MADE IN: ZENITH SWISS
CIRCA: 1960's
MODEL: RETRO DRESS
CRYSTAL: MINERAL
MOVEMENT: ZENITH/MOVADO 7 JEWELS HIGH GRADE QUARTZ MOVEMENT CAL. 11-7
DIAL COLOR: TROPICAL BLACK
FUNCTION: DRESS RETRO WATCH HOUR, MINUTE AND DATE AT 3:00
HANDS: GOLD TONE
MARKERS: RAISED GOLD TONE BATON MARKERS
CASING : GOLD PLATED BEZEL AND STAINLESS STEEL BACK
LUGS: 18mm
MEASUREMENT: 28mm DIAMETER EXCLUDING CROWN and 33mm LUG TO LUG
BACKCASE MARKING: ZENITH LOGO/ S/No. 27.1570.116
CROWN: ORIGINAL ZENITH GP CROWN
STRAP: ORIGINAL/GENUINE ZENITH BLACK LIZARD LEATHER BAND WITH ZENITH BUCKLE
STRAP SIZE: 7..5"
GOOD CONDITION, KEEPING TIME AND RARE FIND. NO B9X NO PAPER BUT GUARANTEED AUTHENTIC
PRICE: USD499(NEGOTIABLE)
Zenith was founded in 1865 in Le Locle, Switzerland by a 22-year-old clockmaker named Georges Favre-Jacot. Unlike competitors at the time, Zenith made its own movements. By 1875, Zenith employed almost a third of the town’s population to manufacture its pocket watches.
Acclaim for the company's products came fairly quickly. There was a gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in 1896, followed by a first prize for chronometers at a Neuchâtel Observatory competition in 1903. By the 1920's, Zenith had introduced its first wristwatches, which were cased in gold and reflected the Art Deco sensibility of the day.
Despite significant global disturbances such as the Great Depression in the 1930's and World War II, production increased until the 1950's, when Zenith was one of the unquestioned leaders in Swiss watchmaking (in that decade, its calibers won prizes from the Neuchâtel Observatory five years in a row).
A typical vintage Zenith dress wristwatch from 1955 had an 18k rose gold case, a silver dial, and a hand-stitched black patent alligator strap. Inside was a 135 caliber, manual-movement chronometer, which at the time was state of the art.
Sports models such as the Pilot, designed to compete with the Rolex Explorer, appeared in the 1960's, but the biggest news of that decade was the 1969 launch of Zenith’s El Primero chronograph movement. Watches from this era with this movement inside are among the most collectible vintage Zenith wristwatches available.
Work on this marvel of watchmaking (150 individual stamps were required to manufacture all its tiny parts) had begun in 1962. Despite subsequent advances in technology, El Primero remains the only integrated chronograph caliber with automatic winding in both directions, and the only mechanical movement to vibrate at a rate of 36,000 beats per hour, making it accurate to within a tenth of a second.
Zenith has a long reputation for the quality and precision of their watches, with 1,565 1st-place precision awards to date. Zenith, is one of the few Swiss watch brands that make their own mechanical movements - the Elite (standard movement) and the El Primero (chronograph). The El Primero movement has a frequency of 36,000 alternations per hour. This high rate allows a resolution of 1/10th of a second and a potential for greater positional accuracy over the more typical chronometer frequency of 28,000 alt per hour.Ironically, at the same time that Zenith introduced it's greatest movement, quartz arrived to the watch world, an invention that would almost destroy the traditional swiss watch industry in the subsequent years. Zenith takes on the quartz challenge, preserving its precious tooling and waiting for the inevitable comeback of the mechanical movements. While many watch manufacturers ceased to exist during this rough years, Zenith was able to persist in part thanks to supplying its El Primero movement to other prestigious watch makers, the most famous being the Rolex Daytona.
The turn of the century saw Zenith reinvent itself and modernize its timepieces. In 2002 at the Basel watch fair, Zenith launched 4 new movements and 14 new models that represented an overwhelming 52 new variations. There have been several innovations made by Zenith in the 2000's and many new models have been launched. Currently, Zenith has been launching a collection of sport-chic watches entitled DEFY, and are further progressing the modernity of their timepieces.
Zenith was purchased by luxury giant LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesy) in November 1999, becoming one of several brands in LVMH's watch and jewelry division.
Presently, Zenith markets five watch lines, including the Chronomaster, Class, Port-Royal, Vintage, Defy, Star and the all new Omnipotence.
