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In the wild and wonderful world of vintage tool watches, there are the divers, the pilots, and the drivers. And then there’s this. This, the Wittnauer Pert-O-Graph, is something else entirely a cool and nerdy wrist-mounted computer for project managers, born out of the high-stakes technological race of the Cold War. It is, without question, one of the most esoteric and fascinating tool watches we’ve ever had the pleasure of offering.
The story here is absolutely incredible. Backed by the industrial might and engineering prowess of their partners at Longines, Wittnauer had a knack for producing highly specialized and unusual timepieces. The Pert-O-Graph is arguably their most niche creation. “PERT” stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique, a complex statistical method for project management developed by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s to coordinate the thousands of contractors working on the Polaris nuclear submarine program. This watch, with its unique graph-paper dial and specialized rotating bezel, was a mechanical calculator designed to help engineers and managers execute PERT calculations and estimate project timelines. It’s a relic of the atomic age, a tool born from the same intellectual milieu as the space race.
This particular example, a Reference 7005, is an especially rare and desirable variant of this already obscure model. While most watches carrying this reference were chronographs fitted with a more common slide-rule bezel, this is a much scarcer automatic, time-and-date version featuring the true “Pert-O-Graph” scale on its bezel. To advanced collectors, this is the one to have—the purest expression of this watch’s bizarre and brilliant purpose. The dial is a masterpiece of utilitarian design, with its crisp grid pattern, simple stick hands, and blocky applied markers providing a clear canvas for calculations.
A watch like this was a tool, and it was clearly used as one. Its condition tells the story of an interesting life, likely spent in an engineering office or a research lab. The original dial has developed a significant and honest patina, with spotting and warming that gives it an authentic vintage character. The bezel has softened with age and use, and the thick stainless steel case bears the marks of its service. This is not a safe queen; it is a true survivor, and its wear is an integral part of its immense appeal.
