-Compax even though my main focus in watch collection has not been on the Universal Geneve watches. Nevertheless, the Universal Geneve vintage watches has its own unique positioning and once in a while one can find some very unique Universal Geneve watches.

The Universal Genève Tri-Compax is one of the brand's most well respected models. For a company that marketed themselves as the “World’s largest maker of chronograph watches…” well into the 1960s, the Tri-Compax was truly Universal Genève’s crowning achievement, and a watch that was undeniably advanced for the time. It comes in stainless steel, gold filled, 1k gold and 18k gold.

The Tri-Compax, in general, is very well known to collectors for being an alternative to Patek Philippe, as both Universal Geneve and Patek were marketed and sold by Henri Stern in the US. 

For many years, the Tri-Compax has become one of the most collectable vintage models out there, loved for its complicated movement. It features a chronograph, a triple calendar and a moon phase, laid out in four subdials on the dial and powered by the in-house Universal Geneve Cal. 287 and 481. 

At 12 o’clock, It has a beautiful moon-phase window at 12 o'clock with a red calendar hand for the 31-day indication around the register and with the moonphase within. It also come with the chronograph minute and hour counter and running seconds beneath. Two apertures at 2 and 10 o’clock display the month and day respectively and it is topped off with a tachymeter scale.

The Tri-Compax model traces back to 1944, when it was shown at Baselworld to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. Considered tool watches in their day, these models gave the wearer calendar functions along with a chronograph to time anything up to 12 hours long. The hand wind movement inside is Universal Genève's column-wheel 17njewels, 18000A/h,44 hours power reserve caliber 481.


For ease of setting the calendar, the three corrector buttons are placed on the band of the case. The size is 34.5mm.

The reference 12264 example is an earlier example of the Tri-Compax, a model that Universal kept in the catalog in some form through the 1960s. What made this precious is due to the use of precious gold,  no pun intended. It has a 3 body 18k rose gold case with snap-on case back from case maker Marcel Pugin SA.

Condition is normally overall pretty rough for these earlier Tri-Compax models.  While this piece was after all considered as a sports watch in its day, without a water-resistant case and the utilitarian nature of the design, many examples of this watch dial can become quite tropical. With an attractive patina to the dial and a strong case, this watch presents extremely well for its age.

A common misconception is that the “Tri” refers to the three sub-dials when instead it refers to the three complications: moon-phase, calendar and chronograph. It was considered a highly complicated watch as a triple calendar chronograph--where day, date, and month, along with the shorter intervals of time that comprise them, are all displayed on the dial. The calibers used throughout the Tri-Compax line were UG Caliber 481, 287 and 281 which were supplied from Ebauches Martel and customized by Universal Geneve. 


The earliest iterations of the Tri-Compax, dating from the Mid 1940s, are an exercise in understated elegance and craftsmanship--and variety. All Tri-Compaxes from this period had rectangular pushers as above photo. Even within the same reference number there could be a panoply of dial and hand configurations. Those from the 1940s often featured luminescent Arabic numerals and hands for the steel series and raised markers for the gold editions. 

There is one feature that differentiates the earlier Tri Compax with the later 1960s versions. If one peered closely at the moon-phase, one could often see the face of the man in the moon (a feature which did not appear in all 1940s Tri-Compaxes, and which Universal Genève phased out in the late 1940s before discontinuing it altogether in the 1950s). 

When collecting the Universal Tri Compax watches, besides ensuring that all the functions are working, one needs to pay special attention to the originality of the dial as many have their dials repainted. 

I was fortunate to be able to find this watch. Originally, I was hesitant as the dial has aged. However, on second look, the dial actually begins to appeal to me as it has the marks of time and has turned into a nice bronze colour. Moreover, the watch is in solid 18k rose gold and it will not have the problem of corrosion. Getting the watch has brought back the joy in vintage watch collection as it is not about the resale values but the pure joy of finding these hidden treasures among the many watches available. Usually, such watches do not appear in the market often, which made it a great joy in finding! Moreover, since the watch is already more than 80 years and have gone through many hands, I have decided to send it for thorough servicing so that the watch can continue to last for another 100 years...




It has nice tapered lugs design



Besides the reference nos 12264, it has 12285, 12552,  12551, 12295, 12296, 18655 etc











About a year ago, Georges Kern, also known as the CEO of Breitling, made a resounding announcement for the watch community; the acquisition of historic brand Universal Genève and its planned return as a watchmaker in 2026.  Will we see a return of the Universal Geneve in a big wave?

https://coron.et/new-1minute-reads/origins-of-the-universal-genve-tri-compax


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Vintage Coka Cola watch from the 1950s

I love Cica Cola as a kid and I have been searching for vintage watch with Coca Cola logo for a while..  This rare Coca-Cola vintage mechani...

google.com, pub-9153422137839320, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0