I picked this up recently; it was badly spelled with poor pictures and generally undersold. I thought the price reasonable and I was the only bidder.




Although the pictures were poor it was possible to see the patina on the dial; it was clear that the watch needed a new crystal and I was never under the impression that the crystal was the sole source of marks. I would say that the dial patination and some of the other general crud indicates that this was worn primarily by a smoker, probably on their left wrist. This is the only hallmark that I can find on the case:

A bit of digging tells me that the mark with the number in is called a Poinçon de Maître and I understand was only used for precious metals. 128 tells me that the case was made in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Jung & Cie. There is no Helvetia head or Squirrel but neither is there anything for the relatively lately introduced Swiss version of 9ct. That begs the first question as to whether I can assume that the case is 18, 14 or 9 carat. Many thanks to David Boettcher for his extremely useful pages on Swiss hallmarks (and everything else).
http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/swisspdm.php

One course of action is to get a watchmaker to attempt a very gentle dial clean; I imagine this will have one of three outcomes: Success, removal of practically no patination or disaster. The other course of action I will continue to explore concurrently will be a loose dial - this is unlikely to be the only 1105 in a gold case and it's very likely that some have been scrapped. My investigation of this option led me to the Cousins website (a UK watch and jewellery wholesaler) and I was surprised to see that they hold some documentation on a number of Universal calibres. The documents are here and I believe that you will need to create a website account to get the PDFs:
https://www.cousinsuk.com/document/category/universal-geneve-movement-parts
It's a very useful resource.
The PDF (in my Dropbox account) for the 1105 is here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...niversal Geneve/1643_Universal 1005, 1005.pdf
And here is an extract of the movement pictures:

It's useful to know that a dial for a calibre 1005 may fit as well but this brings me to my next question; can somebody indicate on the dial-side picture above where the indents for the dial feet are? Loose dials often don't have the original calibres recorded as they've been separated some time in the past (and mercifully loose dials are often sold with their movement still attached). I'd be happy to take a punt on a loose dial if I could make a reasonable guess that the dial feet are probably alright. I appreciate that I can have the watchmaker take off the existing dial and send me a photograph but I'd prefer this went to a watchmaker just the once. My likely course of action is to send it off once I have a likely spare and get the watchmaker to explore all options

 

A bit difficult to see, but doesn't it say "375" here? That would make it 9KT:

 

Thank you - I couldn't see that properly. I've now taken this with a different camera and also with the benefit of some adjustment with Lightroom (I was on the road when I took the other photos).



9 carat with a London hallmark from 1960 which matches the watches serial number.

 

According to David Boettcher, yes. He even refers to examples of some cases being sent to the UK for assaying and then returned to Switzerland to have the movements fitted. The latter would be a significant minority, I believe.
http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/blogfwbh.php

 

An update on this one. I've picked up a few loose dials over time and one was specifically advertised as, possibly, being for a calibre 1105. Anyway, it fits and it has also been serviced.


Not exactly the same dial/logo iteration but I'm happy with it. The watch was keeping reasonably good time but it appears that this was in spite of the mainspring rather than because of it.



Thanks Rob. (Horlogerie)

 

Case number is 811201 1, so the number 8 is for 9kt gold cases, never realised this before. I like the new dial, nice and minimal.