Tuesday 16 October 2012


Favre-Leuba's Legacy

This is a 50-60's Swiss made Favre-Leuba Geneve Twin Power manual winding mechanical watch.


Favre-Leuba's origins could be traced back to the early 1700's, when Abraham Favre opened his shop. In 1814, a merger with another watchmaker Auguste Leuba, and it became what is know until today as Favre-Leuba. It was in 1898 when their HQ moved to Geneva, hence the label 'Geneve' was abled to be marked on their dials.

In 2011, the Titan Industries watch making company from the Tata group, took over the struggling Swiss company.
Even before the takeover in the 21st century, Asia was among their key markets, particularly India. Note the background illustration of Indian landscape and elephants in this advertisement from a newspaper.

Among of key innovation that came from this watch workshop was the FL251 movement dubbed the 'Twin Barrel' or 'Twin Power' calibre. 

What was normally the standard 24hour power reserve for a manual winding watch, this calibre doubled it to 48-50 hours.


The wrist watch in my collection is an immaculate edition of that. I estimate that this came from the mid to late 60's, as the movement came into being after 1962 and in the 70's the models were named Sea King's and Sea Chief's.

The 17 Jewel'ed movement is housed in this polished stainless steel casing. An exquisite example of the Swiss pioneer who dared to venture to Asia even before the rest of the Swiss watch industry.








The back of the this stainless steel watch shows the engraved logo of the watchmaker along with the serial number of the watch (81073-TL)


The military style dial is luminous and clearly tells the wearer the time even in low light condition.

What is interesting is that this timepiece and its label is in my opinion under valued. Typically this swiss precision watch is valued around USD80-150.



The above timepiece could be bought for RM500 (Malaysian shipping address). Another RM100 for EMS/DHL shipping & handling fee is applicable for non-Malaysian buyers. Box and papers are not supplied.


Click the Paypal 'Buy Now' button with the appropriate shipping option. 




Shipping Location

No comments:

Post a Comment