Lusserna for R.H. Macy & Co. - Lemania CH 27 C12 - Three-Register Chronograph - Telemeter and Tachymeter Dial - Circa 1943-1945

The full block of Manhattan between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, from 34th Street to 35th, has belonged to R.H. Macy and Co. since 1902. By the 1940s the building rising from that block was the largest store in the world, and the ninth floor sold houses, automobiles, and airplanes alongside the everyday goods that filled the lower levels. A successful physician, attorney, or engineer who walked into the watch counter on the main floor expected to find Swiss horology of a quality that matched the rest of the inventory, and Macy's had been delivering on that expectation since October 1914, when Gallet registered the Lifetime Series of high grade pocket watches produced exclusively for the store at the Electa workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Three decades later that tradition continued into the wristwatch era under a new name. Macy's called the program Lusserna, and the chronographs produced under it represent the apex of Swiss watchmaking at the time. They are sought after today across vintage chronograph collecting, and this example carries what is arguably one of the greatest grail movements in twentieth-century horology: the Lemania CH 27 C12.

What Albert Piguet completed at Lemania in 1942 was the most consequential chronograph movement of the twentieth century. Piguet had been working under SSIH, the Swiss watch consortium that united Omega, Tissot, and Lemania under a single technical roof, and his brief was to design a small, accurate, robust column-wheel chronograph that could be deployed across multiple brands and price points. The result was a 27mm caliber of such mechanical refinement that Omega adopted its three-register configuration as the Caliber 321 and fitted it to the Speedmaster, the watch NASA qualified for spaceflight in 1965 and the watch Buzz Aldrin wore onto the lunar surface in July 1969. The same architecture became the foundation of the Patek Philippe Reference 3970 perpetual calendar chronograph and the 5004 split-seconds, two of the most coveted complicated wristwatches ever produced. Vacheron Constantin built it into the caliber 1141. Breguet later fitted a tourbillon to a derivative. Lemania offered the CH 27 in two configurations: the two-register 17P with a seconds subdial and a 30-minute counter, and the three-register C12 with a 12-hour totalizer added to the layout. The C12 is the more sought after of the two, and it is the C12 that Omega selected as the basis for the 321.

The dial speaks to a use far removed from a Madison Avenue dinner party. Around the outer chapter ring runs a telemeter scale calibrated in miles, the BASE 1 MILE marking visible at the top, the graduation that allows the wearer to measure distance to a visible event by timing the gap between sight and sound. Inside that runs a tachymeter scale graduated from one hundred to six hundred, calibrated to calculate speed across a measured mile. Both scales are functional, both are period correct, and the combination on a single dial places this watch in the tradition of dual-purpose civilian chronographs built for engineers, journalists, military observers, and serious sportsmen. The cream surface has aged into the warm uneven ivory that only the passage of seventy years produces, deepening at the lower portion and around the registers. The three subdials sit in the classic Lemania 9-3-6 layout, a 60-minute counter at nine, a 30-minute counter at three, and running seconds at six, each carrying a fine concentric guilloché texture that catches light differently from the flat surrounding dial. Bold applied Arabic numerals at twelve, two, four, eight, and ten alternate with applied dart markers in matching gold tone. A gilt center chronograph hand sweeps above blued steel subdial hands, with LUSSERNA signed at the center beneath the twelve and SWISS printed at the bottom beneath the six.

The signatures continue inside. The movement plate is signed R.H. MACY & Co INC / 17 SEVENTEEN JEWELS / ADJUSTED THREE POSITIONS / SWISS, with the case serial 425697 engraved on the inner ring and the HXM import code that documents Macy's Swiss export designation across the program. The inner caseback is stamped ACIER INOXYDABLE / R.H. MACY & Co INC / SWISS / 170-1. Triple-signed examples were the standard for the Lusserna program at this level, a practice that documented quality and provenance at every layer of the watch and that few American retailers of the period went to the trouble of maintaining. The case is round stainless steel with straight, slightly stepped angular lugs that retain the form they left the Swiss factory with, neither polished nor reshaped. The crown sits at three with the start-stop pusher above and the reset pusher below, both unsigned and correct to the period. The watch is presented on a tan suede strap.

The watch has been fully serviced. The movement was completely disassembled, pivots cleaned with pegwood, the chronograph train and column wheel cleaned and inspected, all jewels oiled including the balance jewels, and the movement reassembled and regulated. The chronograph operates correctly, with start, stop, and reset all functioning as they should, and the watch is running well.

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.

Because this watch has been fully serviced, I provide a one-year limited warranty on the movement. If the movement develops a functional issue under normal use within one year of purchase, I will repair it at no cost for labor. This warranty does not cover anything related to the case, dial, hands, crystal, pushers, crown, bracelet, strap, or cosmetic condition, and it excludes any issue caused by external factors including but not limited to impact or dropping, case damage of any kind, shock, improper use, tampering or attempted repair by anyone other than me, water or moisture exposure, humidity, condensation, magnetism, corrosion, or loss of parts. Any shipping costs associated with warranty service are the buyer's responsibility unless otherwise agreed in writing.

All sales final.