Don't miss the next drop
The black military-dial Mido Multifort Super-Automatic is, in our opinion, one of the most quietly characterful entries in the entire 1940s Swiss bumper-automatic field. The Multifort line tends to be remembered for its catalog-of-features caseback and its silver and salmon dress configurations, so when a 24-hour military layout like this one turns up with its applied luminous Arabic numerals intact, its red inner track still legible, and its cathedral handset original, it stops reading as a Multifort variant and starts reading as the wartime tool watch the line was secretly built to be.
Mido was founded in Solothurn in 1918 by Georges Schaeren, and the Multifort collection launched in 1934 as the brand’s pitch for a single wristwatch that combined water resistance, shock protection, and anti-magnetic shielding in one accessible package. The naming itself was the marketing argument: multi for the layered features, fort for the toughness those features were supposed to deliver. By the early 1940s the Multifort had become Mido’s anchor reference, sold across European, South American, and US markets, and the wartime production years pushed the line toward exactly the kind of black-dial, full-Arabic, dual-track configuration this example carries.
The movement inside this Mido Multifort is the brand’s bumper automatic architecture, a 17-jewel self-winding caliber from the Multifort Super-Automatic 220 generation. For collectors new to bumpers, the construction is the entire point: instead of a full-circle rotor, a half-moon winding mass swings through a limited arc, striking spring-loaded buffers at each end of its travel and producing that distinctive gentle tap on the wrist that full-rotor automatics quietly engineered away. Open the back on this example and the mechanism reads exactly as it should, with MIDO stamped clearly across the main bridge, MADE IN SWITZERLAND curving along the upper edge of the plate, and the rectangular bumper mass tucked at the lower edge of the movement under its steel buffer springs. The wheel train and bridges carry the warm rose-copper finish typical of mid-century Mido work, and the visible jewel settings and bridge polish are appropriate for the caliber.
The case is a stainless steel round with downturned tapered lugs, presenting honest wear consistent with eighty-plus years on the wrist. The side profile shows the original brushed band finish under surface scratching that has accumulated across decades of use, and the lug shoulders retain their definition cleanly. The outer caseback is the Multifort signature feature: a radial layout of raised text declaring MIDO, MULTIFORT, AUTOMATIC, SWITZERLAND, WATERPROOF, IMPERMEABLE, ANTI-CHOC, and ANTIMAGNETIC around a central STAINLESS STEEL stamping, a complete catalog of every protective feature the line was engineered to advertise. Pop the back and the inside cover reads verbatim “BRIT. PAT. 485508 / Mido / LIMITED / SWITZERLAND / RUSTLESS STEEL / 687985”, with the British patent number tracing the case construction to the Borgel-family screw-back patent that Mido used through this period. The crown carries a crosshatched grip pattern and remains intact, unsigned and period-appropriate for the reference.
The dial is where this Multifort earns its place in the collection. The black surface has developed a beautifully granular, almost sandblasted texture from age, holding tremendous depth under different lighting without any indication of refinish work. The full-Arabic 1-through-12 hour ring is rendered in applied luminous numerals that have aged to a warm cream-yellow, and an inner 24-hour track of 13-through-24 numerals is printed in red around the dial center, giving the layout its unmistakable military legibility brief. The Mido script signature and block MULTIFORT text sit just below the 12 position, with SUPER AUTOMATIC printed in curved red lettering across the top of the sub-seconds register at 6 o’clock. MADE IN SWITZERLAND is printed in small text at the dial foot. The cathedral hour and minute hands retain their original luminous fill, now aged to match the markers in that wonderfully cohesive way that only time produces, and a slim yellow sub-seconds hand picks out the small register at 6 with welcome contrast against the dark dial. There is a visible hairline across the sub-seconds chapter ring and the red printing has softened in places, but the overall presentation is factory-original throughout, and the kind of character only a survivor dial of this vintage can deliver.
We are presenting this Mido Multifort on a tan leather strap, finished with a polished steel tang buckle, which lets the dial carry the entire visual weight without competing for attention. The combination of warm tan leather against the granular black dial and aged cream lume reads exactly the way a 1940s military-style Mido should on the wrist.
Serviced in-house at OTTUHR and backed by our 2-year mechanical warranty, this Mido Multifort Super-Automatic is a genuinely uncommon survivor for the collector who values a wartime-era bumper rotor and a full-Arabic 24-hour dial over the safer route of a more conventional silver-dialed example. To us, the combination of a complete catalog caseback, an honest granular black dial, and the tactile signature of a bumper movement is exactly the kind of package vintage Swiss collecting was invented to reward.
