
In defence of lightweight vintage watch bracelets
Before the 1950s, it was the exception rather than the rule for a metal bracelet to be fitted to a wristwatch. By the mid-1960s it was commonplace, and the vast majority of bracelets, although varying superficially, had the same basic construction and were equipped with the same style of stamped steel, friction-closing folding clasp. This type of bracelet is now often much maligned in comparison to its heavy, industrially constructed modern counterpart, with adjectives such as “cheap”, “flimsy”, “rattly” and even “nasty” abounding in the online pontifications of modern watch fans.
And yet, these bracelets were very high quality items in their day (and still are). They are light, durable, very comfortable, simple to use and perfectly secure if looked after properly. In the era of the Moonage Watches there was a spectacular diversity of styles, totally unmatched in the current era of the ubiquitous Oyster clone. To varying extents these probably all had their ultimate inspiration in the first "Beads of Rice" style bracelets produced by the celebrated Swiss manufacturer Gay Frères in the early 1940s, as well as in the stylistically groundbreaking Rolex Jubilee, introduced by Hans Wilsdorf in 1945. The subsequent drive to diversify the styles of this type of bracelet certainly seems to have come from Gay Frères, who produced them for several brands in the 1950s and 1960s.

In this post I want to argue for the superiority of the vintage lightweight steel bracelet and its simple, functional stamped steel folding clasp over the heavy modern bracelet, with its chunky solid links and fiddly, over-engineered and over-sized fastening mechanisms. I’ll take a peek at the wonderful diversity of bracelet designs found in this era and show how fundamentally, nearly all of them are constructed in the same way, despite appearing superficially very different. I’ll also show how as usual, the Japanese did things a little differently from the Swiss, and how Seiko’s bracelets of the late 1960s were truly innovative in a way that has been entirely forgotten (or perhaps wasn’t even noticed at the time).
What is quality in a watch bracelet? Perception and reality
In this age of cheap, throwaway plastic consumer goods we tend to associate heaviness and solidity with quality. A true quality item, however, is one that’s able to perform its intended purpose as well as possible, while also being long-lasting and attractive. Shortcuts shouldn’t be taken simply to make it cheaper to manufacture, but it also shouldn’t be over-engineered at the expense of function.
What’s the function of a watch bracelet? It needs to safely hold the watch on the wrist while being comfortable and attractive. Fundamental to the comfort of an object worn all day at the end of your arm is that it’s lightweight and has a low profile. A high quality bracelet, like chainmail armour or a bicycle, needs to be both light and strong. Because these aims are to some extent at odds with each other, the highest quality product is the one that gets the balance just right. It’s much more difficult to create something that exists within a narrow, optimal range of tolerances than to make it stronger than it needs to be, but also heavier and bulkier. It's not really in the interests of the modern watch industry for you to view things that way, however, hence the marketing of heavy, chunky watches as representing "quality". This has reversed the polarity of desirability compared to 50 years ago, when brands vied with each other to produce the slimmest and lightest products. Has marketing got better or are people more gullible? Probably both.

Most basic, non-tool steel watches made in the late 60s and early 70s weigh roughly between 70 and 80 grams all-in, including a steel bracelet. A vintage 1601 36 mm Rolex Datejust on a Jubilee is at the upper end of this range, at 81 grams. A modern Datejust of pretty much exactly the same size and style on a Jubilee bracelet weighs 121 grams—actually pretty light for a modern watch, but a full 50% heavier than its vintage equivalent. A modern Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra 38 mm (although a slightly larger watch) weighs 133 g, compared to the 73 g of a vintage c-case Constellation—getting on for twice as heavy! Is that a good thing? Of course not! You may perceive that the modern watch is higher quality because of its reassuring heft on your wrist, but you shouldn’t need that reassurance. A high quality watch should feel as if it isn’t there when you’re wearing it. If you want it to feel otherwise, that’s an aspect of the role it’s playing in your own psyche, not an objectively desirable quality of a watch from a functional standpoint.
While it’s true that vintage bracelets are prone to “stretch” over many decades of use through wearing of the pins, and that folded joining links (see below) may become slightly loose through unbending, in general the feeling of “flimsiness” you get when wearing a vintage bracelet (if you are used to a modern heavier one) is just that—a feeling, borne of learned expectation. Most will happily perform their intended function day-in, day-out for half a lifetime before they need to be refurbished (and they can be). A 1960s Gay Frères folded link steel bracelet is an intricate luxury product that would have been expensive and time-consuming to manufacture at the time, with a lot of thought put into its design and construction.

The same mismatch between perception and reality characterises common views of vintage stamped steel clasps as being “cheap and nasty”. The fact is that they are strong, comfortable and easy to use, generally much lower-profile than modern clasps, and quicker to snap open and closed than the complicated mechanisms of butterfly or locking clasps. The tension of the friction closure is adjustable, and while they may lack “on-the-fly” micro-adjustment, they can nonetheless be precisely resized in less than a minute using the moveable spring bar on the clasp.
The Rolex Jubilee—archetype of the Moonage watch bracelet?
Metal watch bracelets of various types have existed for as long as there have been wristwatches, and simple styles such as the Bonklip and early precursors of the Oyster were supplied to many brands by Gay Frères in the 1930s. However, it was following Rolex’s release of the Jubilee in 1945 that the basic style of bracelet that came to dominate in the 1960s really took off. It seems that the Jubilee was designed in-house by Rolex, but (as far as I can find out) probably manufactured by Gay Frères. Gay Frères was bought by Rolex in 1998 as part of their programme of bringing out-sourced parts of their production in-house, so we can reasonably assume that they were making bracelets for Rolex at that time and well before.
Indeed, the immediate precursor to the Jubilee was the "Beads of Rice" style bracelet (see below) that Gay Frères made for several brands just before the Jubilee was released, so it's probably this that's the ultimate archetype of the 1960s watch bracelet. Beads of Rice bracelets (usually with straight end links) were supplied to Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and others by Gay Frères in the early 1940s and are sometimes seen on chronographs of that era. However, as discussed below, the difference between these two styles is not as profound as it might at first appear, and it was the Jubilee that seems to have really popularised this type of bracelet.
My own theory for the explosion of metal bracelet styles in the 1960s is that following the initial success of the Rolex Jubilee, other brands, including Gay Frères themselves, realised they could produce similar styles using the same basic construction technique but varying the number, style and uniformity of the links. This way they could make equally attractive bracelets for a range of Swiss watches without infringing Rolex’s actual or implicit ownership of the Jubilee style.
The Jubilee bracelet has five rows of “links”, the two outer rows wider and with a satin or lightly brushed surface finish, and the three inner rows narrower and with a mirror polished surface. How is it actually constructed though? The best way to illustrate this is with a stylised diagram.

The two rows of outermost links (blue in the diagram above) have each opposite pair of links joined together by two rods or pins (red). These pins are firmly anchored in place in the outer links, while passing freely through the other rows of links (orange). It’s important to understand the fundamentally different structural role of the outer links and the central links. The main structural unit of the bracelet is an opposing pair of outer links joined by two fixed pins. These entirely immobile, solid units are then linked to each other by the two outermost rows of inner orange links. These links fold around the upper pin of one outer link “unit” and the lower pin of the next one, so linking them together (while not being fixed and so allowing the pins to rotate and the bracelet to flex). Notice that the central orange row actually has no real structural purpose, as the links only fold around the two pins of a single outer link unit, not two adjoining ones. The entire bracelet is thus held together by the two rows of “straddling” inner links (the outermost of the three orange rows in the diagram, or the second and fourth rows counting across the whole bracelet).
The ultimate evolution of this structure from the earlier Bonklip is apparent. In the Bonklip, the "units" that are joined together are simple, flat, rectangular loops of steel rather than side links joined by two pins. The joining elements in the Bonklip (the straddling links) are just single loops of folded steel rather than multiple central rows of links. The later Oyster is an intermediate stage (if a little off on its own tangent), with side links and pins (or rivets originally), but still only with a single central row of straddling links. Furthermore, the early Oyster bracelets had expanding, spring-loaded links. Probably as a consequence of that, the basic structure of the bracelet is a little different from all of the ones described here—the pins alternate between ones that hold the bracelet units together and others that only hold the central links to the side links. It was with Beads of Rice bracelets, and then the Rolex Jubilee, that the fully developed template for most of the watch bracelets of the second half of the 20th C was born.
Folded links, ring links and solid links
If you read other accounts of the structure and evolution of the Jubilee bracelet, you will see a lot of attention given to whether the links are folded or solid. In the original steel Jubilee, the outermost links were made of folded strips of metal firmly wrapped around the ends of the two pins. The central links are also made of folded metal strips, but these only form loops around the pins—they are not fixed around them. They are also not closed rings, but rather have ends that meet together underneath.

In later versions, the outermost fixed links are D-shaped and made of solid metal, with the pins embedded in them. The central links are still "hollow", but they are now fully closed, D-shaped rings. Finally, in the modern Jubilee, the central links are also solid, drilled with narrow holes for the pins to pass through (of course the pins are still free to rotate in these holes while remaining fixed in the outermost links). There was also an early American-made version of the Jubilee that had solid outer links from the outset that were oval rather than D-shaped (with folded, non-closed central links like the earliest Swiss Jubilees). Although developments over time made the bracelet progressively more solid (and much heavier), the fundamental structure and the way that the links are articulated remained the same.
Note that in this discussion we just dealing with the links in the main length of the bracelet. Later versions of the Jubilee, as well as most bracelets from other brands, had small numbers of removable links, intended for resizing. These basically have the same structure as the standard links, except that one of the two pins joining each pair of side links can be removed. These removable pins can take the form of spring bars, split pins or pins secured by screws, but the principle is the same.
Variations on a theme
Let's have a look at some bracelets made for other Swiss watch brands and compare them aesthetically and structurally to the Rolex Jubilee.
Here is a gorgeous Gay Frères bracelet fitted to an IWC Yacht Club. It is signed with both the IWC and Gay Frères logos on the clasp and stamped 3/69, indicating that it was made in the third quarter of 1969.

Like the Jubilee, the bracelet contrasts satin-brushed side links with polished central links, but with seven rows of links instead of five. The central links are narrow and flat, while the second and sixth rows have a contrasting grooved texture. The impression is entirely different from that of the Jubilee—arguably more decorative and refined. This was one of several styles of bracelet that Gay Frères made for the original IWC Yacht Club and Ingenieur models in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The fundamental structure is identical to that of the Jubilee, however, other than that there are five instead of three rows of central links (orange in the diagram below) between the side links (blue). Just as with the Jubilee from the same era, all of the links are folded, with the side links tightly wrapped and fixed around the ends of the pins (and then polished on the sides), and the central links forming folded loops that are not closed (the ends can be seen on the lower surface).

So, while this bracelet looks very different from the Jubilee, it is in fact almost exactly the same in the way it is put together—perhaps not surprising if Gay Frères were also manufacturing the Jubilee for Rolex at the same time. In this case, the "units" formed by the pins and the outermost links are joined to each other by the first, third and fifth rows of central orange links (the second, fourth and sixth rows if we count all seven rows of links).

It's not entirely clear how many bracelets of this era were manufactured by Gay Frères. Sometimes, as with IWC, a clasp is stamped with Gay Frères' logo as well as with the brand's logo, while in other cases (as with Rolex, seemingly), there is no Gay Frères branding on a bracelet that they are reputed to have manufactured.
It's usually the case that bracelets of this style have an odd number of rows of links (five, seven, nine, etc). The reason for this is aesthetic—if there was an even number there would be no central row, and the design would look less unified and coherent. The central row pulls the design together, creating a midline and a focal point for symmetry.
Beads of Rice
The "Beads of Rice" bracelet has a long history, preceding even the Jubilee. The term is somewhat ambiguous in its scope, with some people applying it to almost any bracelet with many rows of narrow links. In its purest form, however, as in the earliest examples made in the early 1940s by Gay Frères, the Beads of Rice has many identical rows of links, with the links themselves convex on their upper surfaces (thus resembling grains of rice). Nonetheless it's perhaps Omega who are best known for this style in later decades, popularising it in the 1950s–1970s with seven row and then nine row versions in which the side links are wider and differentiated from the central rows of "beads".

As we can see, this bracelet just has the same structure that we are now very familiar with. There are now nine rows of links in total (seven central rows of "beads", four of which are "straddling" or joining links), but the beads are simply folded loop links—exactly the same as in the Jubilee. The "bead" effect is simply a product of the size and shape of the links, in particular the slightly rounded sections of the folded steel strips. Note however that the side links are solid, not folded—of the type that Rolex was to adopt in later versions of the Jubilee (and that in fact was used in the American-made oval link Jubilees of the 1950s–1970s).
The brick bracelet
The "brick" bracelet (sometimes called the "brick road" bracelet) is another style that Omega in particular popularised in the 1960s, particularly in association with the "c-case" Constellation. Here we have perhaps the utlimate demonstration of how superficially completely different styles of bracelet were created using the same underlying structure.
The brick bracelet appears to be made of chequered rows of identical squarish rectangles, with the whole bracelet more or less flat-surfaced on the top, like a paved footpath. The design is clean and industrial, very well-suited to the c-case design, which would have been seen as very futuristic when it was introduced in 1964.

In fact, however, except for having solid rather than folded side links, the structure of this bracelet is identical to that of the 6251H Rolex Jubilee bracelet pictured above, with five rows of links (two side rows and three central rows). The only difference is that the links are all the same size and are shaped to be flat on the top instead of convex. Although the side links are solid and the central ones folded, they are intentionally not differentiated from each other and are designed to appear the same on the upper surface.

Who made these bracelets?
As already mentioned, it seems that Gay Frères were hugely influential in developing and diversifying the designs of mass-produced bracelets in the latter half of the 20th Century. The earliest examples either carry their branding (e.g. the 1940s Beads of Rice styles) or else were likely manufactured by them (the Swiss made versions of the Rolex Jubilee). Right up until the 1970s, some brands such as IWC still used Gay Frères branded bracelets.
However, we know that outside of Switzerland, other third-party companies were often contracted to make bracelets for Swiss watches (including Rolex) that were exported to these markets. The best-known example is the American-made version of the Jubilee mentioned above, which had solid oval side links with folded central links and was manufactured by J. B. Champion. These bracelets are marked "U.S.A" or "Made in U.S.A.", and while prominently branded as Rolex also have a small "JB" mark acknowledging the manufacturer. Nonetheless, many other brands made watches in Switzerland with bracelets of this style that are marked only with the brand's trademark (notably Omega and Longines).
It's very hard to find out much about the manufacturers of these bracelets. Did Omega, Longines and others have their bracelets made by Gay Frères but not branded as such, as seems to have been the case with Rolex? I suspect not, because there are slight differences between them and bracelets we know to have been made by Gay Frères. Although extremely high quality, Gay Frères bracelets were quite conservative in the way they were manufactured, with both folded side and central links used well into the 1970s when other brands were already using solid side links in the early 1960s.
It may be that large Swiss brands such as Omega and Longines were able to manufacture their bracelets in-house, although it's clear that the designs were heavily influenced by the Rolex / Gay Frères template. As hinted at above, perhaps it was fear of copyright infringement that partially motivated the creative force behind the huge variety of designs that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Another possibility is that these bracelets were made by other third-party Swiss companies for the large Swiss brands based on designs supplied by them, just as many watch cases were. If so, however, it's notable that they weren't signed.

Did Seiko make the first mass-produced, all-solid-link bracelets?
One reason I find Seiko watches of this era absolutely fascinating is that while the Swiss watchmaking world of the 1960s was intimately interconnected, with brands often based very near to each other and sharing designers, third-party case makers and parts suppliers, the Japanese watch industry was utterly distinct. Certainly Seiko was heavily influenced by Swiss designs and technical innovations and often unashamedly copied them, but they had to do everything themselves from the ground up. This meant frequently reinventing the wheel—looking at something the Swiss had done and then working out how to recreate it.
Japanese steel bracelets became so ubiquitous in the 1970s and 1980s, fitted to everything from Grand Seikos to inexpensive digital Casios, that it's difficult to see the original ones from the late 1960s for what they really were. The usual negative reactions of modern watch fans when experiencing vintage watch bracelets for the first time ("cheap and nasty", etc) seem if anything to be magnified when it comes to Japanese bracelets.
Here's the thing though—when mass-produced Swiss bracelets were all still made entirely from folded links, or at least had folded, hollow centre links, Seiko was already making bracelets with 100% solid links. Furthermore, these early Japanese solid-link bracelets weren't the massive, heavy pieces we see on watches today, but rather slim and lightweight constructions made from very precisely manufactured steel parts.

We can see this very clearly if we look at the undersides of these bracelets or at a detached removable link. All of the pieces, including the centre links, are solid steel with precisely drilled holes and chamfered edges. There must be at least 120 finely made steel parts in a single bracelet (even ignoring the pins). We are so used to mass-produced, machine-made metal items nowadays that we forget what an achievement it was to devise the methods for manufacturing them. It seems that the Japanese, with an ancient steel-working tradition as well as a well-developed domestic steel production industry in the mid-20th C, may have been at the forefront of developing such methods.

Structurally of course, the design of this bracelet is the same as the Gay Frères IWC bracelet pictured above (see "Variations on a theme"), despite that bracelet being made from all-folded links and the Seiko from all-solid links. They were exactly contemporary. Which was higher quality? I don't think that's a question that has an objective answer.

Many will argue that the same holds true for the question of whether vintage or modern steel bracelets are higher quality. Although I know which I prefer, it would seem that I'm still in a minority.
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