The story of an exceptional IWC Yacht Club
I recently wrote about the vintage Yacht Club, IWC's highly successful sports-dress watch of the late 1960s and 1970s, comparing it to a Rolex Datejust 1601 of the same period. The comparison can be extended to the range of luxury options that were available for this model, which included versions in yellow and white gold as well as diamond-set dials. The watch I want to talk about today is a rare piece, an R811A in solid 18K yellow gold with a slate grey, vertically brushed dial. It's a special watch, not least because of its exceptional condition. It also tells a story, through the many numbers and marks stamped on it (as on a passport), documenting its provenance as well as its travels. Come with me on journey from Schauffhausen through Bassecourt and Geneva to London, made between 1967 and 1969.
Yellow gold Yacht Clubs, although much less frequent than steel ones, are not that uncommon. Generally they are fitted with champagne, gold or silver dials, however. The particular style of vertically brushed, grey dial on this watch is a rare variant also found on steel Yacht Clubs (where it has silver hour batons and white text). On gold watches, it is considerably rarer still. At the time of writing, a Google search will find three examples - this one (images of which I have shared elsewhere), one that has been for sale from a small retailer for some time but is considerably more worn and polished (also listed on Chrono24), and one that was shared on the IWC vintage forum (as was mine), and is also much more worn. It's quite possible that this watch is unique as an almost untouched surviving example of this particular variant.
As with all Yacht Clubs, the case is a thick, solid lump of metal, weighing about 33 g (including the heavy 10 g caseback). As it is 18K gold with 75% purity, this means that it contains nearly 25 g of pure gold—up to three times more than is often found in some solid gold vintage dress watches with more conventional case shapes! It's interesting to note, however, that in side profile the lugs are not quite as thick as in the steel Yacht Club, presumably to slightly reduce the quantity of gold required. Nonetheless, the gold weight is almost identical to that found in a gold Rolex Datejust of the same period. Again, perhaps we see further evidence here of IWC's desire to pitch this watch as direct competitor to the Datejust. It would not have been possible to do this at an identical price point if the watch had contained a significantly greater quantity of gold.
Although I have fitted a modern strap to the watch, I acquired it with what would appear to be the original, unused IWC leather strap and gold-plated buckle.
The dial is fitted with applied gold hour batons and IWC logo (presumably solid gold), and has both the dial text and the minute track printed with gold coloured paint, providing a more subtle contrast than is found in most other Yacht Club variants. It's interesting that while I believe the dial has the same grey finish as was used in the brushed grey variant of the steel Yacht Club, the effect of the gold fittings and gold text is to make it appear almost brown. The use of painted lines rather than drilled round dots for the minute track seems to be a feature that is always associated with vertically brushed as opposed to "sunburst" Yacht Club dial variants.
The dial texture has a remarkable ability to change in tone depending on the angle at which it is viewed, switching from very light grey to almost black. This is surely an intentional effect of the vertical brushing, and adds to a sense of understated luxury.
Like many of the more interesting Swiss watch dials of this period (e.g., the "confetti" dials), it was made by the legendary Beyeler in Geneva.
This brings me to the "journey" I mentioned earlier. As was usual at least until the quartz crisis, this watch was not made by a single company. Rather it was assembled by IWC using their own movements together with parts commissioned from other long-established companies elsewhere in Switzerland, whose names, while not prominently displayed on the outside of the watch, can be found inside it, either obviously such as here, or more cryptically in the form of a maker's mark or poinçon de maître. Most of the information about the watch and its subsequent journey out of Switzerland can be found on the inside of the caseback.
There is a lot of information here!
At the top we have the IWC logo with the motto of the company—"Probus Scafusia", translated by IWC themselves as "good, solid craftsmanship from Schaffhausen". "International Watch Co Swiss" is self-explanatory.
Underneath in the centre and on the right we have two marks indicating that this is 18K gold—"18C 0.750" meaning "18 carat" and 75% purity, and the "head of Helvetia" hallmark. Helvetia is the female personification of Switzerland (just as Britain has Britannia and France has Marianne), and here certifies that the item was hallmarked as 18K gold within Switzerland. Left of these two marks is the case maker's poinçon de maître. This is in the shape of a hammerhead (designating a maker of precious metal items outside of Geneva), and has the number 183, specifically indicating the casemaker Ervin Piquerez, in Bassecourt.
Underneath that we have the model reference of the watch, R811A, and the case serial number. On the far left is another mark that resembles a tiny version of the IWC logo. To be honest, I've no idea what this is. It is stamped, and not very strongly, and what appear to be some tiny figures underneath the logo are illegible.
On the far right, some other small stamps can be seen. These puzzled me at first, until I noticed their resemblance to British gold hallmarks I'm familiar with. Yet these are a little different to hallmarks you would see on a gold watch case that had been manufactured in the United Kingdom. They look like this:
These are British import hallmarks—special hallmarks applied in the UK to imported precious metal objects that were manufactured abroad. Specifically, their meaning is as follows (courtesy of Gold Traders Hallmark Identification Wizard ):
So, in 1969, this watch was imported into Britain and the case was hallmarked in London as 18K gold. It already had Swiss hallmarks that were applied there before it was exported of course, but it was necessary to hallmark it again in the UK as part of the importation process.
From the separate serial numbers on the movement and on the caseback, and courtesy of the Date your IWC website, the case was "most probably produced around 1967", while the movement dates from 1968.
We can now describe the origins of this watch in some detail. In 1967, the case was manufactured by Ervin Piquerez in Bassecourt on behalf of IWC. In 1968 the movement was made in Schaffhausen by IWC, and (probably in the same year) fitted with a dial made by Beyeler in Geneva and assembled into a complete watch. It was then exported to England, where it was hallmarked in London as an imported gold watch in 1969. I acquired the watch about three years ago from a London based dealer. Given its condition, it seems likely that it had been kept in a drawer somewhere in London for most of the intervening 54 years.
If we go back to the early 1960s, it was unusual at that time for a solid gold watch to be imported into Britain, due to heavy customs tariffs on gold items. As a result, brands such as Rolex and Omega would have gold cases made in Britain (by companies such as Dennison in Birmingham) and fitted with movements that they exported uncased. But from 1960 onwards these tariffs were gradually reduced due to Britain's membership of the European Free trade Association (EFTA), until by 1966 they had disappeared entirely. This meant that by 1969 it was viable to import a fully Swiss-made 18K gold watch into the country.
Nonetheless, this watch would have been an item of high luxury. Did its owner consider it too valuable for everyday wear? Or was it an unappreciated gift to someone who already had a favourite watch, or simply didn't like this one? Whatever the reason, it has fortunately permitted the survival of this horological time capsule for nearly 60 years in almost pristine condition.
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