Bought a few months ago this "Formida" chronograph. Impossible to find any information anout this swiss brand. Any expert around there ?
What's inside? If we're guessing I'll say it's powered by a Landeron 148 or maybe a Venus 188 manual wind since they both were used in hundreds of brands. You could ask the Google about "formida chronograph" and sift through the links. Formida is probably just another of the small assemblers that were around in the 40's and 50's.
Thank you! and you are really an expert! Just went on Google and found a similar chrono with this comment: "A FORMIDA CHRONOGRAPH WRIST WATCH; champagne dial with two subsidiary dials on a manual 17 jewell Landeron movement in a gold plate case to a leather strap. C- 1950" Will try to find info about the history of the brand.
It's probably a "house brand" of a jeweler or department store from that time. Several million of these Landeron movements were made over 20+ years starting just after WWII. Many were put in extremely thin and hollow lugged gold cases like yours. The whole thing is held together by a secondary base metal case inside the gold case. There should be a dust cover underneath the gold caseback. Don't ever lose that inside cover. It holds the whole watch together. Properly serviced, the Landeron movements keep surprisingly good time. Here's mine: Hope this helps, gatorcpa