Uweco as Universal

berrychlossom

I was just browsing and came across a curious watch at Bernardini Milano.
https://www.bernardinimilano.com/collections/universal-geneve/products/univeral-geneve-compur

At first glance it looks like a nice compur but if you squint your eyes on the full resolution image you can see a faded much larger Uweco Geneve print on the dial.

I read a little bit about Uweco and correct me if I'm wrong, these were the more affordable offerings of Universal Geneve company with outsourced parts to keep costs down.

I don't see many of them, but I was wondering why someone would go through so much trouble to do something like this.

Color corrected to highlight the atrocity

Diabolik

Quite right, it is a lot of trouble to go through.

There are a lot of weird things about that dial and watch in general. The bleed into registers, the funny "Y" looking "V" in geneve, the quality of the print is not that great, the dial that seems a little too big for case (or maybe crystal is incorrect). The movement also looks a little dubious. The bridge seems to have undergone far more oxidation than the other parts. All in all, there are too many question marks and bottom line, in my opinion is that it did not start life as a UG but was later fiddled with ...

I am not implying that there is intent to deceive or that any of the changes were carried out by a highly reputed dealer (he may by as much in the dark as everyone else), but i do find it weird that all of the issues were missed when the watch was evaluated. Based on the fact that Bernardino's pricing carries a big markup I would say that a name changes with bits to support it would not be that costly considering the hike in price tag that the was would instantly gain.