Rare Longines: Ultra-Chron in Chronometer-Grade

CHF 1,500

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WHY WE LOVE IT: What an interesting piece of horological history: The Ultra-Chron was a bastion against the attack of the electronic watches during the 60s and 70s and at the same time the Chronometer-graded variant was the competition to Seikos V.F.A.'s.

Indeed, the electronic ignition in 1960 by Bulova with their Accutron cal214 started the race towards never before seen precision. Longines was not only one of the most important watchbrands during this time but also engaged in almost any of the new and upcoming technologies: mechanical watches (manual & automatic), tuningfork-movements (Ultronic), quartz-movements (Beta21) and even quartz-controlled tuningfork-movements (Ultra-Quartz). And so the mechanical Longines Ultra-Chron-series was installed as a barrier against the electronics. A fight that was lost, but that is always easy to see and say in hindsight.

This Chronometer-graded variant is much rarer than the standard-one -- today and back-then already --, because the finer adjustment came at an approx 25% - 40% (depending on the model) higher price in their 1970s catalogues.