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Two companies are named on the dial of this Wittnauer Revue. Wittnauer was the New York house that sold it; Revue was a brand of Gédéon Thommen’s watch factory in Waldenburg, Switzerland, which built movements for Wittnauer from the brand’s earliest years. That factory began as a civic rescue. In 1853 the town of Waldenburg founded a watchmaking company to answer high unemployment in its valley, and Thommen took it over in 1859 with a partner, Louis Tschopp, before running it alone from 1869.
The second name turns up again under the case back, boxed on the movement as 73 REVUE beside the WITTNAUER WATCH Co INC signature. Caliber 73 appeared in the mid-1940s as a shaped movement, a tonneau of 7.75 by 11 lignes made for a rectangular case rather than a round movement set inside one. Hand-wound, it drives a small seconds instead of a center hand, which gives the dial its second rectangle.
Wittnauer’s part was the selling. Its pitch from the start was a Swiss watch that Americans could afford, and in 1953 the company was still selling on it. A Christmas advertisement that year placed Wittnauer in the medium price range, from $37.50, and called it “dollar for dollar, the best and most beautiful watch you can buy.”
The design is Art Deco geometry worked out in a small space. The case has bowed sides, shaped lugs and a curved crystal, and the black dial repeats its rectangle twice, once in the minute border and again in the recessed square that holds the seconds. Gold-toned Arabic numerals and hands stand out against the black.
Made of 10k gold filled, the case measures 24mm wide and 36mm long, and the outside of its back is stamped 10 K GOLDFILLED L & K. Pale specks and a few lighter patches show across the dial and crystal, the gold-toned hands are mottled, and the case shows hairlines and small nicks. A black leather strap completes it.
On the underside of that back, the factory stamp sets NEW YORK, GENEVA and MONTREAL beneath the Wittnauer name: three cities for a watch whose dial already credits two companies.
