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The small winged hourglass almost gets lost among the squares. On this Longines waffle dial, the texture is the first thing we notice, but that applied emblem gives the surface a connection beyond decoration. The emblem stands above the patterned field, along with three applied Arabic numerals. Several scales of detail share a compact face: the little repeated squares, the raised markers and the broad frame around them.
Longines registered its name and winged-hourglass mark in Switzerland in 1889, then filed internationally under the Madrid Agreement in 1893. It was the registry’s fourteenth application. By the time WIPO told the story in 2005, the preceding thirteen had lapsed. We like finding that long paper trail represented by such a small part of the dial. This is a later rendering of the emblem, bringing the old mark into the same raised vocabulary as the numerals.
Longines used related waffle textures on round dress watches, too, paired with applied markers and subsidiary seconds. The treatment was not confined to a single square-case design. Here, though, its relationship to the case is particularly close. The tiny squares repeat the larger outline at a much smaller scale, while the broad facets around the dial give that detail a relatively plain border. We find the contrast more persuasive than ornament spread evenly over every surface.
The geometry is less strict than it first appears. A circular, concentrically detailed small-seconds register interrupts the square field at six. Applied Arabic numerals at twelve, three and nine have broad, expressive shapes, with flared markers between them and pointed dauphine-style hands above. The plain cartouche around the Longines name gives the eye somewhere to pause amid the relief. Its surface is busy, but its information is not: this remains a time-only dial, without a date aperture.
This example has a 27mm-wide, 10k gold-filled case measuring 38mm from lug to lug, framing an off-white dial with warm, uneven patina and a darker patch toward nine. A Swiss Longines manual-winding movement with seventeen jewels sits inside. The black leather strap has light contrast stitching and fits the 18mm lugs. Fine exterior marks accompany the case’s broad facets and compact shaped lugs, without competing with the dial’s more intricate surface.
We keep coming back to the difference between the regular waffle field and its irregular toning. The little squares repeat; their tones do not. Alongside the raised winged hourglass, that contrast gives this Longines waffle dial a character specific to the example, not just the pattern.
