vintage MOVADO Museum Watch c.1969—nice 14K case

Description: Offered for your consideration is a vintage MOVADO Museum Watch with manual wind movement in a 14K solid yellow gold snap-back case, manufactured c.1969. The famous Museum Watch began as the brainchild of Russian-born American industrial designer George Nathan Horwitt in 1947. He envisioned a clean black dial with simple circular marker at 12:00 evoking a sun dial at high noon, plus an hour and minute hand, but no second hand or other markers. Horwitt set out to find a company to manufacture the watch, but was unsuccessful for many years since it was viewed as too minimalist, too artsy, for the period. Finally securing a U.S. patent in 1958, Horwitt had three watches produced using Vacheron-Constantin white gold cases with thin lugs housing LeCoultre manual wind movements. The design met the approval of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which put one of those first three watches—a gift from Mr. Horwitt—on permanent exhibit in 1960. MOVADO soon expressed interest in producing the watch and entered a royalty agreement with Horwitt in 1962 allowing them to do so. The story is a quite a bit more involved than that, and the most authoritative source I’ve found that dispels all of the historical errors, conjecture, and plain nonsense on the topic can be found in an article at... fratellowatches.com/in-depth-researching-the-vintage-movado-museum-watch/If you haven’t already found it online, do so. It’s a good read. This Museum Watch features a MOVADO Cal. 352 manual wind 17 jewel movement which has a published 38-hour power reserve and was based on the ZENITH Cal. 1730. MOVADO and ZENITH had entered a partnership in the late 1960’s, so that explains changing to the Cal. 352 over the prior Universal Genève-based Cal. 246 used on the earliest Museum Watches. In addition, the 14K solid gold case measures 32.5mm wide (not including the original, MOVADO-signed crown) by 38mm lug-to-lug and has 18mm lug spacing for the strap. It appears the Museum Watch was a U.S.-only offering for most of the 1960’s, and the cases were made in America to partly negate import tariffs—a common practice at the time—then joined stateside with MOVADO movements shipped from Switzerland. And, unlike their later quartz models with flat sapphire crystals that were remarkably popular in the 1980’s-90’s, the early Museum Watch wore a tastefully domed acrylic crystal over its black enamel dial. So, have a look at my large photos and read the remaining description to decide if this splendid early MOVADO Museum Watch should join your collection. And, please pardon the glare and reflections in some of my photos. This is a very difficult watch to photograph, even with a really good camera. I took well over 100 pictures in order to present these 14 for your review. This MOVADO Museum Watch is in clean, very good condition. The 14K case has no dings or large scratches, just the typical light marks from sparing, careful wear. Most notably, there is a scratch on the side of one lug which is practically invisble in loupe-free real life (as opposed to being quite noticeable in a very enlarged photo), as pictured. Plus, the black, MOVADO SWISS-signed original dial is in great shape with no detractions or even miniscule debris noted. However, the dial is slightly misaligned to the left (as viewed) of dead center. Also, the black suede leather strap is a replacement from Glycine—another Swiss watch brand—and is in nice shape with only negligible wear. And, the crystal—which I believe to be original—is in great shape with no cracks or detractions, just some practically invisible hairlines, if any. I purchased this watch from the original owner who wore it for several years, then mainly relegated it to drawer storage for decades after falling for the simplicity of tuning fork and quartz timepieces. Accordingly, this 55 year-old MOVADO is very nicely preserved. It’s keeping good time for a vintage mechanical movement watch; within a minute or two daily. But, sometimes it is reluctant to start after winding and needs to be reset a few times to begin running. Since there is no second hand, you can't tell right away if it has started or not. Also, the crown feels stiff when advancing the hands and winding. I brought the watch to a respected local watchmaker since the crown would unscrew from the stem when advancing. He fixed the loose crown and also gave the crystal a quick polish to remove a faint door jamb scuff. I stayed there for the short procedure, using the opportunity to photograph the movement and inner caseback once he opened the case. The watchmaker told me that the movement is in need of lubrication, servicing essentially. This explains why it doesn't run reliably, and why the crown is harder to turn than it should be. But, I've decided to leave that work to the new owner’s discretion instead of adding extra cost to my asking price. As such, this watch needs to be serviced by a competent watchmaker in order to perform properly. The complete absence of hand-scribed markings on the inner caseback suggests this watch has never received a full service; probably not even a case polish! As pictured and described, this early manual wind MOVADO Museum Watch in 14K gold is offered to the discriminating collector at a competitive price. Terms of Sale: I encourage interested parties to ask any questions they may have about this listing before committing to purchase as there are no cancellations, returns, refunds, or claims considered. Payment is due at checkout by PayPal or other methods that eBay accepts. U.S. mailing addresses will pay $14.95 for very carefully packed shipping via U.S. Postal Service with tracking, delivery confirmation, and, of course, insurance. International purchases accepted only from those who are able to pay with PayPal or other methods that eBay accepts including shipping by fully insured U.S Postal Service First Class Parcel Air Mail. Thanks for looking!

Price: 849 USD

Location: Libertyville, Illinois

End Time: 2024-12-23T05:30:01.000Z

Shipping Cost: 14.95 USD