Universal Genève Tri-Compax - Original Dial - Full Calendar Chronograph - Late 1940s

In July of 1945, ten weeks after the fighting in Europe stopped, the men who had won the war gathered at a lakeside palace in Potsdam, outside the ruins of Berlin, to divide what it had left. Harry Truman, president for barely three months, sat between Churchill and Stalin as the three of them redrew the borders of a continent, and midway through the conference word reached him quietly that the bomb his country had tested in the New Mexico desert had worked. Throughout it he wore a Universal Genève Tri-Compax.

Universal Genève had unveiled it just the year before, at the Basel fair of 1944, to mark fifty years of watchmaking from its house on Geneva's Rue du Rhône, a few doors from Rolex and Patek Philippe. Nothing else the company put into series production carried more complication. A chronograph that also kept the full calendar, the day, the date, the month, and the phase of the moon, had always been built to order, one at a time. The Tri-Compax brought all of it into series production, and it stands today among the most sought-after vintage chronographs in the world. The watch here left Geneva late in the 1940s, still in the early form, flat rectangular pushers and a snap-on back, before the waterproof cases of the 1950s.

The whole calendar lives on the silvered dial. The day and the month sit in two small windows, and at twelve a slender hand tipped in red counts the date in a ring around the moon, whose gold face has faded. The three counters carry blued steel hands, dark and fine against the pale ground, and the applied numerals still catch the light. Around them, the silver has toned and freckled with age. Most Tri-Compax dials that surface today have been refinished. This dial is original.

Inside is Universal Genève's caliber 481, wound by hand, the chronograph commanded by a column wheel, the calendar stacked above it all. The bridges are gilt and signed.

The case is gold-plated, its back stainless steel. A domed acrylic crystal covers the dial. There are very small areas of plating loss on the lugs, and the case is otherwise in good condition, with the scratches typical of age. It comes on a brown leather strap that I cannot call original. 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.