This extremely rare early automatic by the Glycine Watch Co. was an entirely new concept at the time of its release in 1931, designed from scratch by Eugene Meylan himself, the founder of the company in 1914. The automatic "module" was not only a blueprint for numerous future automatic mechanisms with its bumper style oscillating weight, but also could be easily removed as a unit from the Glycine caliber 18 base movement for ease of servicing and simplicity of design. The result was a fully functional automatically wound timepiece which gave the company wide acclaim at the time of its release, but due to lack of funds available for the manufacture and advertising it was never widely distributed. A contributing factor to this shortcoming was likely the release of the first Rolex Perpetual automatic watch within the same early 30's time frame. Very few of these watches are still in circulation as most have found the coffers of long time collectors, therefore we are very pleased to offer for sale this rare all original example, freshly serviced and running well. This is a later model, most likely produced in the early 1940's with rare black dial and solid stainless steel Staybrite "waterproof" case.
Style: Early Automatic, Art Deco
Circa: 1940's
Case: Two piece solid stainless steel case with screw down back and calatrava style lugs. Signed correctly inside the back Acier Staybrite with reference number 9057. Measures 30.5mm in diameter excluding the original crown and comes on a 16mm wide leather strap.
Dial: Original factory printed dial with black/dark brown background, outer minute track and sub seconds at 6:00. Signed Glycine Automatic, Fab Suisse, Swiss Made. Nice even patina has given the dial a dark brown color and looks superb with the original guilt numbers and hands.
Movement: Super rare Glycine/Meylan calibre 35 automatically wound movement with bumper style pendulum module set onto an altered Glycine calibre 18 base. Signed Glycine Watch Co, Automatic, Fab Suisse, Swiss Made, Swiss, Pat Appl U.S.A. 567044.567045, Pat+149137.149138. High quality 15 jewels movement with early shock protection spring system on the balance. Recently serviced by our watchmaker, keeping excellent time and running automatically. The crown is only used to set the hands with no manual winding mechanism present.