Nicolet Chronograph - WWII Era - Landeron 39 Column-Wheel - Helbros Signed - Circa 1938

A museum-worthy Charles Nicolet chronograph built at the exact moment history was about to change. The movement inside, the Landeron 39 column-wheel chronograph, became one of the defining instruments of the Second World War. Landeron supplied this large movement to armies and air forces around the world, to pilots timing sorties, to officers measuring the distance to an unseen target by counting the seconds between a muzzle flash and its sound, to anyone whose job required precision under conditions where imprecision had life-changing consequences. This particular example was built somewhere between 1938 and 1940, a window that places it at the exact threshold of WWII.

Charles Nicolet had been making chronograph movements in Tramelan since 1919, building a factory whose entire output was organized around the complication. By the late 1930s his movements were crossing the Atlantic, where Helbros Watch Co., one of New York's established importers, received them and engraved their name onto the movement bridge and inner caseback before the watches entered the retail channel. This was standard in pre-war American watch trade: the Swiss maker built it, the American distributor owned the customer relationship, and both left their names where they felt they belonged.

The Landeron 39 is a rare movement. Estimates place total production at somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 units across its entire production life, compared to the three and a half million examples of the later cam-lever Landeron 48 that flooded the market from 1937 onward. The reason the 48 could be made in those numbers was precisely because it replaced the column wheel with a cheaper cam-lever actuating system designed to cut production time and cost. The 39 never made that compromise. Its traditional pillar wheel governs chronograph start, stop, and reset with a mechanical precision and a tactile directness that any collector who has operated both movements will recognize the moment they push the button. Open the caseback and the movement rewards your attention: the bridges carry a rich surface texture, and the wheels are finished in a warm rose-copper tone that reads almost like rose gold against the raw steel of the plate beneath them.

The dial is white beneath the aged crystal, but the unique organic crystal sitting over it casts a warm amber glow across the entire field that photographs read as golden champagne. In person you are seeing two layers simultaneously: the original white dial with its bold black Arabic numerals, running seconds at nine, thirty-minute counter at three, and red and orange tachymeter and telemeter scale around the outer chapter ring, filtered through more than eighty years of crystal patina. It is one of those accidental effects that no restorer could reproduce and no replacement crystal would preserve. The gold-toned hands are original and the warm aged lume is intact. Stainless steel case, Acier Inoxydable stamped on the outer caseback, case number 144, fixed bar lugs. The chronograph starts, stops, and resets correctly. The watch runs and would benefit from a service. Fitted on a burgundy NATO-style leather strap.

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.

I am happy to service any unserviced watch listed on the site — please inquire about service charges when purchasing.

All sales final.