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Jonatan
·The Japanese version is definitely a redial!
What? Universal signed Benrus Sky Chief? Universal signed Martel movement??
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Foo2rama
··Nowhere near as grumpy as he used to be...I disagree due to Occams razor...
First on the OP watch we cannot see the dial in enough detail to see if the paint matches or not.
Second no way this was an in period redial, as the 4 minute markers would have been pulled, it was an old way of checking wind at airports for pilots that was already on its way out in the 40's.
Third, why would someone do a redial to match an obscure watch posted on ebay 2 years ago? Or redial one 40 years ago to match a watch that odds are they had never seen, why not redial it like the an easy to source one?
It makes more sense that these are very early Sky Chiefs models, maybe even sales/marketing models. Sky Chiefs where sold to airlines esp early in production these could be samples taken around to airlines, where universal was a stand in for the Airline name. Or as the Japanese website claims universal was a subbrand for Benrus that never took off. At this point I have another theory below, that makes the most sense.
Everything just seems ro makes more sense then 2 redials being identical and both have no logic as to why they have been redialed that way.
Lets look a little deeper... The skychief came in 3 movements a Venus 178 and Valjoux 71 and 72. The movement in both of these watches match and is not any of those 3. But it does appear to be a Universal 281, hmm the plot thickens....
So again I will ask how did 2 watches that are identical in every way show up while one is an original dial and one is a redial? Or how does one have a higher quality dial and one a lower quality one.
Universal made watches for a bunch of people it is possible that these are production test models for a watch that never was ordered by Benrus from Universal? They had problems getting the Venus Movements as they where going to Navitimers, perhaps one of the bids was to Universal and these are 2 sample watches from Universal, for some reason made Benrus went with Valjoux instead, maybe so they could leverage their own existing factories instead of having Universal do final assembly. Perhaps these are the very first iterations of the Sky Chief that was never put into production and they ended up with Venus and Valjoux movements instead.
On a positive note, it is pretty plain to see why it says Universal on the dial now. You can also argue that these are not fakes at this point either.
Thanks guys 4 hours going down this rabbit hole....
First on the OP watch we cannot see the dial in enough detail to see if the paint matches or not.
Second no way this was an in period redial, as the 4 minute markers would have been pulled, it was an old way of checking wind at airports for pilots that was already on its way out in the 40's.
Third, why would someone do a redial to match an obscure watch posted on ebay 2 years ago? Or redial one 40 years ago to match a watch that odds are they had never seen, why not redial it like the an easy to source one?
It makes more sense that these are very early Sky Chiefs models, maybe even sales/marketing models. Sky Chiefs where sold to airlines esp early in production these could be samples taken around to airlines, where universal was a stand in for the Airline name. Or as the Japanese website claims universal was a subbrand for Benrus that never took off. At this point I have another theory below, that makes the most sense.
Everything just seems ro makes more sense then 2 redials being identical and both have no logic as to why they have been redialed that way.
Lets look a little deeper... The skychief came in 3 movements a Venus 178 and Valjoux 71 and 72. The movement in both of these watches match and is not any of those 3. But it does appear to be a Universal 281, hmm the plot thickens....
So again I will ask how did 2 watches that are identical in every way show up while one is an original dial and one is a redial? Or how does one have a higher quality dial and one a lower quality one.
Universal made watches for a bunch of people it is possible that these are production test models for a watch that never was ordered by Benrus from Universal? They had problems getting the Venus Movements as they where going to Navitimers, perhaps one of the bids was to Universal and these are 2 sample watches from Universal, for some reason made Benrus went with Valjoux instead, maybe so they could leverage their own existing factories instead of having Universal do final assembly. Perhaps these are the very first iterations of the Sky Chief that was never put into production and they ended up with Venus and Valjoux movements instead.
On a positive note, it is pretty plain to see why it says Universal on the dial now. You can also argue that these are not fakes at this point either.
Thanks guys 4 hours going down this rabbit hole....
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Jonatan
·They are all very plausible hypothesis, and I don't think anyone is saying that it's a fake. But if you compare these dials with the other, there is no doubt that the Japanese watch was redialed. The watches are both probably real but the Japanese one has been redialed. The picture is not clear enough to tell if the other watch has also been redialed.
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Foo2rama
··Nowhere near as grumpy as he used to be...Obviously they are different fonts and styles then the Sky Chiefs with valjous movements. The Benrus font does match though.
Don't compare them to the normal ones you see. These have to be evaluated differently then others. I think the data leads to these being prototype watches for a watch that never got made IE a 281 powered Skychief. There is simply no reason why you would take 2 Universals and fake 2 Benrus watches.
Again Occams Razor
Don't compare them to the normal ones you see. These have to be evaluated differently then others. I think the data leads to these being prototype watches for a watch that never got made IE a 281 powered Skychief. There is simply no reason why you would take 2 Universals and fake 2 Benrus watches.
Again Occams Razor
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Jonatan
·Again no one is saying that the watches are fake. Unless Benrus or Universal hired
If these are very rare prototypes or special edition watches that never made it to market. How do you sell a dial made by someone with Parkinsons that has had 5 liters of coffee? You probably want to make the cleanest dial, which means if it's Benrus that made these watches the dial should be very similar to the Benrus Sky Chief and the UNIVERSAL could be slightly different. Looking at the numbers, you see hesitation everywhere, and the sub second dial is off center. I'm not in marketing but still...
If these are very rare prototypes or special edition watches that never made it to market. How do you sell a dial made by someone with Parkinsons that has had 5 liters of coffee? You probably want to make the cleanest dial, which means if it's Benrus that made these watches the dial should be very similar to the Benrus Sky Chief and the UNIVERSAL could be slightly different. Looking at the numbers, you see hesitation everywhere, and the sub second dial is off center. I'm not in marketing but still...
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10H10
·How are they not the same watch variant? I never said they are the actual same watch.
There is no way that these 2 have the exact same redial, and whoever redialed it would do a bunch of odd things to it. I really think these are 2 examples of a really early Sky Chief. No one in their right mind would have copied over the 4 minute hashmarks on the chrono minute if they redialed it and put Universal on it to make it look more expensive.
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ELV web
·Obviously they are different fonts and styles then the Sky Chiefs with valjous movements. The Benrus font does match though.
Don't compare them to the normal ones you see. These have to be evaluated differently then others. I think the data leads to these being prototype watches for a watch that never got made IE a 281 powered Skychief. There is simply no reason why you would take 2 Universals and fake 2 Benrus watches.
Again Occams Razor
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Farfo
·
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Jonatan
·We will take any pictures you can give us. Inside and out.
Did you buy the watch or were you the seller?
Did you buy the watch or were you the seller?
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Dre
·I came across this post while doing some research today on a totally different topic and realized that I own the watch from the OP. So, I joined the forum and am posting a larger, clearer photo. Let me know if you need more photos.
Hi, John from Farfo is it? a photo of the case back and the inside case back would be great!
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pitpro
·Welcome!!
I have been on your site many times.
You've been in business a long time.
I have been on your site many times.
You've been in business a long time.
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Farfo
·Yes, It's John from farfo.com. I purchased the watch two years ago. It will take me a little time to get it out of storage but I will post photos asap.
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Farfo
·Here are a few more photographs.
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LouS
··Mrs Nataf's Other SonTerrific pics, John. Thanks for posting them. I think we can add Benrus to the list of companies to which Universal provided chronographs.
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Farfo
·
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Mlafra
·Very intersting post! I just read it all.
The (UG) serial number on the back of John's watch (722194) dates it pretty much to 1938/1939 which is also the date engraved on the back of the watch on the Japanese site. Now, to the best of my knowledge the Sky Chief is a watch that first entered the market in the 40s, and I think the common knowledge is that it was first produced with the Venus 178 movement and then with Valjoux (71 and 72) (I sourced this from various articles you can find on the web). Hence this version equipped with the UG/Martel caliber must be even earlier and a sort of prototype that at the end was not chosen by Benrus, who probably preferred the different route to assemble the watch itself from swiss parts as oppose to have it imported pre-assembled by Universal.
But it is undeniable that this UG version of the Sky Chief poses a striking resemblance with the Valjoux 71 powered version: both white/silver dial with arabic non-luminous numerals, both with blue stick hands and central red chrono hand, pretty similar style/font and perhaps most importantly both with a rotating bezel with a pointer. To me this must be more than a coincidence....
But then this poses the following question: can it be that actaully the first "official" non-prototype version of the Benrus Sky Chief is the one with the Valjoux 71 movement and that the ones with black dial and powered by the Venus 178 and Valjoux 72 movement are in fact later?
Does anyone know why it was concluded that the first version of the Sky Chief had the Venus 178 inside as oppose to the Valjoux 71/72?
The (UG) serial number on the back of John's watch (722194) dates it pretty much to 1938/1939 which is also the date engraved on the back of the watch on the Japanese site. Now, to the best of my knowledge the Sky Chief is a watch that first entered the market in the 40s, and I think the common knowledge is that it was first produced with the Venus 178 movement and then with Valjoux (71 and 72) (I sourced this from various articles you can find on the web). Hence this version equipped with the UG/Martel caliber must be even earlier and a sort of prototype that at the end was not chosen by Benrus, who probably preferred the different route to assemble the watch itself from swiss parts as oppose to have it imported pre-assembled by Universal.
But it is undeniable that this UG version of the Sky Chief poses a striking resemblance with the Valjoux 71 powered version: both white/silver dial with arabic non-luminous numerals, both with blue stick hands and central red chrono hand, pretty similar style/font and perhaps most importantly both with a rotating bezel with a pointer. To me this must be more than a coincidence....
But then this poses the following question: can it be that actaully the first "official" non-prototype version of the Benrus Sky Chief is the one with the Valjoux 71 movement and that the ones with black dial and powered by the Venus 178 and Valjoux 72 movement are in fact later?
Does anyone know why it was concluded that the first version of the Sky Chief had the Venus 178 inside as oppose to the Valjoux 71/72?
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Mark020
··not the sharpest pencil in the ΩF drawerDigging up an old thread. In the meantime another one emerged. Serial close!
https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/benrus-ref-22201-sky-chief-lot-321-446
https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/benrus-ref-22201-sky-chief-lot-321-446
