Pierce Watch Co. - Calibre 134 - Chronograph - Black Gilt Dial - Large Screwback Case - Circa 1939-1945

By the 1920s, Pierce was one of the largest watchmakers in Biel, employing fifteen hundred people in a town of twenty-four thousand and operating a second factory in Moutier. When the Swiss movement supply consortium, Ebauches S.A., came calling and offered Pierce a place inside the cartel, Léon Lévy turned them down. He had built the company on independence, and joining meant surrendering the direction he intended to take it. The consortium's response was decisive. Pierce was blacklisted. No supplier within the cartel was permitted to sell them a movement, an ébauche, a balance, or a single component, and the most important watchmaker in Biel was forced to build every part of every watch entirely in-house. Most companies that small consortium members had blacklisted simply disappeared. Pierce did the opposite. Across the decades that followed, the company produced more than thirty in-house calibers, two of them chronographs, and in 1935 they filed a patent for something the cartel that had blacklisted them had not thought to invent: the world's first vertical chronograph clutch. Seiko adopted the principle for their first automatic chronograph in 1969. Patek Philippe built it into the modern movements that power their highest complicated chronographs. Vacheron Constantin and Breguet followed. The mechanism Pierce was forced to invent because no one would sell them an alternative is the same mechanism the most prestigious houses in Switzerland eventually built into their grail movements. Working examples of the Cal 134 are rare today. Examples carrying the black gilt dial in the larger screwback waterproof case are rarer still, and this is one of them.

The dial is among the most desirable Pierce ever produced. Gilt printing on lacquered black, a finishing process that was more expensive in its day and that ages with a depth and warmth no painted dial can match, sits at the top of the hierarchy collectors have built around the Cal 134, well above the cream and silver versions that populate most of the surviving market and a meaningful step above plain black painted dials in the same case. The gilt is everywhere worth looking. Around the outer chapter ring runs a tachymeter scale calibrated BASE 1000, graduated from one thousand down through the speed range in decreasing intervals, and inside it a telemeter scale running in the same direction, both rendered in gold against the deep matte black ground. The combination of the two scales is what Pierce marketed as a four-in-one watch when they sold it through retail channels in Europe and through military procurement on both sides of the Channel. The British government was among the most significant contractors for Pierce chronographs through the Second World War, and the Royal Air Force separately commissioned the Pierce Flight Calendar pilot's watch for service use. PIERCE / FAB. SUISSE is signed in gilt at the twelve, with CHRONOGRAPHE / WATERPROOF / NON-MAGNETIC printed in the middle band between the subdials. The two registers sit at twelve and six, the upper carrying the chronograph minute counter, the lower the running seconds. Bold gilt Arabic numerals ring the main chapter alongside gilt sword hands for the hours and minutes, and a red center chronograph second hand sweeps across the black with the kind of contrast only this dial configuration produces.

The case is the larger of the two configurations Pierce produced for the Cal 134 and the meaningfully scarcer one. The standard Pierce Cal 134 was housed in a snap-back case, the construction Pierce used for their volume production, and snap-back examples populate the surviving market in both Europe and North America. The screwback case carried the same Cal 134 movement but in a larger format and with the construction required to certify the watch to the waterproof and non-magnetic standard printed on the dial. The caseback is secured by six screws around the perimeter and stamped STAINLESS STEEL BACK / BREVETE S.G.D.G. / PATENTED / FOND ACIER INOXYDABLE, the construction that allowed Pierce to make the waterproof claim with the integrity to back it up. The open display caseback reveals the movement plate signed PIERCE WATCH CO. INC. / SWISS / 17 JEWELS SEVENTEEN, exactly as it left the Pierce factory in Biel.

The Cal 134 departs from conventional chronograph logic in one immediately felt way: the pushers are inverted. The reset sits at the top, the start-stop at the bottom, the arrangement Pierce collectors call the up-down configuration, a deliberate design choice that reversed the standard operating sequence and gave the watch one of the most distinctive profiles of any chronograph from the period. Three round pushers sit at two, three, and four o'clock, the center being the crown, all unsigned and all period correct to this reference. The stepped bezel rises from the case middle in a profile that was particular to Pierce's in-house case design, and the straight angular lugs extending from the lower case retain their original geometry without evidence of polishing. The watch is presented on a dark chocolate brown leather strap with natural stitching.

The watch has been fully serviced. The movement was completely disassembled, the vertical clutch friction disc inspected and replaced, pivots cleaned with pegwood, 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.