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In the golden age of mechanical watchmaking, before screens and notifications, the complication was king. Features that we now take for granted were once marvels of micro-engineering, and a watch that could tell you the day and date was a truly sophisticated and useful tool. Among the most romantic of these complications was the pointer date, and this stunning vintage Benrus is one of the most handsome examples we’ve come across.
Benrus, a legendary American watch company with deep Swiss manufacturing ties, was a master of delivering incredible style and quality to the post-war consumer. While they built their reputation on robust and reliable time-only watches, they would occasionally produce stunning, complicated pieces like this one to showcase their technical prowess and compete with the established Swiss houses. A pointer calendar watch like this was a significant and prestigious offering, a timepiece for a man of distinction in the late 1940s or 50s.
This particular Benrus, a Model CE 13, is an absolute gem. The silvered dial is a masterclass in balanced, legible design. Just below the 12 o’clock position sits a clean, crisp window displaying the day of the week. But the real star of the show is the pointer date complication. A fourth, blued-steel central hand, tipped with a jaunty red arrow, sweeps gracefully across the dial to indicate the date on a peripheral track. It’s a wonderfully mechanical and visually engaging way to display the information, and it has a level of old-world charm that a simple date window can’t match. All of this horological firepower is housed in a handsome, 10-karat rolled gold-plate case with bold, faceted lugs that give the watch a fantastic presence on the wrist.
