1960s Longines Flagship Chronometer

Since the talk of and interest in chronometers seems to be very popular lately on the Longines sub-forum, I thought I would post a few pictures of the one that I acquired over the summer.

I purchased it back in August of last year from a seller on eBay in California for around $250. After reading some of the very interesting threads on Longines Chronometers here I decided to start searching for one for myself. I was surprised to find this one so reasonably priced, since they are typically in the $1000+ range. The only damage appears to be some wear to the markings on the outer case back and a few light spots to the dial.

It was quite exciting getting this watch as it's my first chronometer certified timepiece in my collection; although I do own a Hamilton 992B, which is a railroad grade pocket watch. Oddly, I was also excited about the crosshair dial, since I think those look really cool. The dial appears to be original to my eye, along with the original crown and unpolished stainless steel case.

It features the cal. 345 automatic movement with a date feature and sweep second. This movement is notable for having a large balance and the position of the movement being off-center in the case. Supposedly, the large balance lends itself to being more accurate. The only thing I don't like about the watch is that it's a real pain in the butt to set the date, as it's not a quickest date.

I sent the info to the Longines heritage department and they sent me back an "Extract from the Archives." Unfortunately, they were not able to confirm that it was indeed a certified chronometer, despite the printing on the dial. However, they confirmed that it was a Flagship ref. 3118 and was invoiced on March 23, 1966 to "the Swiss market."

Anyway, here are the pictures of the watch along with some dirty movement pics from the auction before it was serviced by my watchmaker.

That's awesome! You got a great deal on that one.

Thank you very much! These watches don't seem to come up for sale very often, as I imagine Longines didn't produce many of them to begin with. I was surprised no one jumped on it, but then again Longines makes for an excellent value when compared to Omega or Rolex.

Beutiful Longines😀 I find it curious though, that the rotor has the words "Grand Prize Automatic" which was a separate series of watches as far as I know...

Thank you! Yes, I thought that was strange too. Perhaps the rotor was a later replacement or it was a later version of the cal. 345. After looking at pictures of cal. 345 movements online there appears to be two versions of the rotor with one etched with "Longines Automatic" and another etched with "Longines Grand Prize Automatic," so there are examples of 1960s Flagships out there with that rotor. You are right that the Flagship and Grand Prize were two different lines of watches. Maybe someone can shed some light on this.