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Vintage Universal Geneve

@ugchronic

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Universal Geneve enthusiast and collector.

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Some watches tell the time - this one tells a story. The Universal Genève Tri-Compax Ref. 881101/03 packs a chronograph, triple calendar and moonphase into one seriously cool vintage package.

With its blue-grey “exotic” dial, twisted lugs and hand-wound Calibre 281, it’s technical, elegant and just a little rebellious.

A watch that doesn’t shout, but definitely makes you look twice.

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A personal favorite: Universal Geneve 224106!

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Chocolat broad arrow 🤎

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5 years ago was our first conversation. We would banter about @universalgeneve @laventurewatches, tropical dials and overpriced watches. You even offered this on a trade in 2022 for another watch I had, silly me didn't take that trade. I hope your watching up there brother, I told you I'd own this watch someday! The 🐆 lives on ❤️ @the_patina_boy 😇
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Big thanks @preferablyfolded for letting this one go. I not only found the watch I'd been hunting for years, but created another wonderful friendship in the watch world 😎🤝
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#universalgeneve #thepatinaboy #polerouter #watcheswithpatina #wristshot

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Long before the Golden Ellipse became a household name for unusual shapes, Universal Genève was already playing with the same idea, and the Gilt Shadow is one of the most charming results.

Designed during Gérald Genta’s Universal Genève years, the Shadow line arrived in 1965, pairing a case that refuses to look ordinary with some seriously clever mechanics. The real party trick here is underneath: An ultra-slim Cal. 2-66 Microtor, one of the reasons these watches could stay so ridiculously thin.

And this example has the full 1960s package: Gold-plated steel, a matching integrated mesh bracelet and a wonderfully stark matte-black dial. The bracelet almost melts into the elliptical case, very much a product of its era, but still surprisingly fresh today.

Universal Genève really did have a thing for making the “other” watch the one collectors remember, and this Gilt Shadow is definitely no exception.

This amazing piece is available and comes backed with a 12 month warranty. For additional information, do not hesitate to reach out! Asking price: 2900 CHF negotiable.

#universalgeneve #ellipse #giltshadow #microtor #geraldgenta

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my rosey bracelet monster

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Disco! 🪩
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#universalgeneve #discovolante #womw #wristshot #vintagewatches

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Why I bought this watch… and it’s not just because I got pulled into another @subdialwatches drop 😂👀

#universalgeneve #nwa #vintagewatches #chronograph #goldwatches

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happy labor/polerouter/blue watch monday!

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In 1955, Universal Genève patented the Microtor, a half-moon rotor set into the plane of the movement, allowing for a slimmer automatic watch than the industry had ever seen. The challenge was explaining it: no one could see a rotor winding a mainspring through a closed case back.

The manufacture's answer was this piece: built for the 1958 Basel Fair, a skeletonized, electrically rotating enlargement of Caliber 215, standing roughly 51 cm tall. A motor housed in the base turns the entire plexiglass-mounted movement to simulate wrist motion, letting fairgoers watch the blue Microtor rotor wind the barrel, the escapement tick, and the balance oscillate in real time. Thanks to the @garajotajoel's video, the display can be seen in motion once again, for what may be the first time in decades, moving exactly as it did for fairgoers in Basel in 1958. That same year, it also toured to the Comptoir Suisse de Lausanne.

This particular example first came to light when it crossed the block at Antiquorum's 1994 "Universal Genève: 100 Years" auction, selling for CHF 37,950. From there, its trail went cold for decades, until, remarkably, a piece matching this exact description resurfaced at a small, little-known auction house, selling for roughly €25,000. An incredible journey, tracing this object from the world's most prominent stage for Universal Genève collecting to a quiet auction room decades later.

What makes this object truly important is not its rarity, but what it represents: it stands as a fascinating and direct embodiment of what the Microtor would go on to become for Universal Genève, the very technology that would define the manufacture's identity for decades to follow. To see it is to see the moment an idea was still being explained, not yet taken for granted, and to sense the confidence of a manufacture presenting what it clearly believed to be the future of automatic watchmaking.

(Credit: @garajotajoel , @antiquorum)

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Long life the King

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I think @universalgeneve did a good job with the contemporary re-issue of the Polerouter. But I’m happy to have a vintage one in my collection so I can keep my bank account reasonably safe for a little while… 🤓

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