Don't miss the next drop
A 37.5mm dress watch from the 1950s is nearly a contradiction in terms, since most of its peers sat closer to 33, and the Tissot “Jumbo” ref 66718 is exactly that contradiction. The size is the easy part to notice. The harder part is what the dial declares, because the Antimagnetique is where Tissot staked an actual technical claim on the world rather than settling for the accessible Swiss workhorse most collectors picture when they hear the name today. In our opinion the 66718 is the most quietly confident way to own that history.
The Antimagnetique line is not heritage invented after the fact. In 1930 Tissot built what it presented as the first antimagnetic wristwatch, swapping the ferrous components most exposed to a magnetic field for non-magnetic alloys so the watch would keep time near the motors, generators, and telephone equipment that were quietly becoming part of daily life. The word printed under the signature on this dial, Antimagnetique, is that same claim carried forward into the 1950s, and it is a rare case of a vintage dial telling you exactly why the watch was built.
Behind the dial runs the Tissot caliber 27.2, a manual-wind movement our photographs show signed CHs TISSOT & FILS, SWISS across the bridge, with SIXTEEN JEWELS engraved alongside an A and R regulator index. It is an honest, well-finished center-seconds caliber from the era when Tissot still cut its own ebauches in Le Locle, and the serial reading 237199 on the bridge places this example comfortably in the late-1940s into the 1950s. The sweeping center seconds was the modern choice in this period, and it keeps the layout clean enough to let the numerals carry the whole design.
The case is stainless steel, and the inner caseback confirms it in period French, stamped FOND over ACIER INOXYDABLE over CHs TISSOT & FILS, the Tissot shield struck between them and the reference 66718 at the foot. It measures 37.5mm across, which is the whole argument for this watch: a 1950s Tissot dress piece almost never ran this large, and on the wrist the 66718 reads decades more contemporary than the calendar says it should. The polished steel carries hairlines across the band and the snap caseback, and the domed crystal shows the faint marks of a watch that was worn rather than shelved. We have left all of it as found.
The dial is the reason to stop. It has settled to a warm eggshell, gilt Arabic numerals running the full circle and rose-gilt leaf hands catching light against the matte field, the Tissot script and ANTIMAGNETIQUE printed beneath twelve and SWISS MADE at the foot. There is no lume here, correct for a dress watch of this vintage, and the printing has aged evenly into the surface rather than flaking, the kind of honest mellowing no refinish ever reproduces.
We have paired it on a grey-taupe textured leather strap with cream contrast stitching, closed on an OTTUHR signed buckle, a quiet stone tone that lets the warm dial do the talking without fighting it.
Serviced in-house at OTTUHR and backed by our 2-year mechanical warranty, the 66718 is for the collector who values a watch that earned its name over one that merely inherited a famous one. Understated, oversized for its era, and mechanically sound, it makes its case without raising its voice. To us, that is the most Tissot thing about it.
