Lets see your UG Tri-Compax

Eric Clapton is one of my favorite, honest example.

One of the first vintage watches I bought (in 1984). Sent to Geneva for service in 1986. Mostly in the drawer since...


Cheers from Old Europe
Richard

Very Nice! Reference #?

Cheers and have a good weekend

Richard

Nice, never seen a 22297/3 that looked like this! Happen to have pic of what it looked like before service? Curious to know what kind of work UG did, you might be the only one on this forum who has had UG service a vintage UG. Echoing other comments, more pics please !

@Burr
As far as I can remember, the watch looked the same before I had it sent in. I did not take any pics (all was analog then and no dumb or smart phone in ones pocket) before sending it in. And - unexperienced as I was at the time - I had complete confidence that they would do the right thing at UG. Experiences 15 to 20 years later, especially with Omega Bienne/Biel servicing my early Speedmasters, taught me a many extremely painful lessons to be more cautious in dealing with the "experts" from the original factories.
As you can see from the photo, with the Tri-Compax I worked through Beyer, established in Zurich in 1760 and they sent the watch on to UG, the UG invoice ran for 504 CHF and was sent from UG to Beyer on 04/25/1986. I picked up the serviced watch a month later on 05/29/1986. The watch was returned with the used parts in the small plastic bag pictured. The original crown had no branding and was replaced by a "U" signed one. The old hands were replaced (and returned too). The Beyer receipt mentions work on the dial too but I don't recall wether the dial was in any way different after the service. If it was exchanged for a service dial, the original one was not returned. Someone with more knowledge might me able to tell wether it is an original dial or not and I'd appreciate your take on it.

The watch is "buried" away and I will need a couple of days to dig it out and take more pics.
Cheers
Richard

I would appreciate any help I can get to sort this out!
Thanks in advance
Richard

At some point, Universal Geneve’s ownership changed (maybe a few times), and that’s when the more recent “U” logo was introduced - this is the “U” logo I see on your box so I think it is likely the watch was serviced by UG when ownership changed. This may explain the dial and handset that we are not used to seeing on this specific reference. This isn’t to say this watch never came with this dial/handset, its just something not in the documentation available to us to date. Typically we’ve seen this reference with lume plots by the indices, blue chronograph seconds hand, and the date numbers on a subdial at the top rather than painted directly onto the dial.

Either way, its a lovely watch and I would wear with pride 😀

Edit: the indices also look a little short to me, but not 100% sure on this.

Many thanks for your input. Upon revisiting the watch and the service documents, I realize that I had obviously consented to a "refurbishing" of the dial :-( . The original hands (with lume inserts on hour and minute hands) including the blue chrono hand and the red date hand and the crown show up amongst the returned parts. Any chance of sourcing an original dial?
Thanks again
Richard

@Burr, @brgisso, @Larry S: Thanks so much for your input. I am learning and appreciating your knowledge on these watches! Forums like this are so valuable for amateurs like me. I will take a high-res pic of the dial and post it here - just give me a few days. And I will put changing the hands back to original on my bucket list for 2022. With all the early Speedmasters and Autavias in my life I had almost forgotten about the beauty of this watch.
Cheers from Switzerland
Richard

In my ever continuous quest to learn more about UG and especially about Tri-Compax, I went through this entire thread with a lot of patience and oogling at every dial variation.

Very interesting discussions towards the end about the reference 22297 and its official (or authorised) redial as @Richard G has now revealed (based on his original instructions back when it was sent for service).

I was looking at another reference (not 22297 but 22493) from (infamous) STO here and even debated with some of you offline whether it was an original or a redial. The seller obviously referred to it NOS, but the similarity with the fonts of the numerals in the hour chrono register of both these dials suggests to me that when UG did a redial (or as they called it "refurbishing") they used a dial with slightly different fonts that's uniform (perhaps) for all such refurbishments. This is purely speculative on my part but that's what I think.

Pictures for comparison of the hour chrono registers of Richard's model with STO's model (again, not a Tri-Compax but a Compax).

Love to hear your thoughts...

And if the plot wasn't thick enough, a very reputed seller has just offered me a Tri-Compax without specifying model no, year etc. (that information is on it's way....)

Just an image for now. I can already see that the font of both the logo and the chrono registers of this model that's been offered to me is almost identical to that of the one that STO put up (not to mention the lack of red hands on the date register).

Again, love to hear your thoughts about whether these are all redials (if this is indeed a 22297, it might be a different reference?).

Just to reiterate, they (seller) haven't specified anything to me other than that this is a Tri-Compax (not called it original, etc.) but I am speculating this is a variation of the 22297.