Gruen Doctor Watch

Without question the most iconic Art Deco Rolex is the Prince, universally celebrated for its unsurpassed quality and elegant style. Appropriately named, it was the perfect accompaniment for prominent doctor's, business financiers, or any man with discriminating personal taste in timepieces.

Made not only in the same factory as the Rolex Prince, but on the very same production lines was a virtually identical wristwatch, the Gruen Doctor watch.

For a number of years after the company's founding, Rolex had no manufacturing capability of its own so the company received it movements from Aegler, a superb Swiss watch manufacturer partially owned by Gruen, Rolex, and the Aegler family. 

Because of the large number of Aegler shares held by Rolex and the Gruen brothers, the full name of the manufacturer for a time was actually Aegler, Societe Anonyme, Fabrique des Montres Rolex and Gruen Guild A, translated "Aegler, Limited Company, Manufacturer of Watches for Rolex and Gruen Guild A". The Aegler family used their workshop to produce a large number of movements for Rolex, most notably for the Prince series, as well as for this special wristwatch sold by Gruen.

"Why was the identical watch sold as both a Rolex and a Gruen?" The answer is quite simple: when the watch hit the market in 1928, Rolex was still a London-based company selling almost exclusively in the British Empire and Europe. They had no distribution facilities in the United States, then as now, one of the largest markets in the world. 

Aegler had invented the watch and put time and money into it. They wanted to recoup their investment from as large a market as possible, and so Gruen was given the 'franchise' for the United States. These were the only markets anywhere in the world worth selling an expensive watch to." - Explanation courtesy of Hess & Dowling, The Best of Time - Rolex Wristwatches, an Unauthorized History.

This is a Vintage 1930s Gruen Duo Dial 14K Gold Filled Doctors Watch in 15 Jewels 877 Movement. 

Gruen created these classic collectible watches in the 1930’s, when they devised the ‘duo-plan’ Techno-Quadron movement, a movement that allowed the hands of the upper register to be attached above the crown, not in the center, thereby creating a large lower register to monitor seconds, a useful feature for taking pulse rates: thus, the ‘doctor’s watch’ nomenclature.