Yea - the thing with Nina comes directly from a discussion I've had with Sala about the 60s and UG. Also given Universal's chaotic business history-
Here's from Sala on Nina- translated from Italian by google:
In 1961/62 UG had lost the Pont Martel factory, was in financial difficulties and did everything possible to get out of this situation.
To do this he used all the material he had in stock, combining it as best he could according to the needs.
It is no coincidence that many tricompaxes came out in that period, because they had many stocks of these movements that in that period
they were appreciated as now.
The much vaunted Nina Rindt, who now pay unjustified sums, is nothing more than the assembly of crates that had in stock
with a purchased Valjoux 72 inserted, as they had finished the movements for the Compax and also for the Uni-compax (Val.23)
Moreover, in that period all the watchmakers were going through a period of economic difficulty and were trying to overcome the crisis.
For this reason it is not possible for watches of that period to have certain references.
Universal in 60s was a business trying to survive the ups and downs of quickly changing industry and their sky-rocketing popularity at the same time. It leads to chaotic practices and some of the best watches ever made. But -to me- not all of them can be held under the microscope of today's collector with expectations of uniformity and predictability. They were a business trying to push product and stay afloat so if a handset fits the bill and it wasn't the handset that was used on the prior 100 watches of the same ref- so be it.
Everyone will have their own tolerance for what they are willing to accept. With UG- I've learned to give them some slack.
Click to expand...