Favre-Leuba Sea-Chief - The Second-Oldest Name in Watchmaking - Circa 1965

In the winter of 1737, snow closed the roads into Le Locle for months, and the farming families of that high Swiss valley spent the season indoors, making watch parts by lamplight until spring let them back into their fields.  One of those families was the Favres. That March Abraham Favre who was just 16 at the time finished his time as an apprentice with a master watchmaker and opened a workshop of his own. From that workshop grew a company the family would carry on for nearly two hundred and fifty years, father to son, eight generations of Favres, and in all of Swiss watchmaking only one name, Blancpain, is older.

By the 1960s the eighth generation of Favres was running the company, and they still worked the way Abraham had: they built their own movements. In 1962 the family patented a movement with two mainspring barrels instead of one, so that twin springs shared the work and the power stayed even across all fifty hours of the reserve.  They named it the Twin Power. The new movement went into the Sea models, the same line that had introduced the family's first modern caliber, and this Sea-Chief was built around in 1965.

The dial is matte black, and everything on it was put there to be read. Big triangles of lume, aged to the color of cream at the hours; white Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6, 9, and fine white hashes for the minutes. The hands carry the same aged lume. Beside Swiss Made at the bottom sit the two small T's for tritium, the mark that places the dial after 1963. The black has stayed deep on this dial.

Under the back is the caliber 253, wound by hand, seventeen jewels, its two barrels fully jeweled and set side by side. The Favre-Leuba and Twinpower names are stamped across its gilt bridges.

The case is polished steel, its slim lugs tapering to the strap, its screw back stamped with the family's hourglass emblem. The steel shows scratches from 50 years of wear. It comes on a new black leather strap with white stitching. The watch runs, and its service history is unknown.

Terms: Please review all photos carefully as they are a part of the listing. This is a vintage timepiece. Accuracy, power reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Vintage watches may require periodic service. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position.

All sales final.