I realise that probably shouldn't have but I've just acquired this one (the price was low). Do I cut my losses or should I breathe some life into it? Crown is from out of space, not sure about the hands and the dial looks better under a loupe than in the pictures. Size is 33mm which I quite like (I happily wear a Wilhelmina, remember).



Full fat dial picture here:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1708375/TZ-UK/UG 283/Full-fat dial.jpg


Here's the extract from Sala


I promise to stay away from the gin next time.

 

Unfortunately, I believe that your example has been redialed. The printing is simply too inconsistent.

The example that you provided, from Sala, also appears to be a redial.

 

Clearly a period in UG's illustrious existence when infant school children were invited to print dials !

 

Simon, what are the signs you see that Sala's example is a redial?
Really, what a true minefield this is.
(apologies for the slight diversion from the OP.)
Best regards,
S

 

I do not profess to be an expert but to my eyes the "Geneve" spacing is too wide, and the sub dial printing is too thick and sloppy. Here is a slightly later(?) example for comparison.

 

A redial indeed... and gold hands should be with gold case, steel case having steel hands
What about engravings of serial and ref numbers? Look strange no?

 

The OP's watch is a redial (appears to be a service center redial), but the example from Sala is not.

Not necessarily. Gold markers on the dial = gold hands - even in a steel case.

 

A luminous dial would need luminous hands, and the sundial hands seem to be of different lengths.

 

Many thanks for the feedback, everyone.

 

How can an extract from the archives be a redial ? I tought that UG made the picture when the model was just manufactured

 

There were quite a few redials and poor examples shown in Sala.

 

I cannot contest this statement however the subdial printing simply looks off to me.

I also acknowledge that resolution, along with my lack of knowledge, is a limiting factor. It is difficult to be certain without the watch in hand.

 

There are many redial pictures in sala, this has been discussed several time here

 

I was aware of the discussion about the possibility of redials in Sala; obviously the art is in determining the specifics of which ones are and which ones aren't.

I'm curious about the reference to the term "service center redial". How would you define this as, being naive, I would have expected this to be a pukka UG dial albeit not the one that the watch left the factory with?

 

Firstly, I think it is important to note that inconsistencies are not always a mark of a re-dial. I've said this before, but it is not until the 50's that we see a greater level of consistency in dial making for all manufactures. Here is the world's most expensive time-only watch (made in the early 50's). Great and unique watch, but observe the quality of the font. Not the worst, but not the quality one would expect from Patek.

For a much more prolific company like Universal Geneve, it is understandable for similar or worse imperfections to occur more frequently.

To keep up with demand UG had to use many different case manufacturers, so it only makes sense to deduce that they had many different dial manufacturers as well. And just as there are varying degrees of quality with the cases, the same applies to dials - even more so. As a collector, a poorly made factory dial that bypassed quality control is not much better to me than a redial (e.g. Rolex "long E" dials), but I think it is important to make a distinction.

There certainly are a lot of examples of redials in Sala's book, but I would say that the Archive examples he obtained from UG should be infallible for the most part. There are some that I have examined with an eyebrow raised, but like @DirtyDozen12 mentions, the resolution makes them difficult to analyze. I have contacted UG about this matter a few times, but no answer as of yet. However, the above example from Sala does not have any signs of a refinished dial that I can observe.

The original manuals for watchmakers at the UG service centers instruct the watcmakers to refinish damaged dials instead of replacing them with new ones. The age of the dial and the UG spec fonts make me think that this redial, if it is indeed a redial, could only have been done by someone with the proper materials and tools. Although the off-center tachymeter/seconds scale and the crude-looking 'UNIVERSAL GENEVE' ultimately led me to call this one a redial, it is not so clear cut as one would think.

 

+1: I posed a similar question in another thread. A follow-up to Sala would indeed be handy, including a treatment of the three handers. Sounds like a very fun job. Who's up for it?

 

Many great points @jordn.

One thing to note is that the 'dedication' appears to have been printed post production as it is not in Patek's usual enamel (see the rest of the dial). This likely accounts for the uncharacteristic inconsistency.

 

I know, I've said it myself, I'm not takling about Sala's personal collection (1 per page), I'm talking about the "extract from the archives" reproduced in his book.

 

In my understanding, those extract from the archives in Sala didn't even come from the UG factory itself hence the poor examples shown.