One of the most significant chronograph calibers ever developed, the Zenith “El Primero” movement set into stone one of the greatest watch legacies to span across the global watch industry and is a rooted icon of one of the most revolutionary times in the Swiss watch industry.
From the in-between period set by the Swiss quartz crisis and Zenith’s resulting instability and bankruptcy, those roots expanded to other brands, like Ebel and Rolex, which incorporated the Zenith cal. 3019 movement into their own lineage of watches. Amongst these giants of stature, lesser publicly known but highly collectible creations by Oscar Waldan, who adopted the movement from a defunct Zenith in the late 1970’s and had been creating watches powered by that mechanical marvel, have flown under the radar for decades.
As the expression goes “those who know, know” and in a world of trends, collectors of Oscar’s work understand the significance of his watches, and the exceptional craft, attention to detail and passion that poured into every one of the 250 watches he made annually. This appreciation can be likened to a form of scholarship. These aren’t watches for the a-typical “holy trinity” flexing crowd collecting from hype and resale value. Those who collect his watches have often developed vast and exceptional collections, their value is driven not just by their exceptional uniqueness, condition and rarity, but also by their sentimental value to the owners. These collections had been built over the course of long time spans where the means of acquisition almost became as important as the watch itself, those memories leaving an invisible hallmark on the watch.
My first watch wasn't a watch, it was an empty titanium case my father gave me, which later grew parts and evolved into a full titanium divers quartz watch which I wore in college. My collecting journey took me down the rabbit hole in 2015 or so, where in the shrouded hideout of a RedBar event on your average Wednesday, a handshake and chance meeting with a charismatic lead salesman from a vintage watch company led to the purchase of one of my father's original creations for Tissot in the 1950's. Ever since, watch collectors i've met across all walks of life have shown me the vintage Waldan creations in their own collections, true marvels of their eras that are cherished centerpieces of their collections, and yet I find these watches remain disparately unknown outside those particular circles.
When most people talk about the man who saved the “El Primero”, they reference Charles Vermot, who famously stored the necessary equipment for the El Primero’s production in the Ponts-De-Martel facility attic. His foresight allowed Zenith to begin remaking the El Primero, as they needed to be able to resume production to secure a major contract from Rolex. What isn’t spoken about though, is that Rolex contracted Zenith to revive the caliber because of Oscar Waldan.
Despite the amount of study and publication about the revival of the El Primero, there is a lack of recognition to Oscar Waldan's connection, with the only commercial resource I could find acknowledging him being a brief mention by Arthur Touchot in a Hodinkee article from October 2016 stating "In 1982, as rumors swirled that Rolex was looking to modernize its Daytona, one Oscar Waldan approached them. He had already convinced Ebel’s President to bet on the El Primero, and the chronograph was just what Rolex had been looking for."
With a lack of public resources on these classic watches, I figured the appropriate topic for our inaugural blog post would be exploring the Waldan/El Primero connection and offering some depth into the majesty of these creations to benefit collectors who pridefully own them, and a guide for those who may want to start collecting.
One of Oscar’s biggest inspirations in the watch world was Antoni Patek, also an immigrant watchmaker of Polish origin, and the eponymous co-founder of Patek Philippe. He had always been an avid supporter and collector of fine Patek watches and I always thought Oscar’s designs were broadly centered around some traditional Patek-esque aesthetics (from the case size and style to even some of the marker styles). In connecting the dots later in life, it dawned on me that he had also emulated Antoni Patek’s go to market strategy.
Before Patek was known as one of the finest horological craftsmen of the 1800’s, he was an army officer and a ferocious insurgent who fought in the November Uprising, an armed revolution in which a prior partitioned Poland rebelled against the Russian Empire for Polish independence. In the aftermath, the uprising failed and like many other officers and soldiers, he had to immigrate. While spending time in both France and Switzerland, he became involved in the pocket watch trade, and eventually launched himself into the market by buying the best movements available, furnishing them with cases and commissioning their decoration with ornate gilding, enameling and engraving. The highest importance was placed on the quality and the artistic integrity of the finishing.
Oscar’s opportunistically took the same approach. During the Swiss quartz crisis, companies were liquidating their stocks of mechanical movements, in particular chronograph movements, which Waldan saw as a travesty. He understood the significance of these movements and had the vision to know that this upheaval wouldn’t last. When he started his business in 1979, Oscar needed a niche. He decided that a moon phase chronograph would be just the thing, as it is both function and aesthetically appealing. He then commissioned separate case, hands and dial makers to create the components needed for his watches. There was always a focus on using quality, premium grade materials and Waldan paid close attention to the finishing.
With little capital, he would not be able to immediately jump into large scale production and so sought out old movements that had been forgotten or had not been successful for the last ten years and were not being shown anymore. This led to his purchase of the entire standing inventory from Zenith of moon phase chronographs (cal. 3019 PHF) over the course of months/years in multiple batches, with an estimated total of 2000 pcs acquired. In Oscar's words "the man with whom I dealt with at Zenith even told me I was crazy to buy them. I acknowledged his observation but went ahead anyway."
Waldan began making classically styled and traditional watches, after buying the name Ulysse Nardin to try for one year, with a purchase option from a company called Ogival. Approximately 100 pieces were made under the Ulysse Nardin name during that limited period.
In 1981, Oscar visited Mr. Henry Stern of Patek Philippe, with whom he had a cordial relationship. He had an idea of making a perpetual out of the El Primero chronograph movement. Stern recommended a company named Dubois Depraz, as they were known for making complications and would likely be able to accomplish this. He spent 2000 CHF for the study, however it highlighted greater costs that he had not anticipated, and was not in the financial position to pursue the project further.
Late in 1981, Waldan visited Rolex and his friend Diether Kübel-Wilsdorf, who was in charge of the technical department there. Oscar had been introduced to Diether, Hans Wilsdorf's nephew through legendary designer Gerald Genta, with whom Waldan worked with via his involvement in Holzer Watch Co and Universal Geneve in the 1950's-60's. While showing off the chronograph, Mr. Wilsdorf asked him to leave it with him for a few days so they could study it. Oscar enthusiastically agreed, feeling that it would be of benefit to them. As a result, Rolex decided to order the movement from Zenith.
Oscar also recommended the other movements, sans moon phase (cal. 3019 PHC), to Mr. Pierre Blum of Ebel, whereupon Ebel had some transformed into perpetuals by Dubois Depraz. Several years later, Ebel ceased the use of this movement and Waldan contacted Dubois to make the movement for him as they were no longer under obligation to Ebel. While resistant at first, Dubois Depraz eventually agreed to re-undertake the project. When they, in turn, contacted Zenith to supply them with extra parts for this transformation, Zenith refused, and decided to make that movement their own.
With the supply of movements and parts that remained in his inventory, Oscar went on to produce limited quantities of complicated watches for large companies like Tiffany & Co., Asprey, Tourneau (now Bucherer), Henri Ekegren and Neiman Marcus. He would also go on to produce small batches of watches for jewelers like Maison Birks, Shreve & Co., Black Starr & Frost and Firestone and Parson.
With no large financier or bank lender, very little advertising was done around the watches at the time and these watches sold off the strength of their reputation. Waldan ran only a few ads, notably in the Economist, and therefore a lot of these watches were sold to private customers of Oscar's, whom he would accompany into these stores.
The first series of these watches were made for Ulysse Nardin, with an estimated 100 pcs made in the early 1980's. Very few examples have been seen publicly, and have only been seen in 18K yellow gold. The first generation case is an ornately styled, two piece 39mm case with a stepped case design, made in 1981 by legendary case maker Charles Dubois in Le Locle after their rebranding to Cedex in 1974.
The case back is solid gold and screws down and the pushers are period prominent pump style pushers. Generally these case backs were plain in design, with no hallmarks or major engraving designs. The major differentiator of the earliest cases are the lugs, which although are stepped, are soldered and significantly thinner than later examples. Note that the lug width of 20mm does not change despite the width of the lugs themselves changing. Until the 1970's chronographs, as well as other wristwatches had crystals made from plastic. Not only were they easily scratched or cracked, they often oxidized the dial, hands and other parts of the watch. Oscar praised the superior quality of sapphire crystals and utilized only contoured sapphire crystals in these watches.
The earliest watches also have a particular font for their arabic markers and handset, unique to the earliest models from the 1980's and identical in aesthetic to the numeral style and "feuille" hands of the Patek Philippe ref. 1518.
The Tiffany & Co. commissioned watches were cased in a similarly shaped, ornately styled, two piece 39mm 18K solid gold case, with a screw down solid gold case back, similar pump style pushers and thinner lugs. This second generation case shows slight differences to the first. The pump pushers have a shorter clearance to the case and the lugs are now thicker (despite the same lug width). The case backs of these watches often had two hallmarks that were often placed vertically parallel to each other at the bottom; the "18K" stamp and a three digit case number.
On watch dials, the numeral style widens as well, filling out more prominently. While mostly all of the watches he produced with this movement exclusively had tachymeter scales, a few of the Tiffany watches featuring pulsometer scales have surfaced. Known examples have been seen only in 18K yellow and rose gold. Only 100 pcs of these watches were made in total.
Another commission was an estimated 100 pcs from the iconic retailer Tourneau (now Bucherer). Oscar at one time had a close relationship with the Robert (Bob) Wexler and the Wexler family (Tourneau previous owners) and produced several watch lines under the retailer’s name from the 1990's to the early 2000's, notably chronograph watch lines with the EP movement and Valjoux 7751. These watches were generally sold at their New York flagship store on 57th street, and delivered intermittently throughout the course of the production year. Tourneau signed EP watches have been made with second and third generation cases and produced in 18K yellow and rose gold. The case backs of these watches carried on the style of having two hallmarks vertically parallel to each other at the bottom; the "18K" stamp and a three digit case number. It's important to note that some of these watches have case numbers that are below the number 100. In any of these instances, the number of digits stays three, so the number 42 for instance would be marked 042.
In the early 1990’s, Oscar’s production began to change. He started now producing more watches under the Waldan International name than private labeling for other companies as a lot of his previous vendors had begun shifting their production to in-house manufacturing.
Early to mid 1990's models retained the second generation case, and were generally signed "Waldan International Co." and "Waldan International". This changed soon after in the mid to later part of the decade. Those that debuted in the later part of the decade had an updated case design featuring a inverted chronograph pusher style that was integrated into the case and a wider fluted lug style. This third generation design laid the foundation for the permanent case style for the Waldan Astronic Chronograph.
Few examples of the second generation chronographs have been seen publicly. Aside from the early made and signed "Waldan International Co." Astronic models, Oscar also produced these limitedly under the Ekegren Geneve name, which he owned in the 1990's and early 2000's. Henri Robert Ekegren (1823-1896) was a renowned Danish watchmaker who worked alongside the King of Denmark; receiving recognition for his work with Urban Jürgensen, Henry Golay and Adolph Lange before starting his own business. His company was later purchased and revived By Ed Koehn, a watchmaker who had started his horological career at Patek Philippe, and produced complicated watches until the dissolution of the brand in the 1930’s.
A few rare examples have also resurfaced under the Neiman Marcus name. From the early 1990's to early 2000's, Oscar supplied Neiman Marcus privately with private label collections of ornate quartz jewelry watches, titanium divers watches and a small assortment of chronograph watches with his residual stock of movements. These watches were not supplied to their stores nationwide, but to a small handful of select locations, primarily their store at the King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania. Oscar would frequently hand deliver orders to that location while attending watch shows by guilds like the IWJG and NAWCC in the PA area.
The lineage ends with the Waldan ref. 0181 Astronic Chronograph. In the 2000's, Oscar was now producing watches exclusively under the Waldan name and no longer private labelling to other brands. These models feature the final two piece, 39.5mm case design with inverted chronograph pushers and thick fluted lugs with 20mm width.
Models from the early 1990's that were signed "Waldan International Co", which permanently changed to "Waldan International" or "Oscar Waldan" from the late 90's on into the early 2000's. These were produced in 18K yellow, rose and white gold, and a handful of extremely limited pieces were also made in platinum. A note on crystals, Oscar exclusively used domed sapphire crystals consistently across all generations of these watches. While a great majority of these watches have solid screw down backs, few pieces were made for clients who custom ordered them with a sapphire crystal exhibition display back. Given that by this time, Oscar had used a great majority of his supply of movements across the last 20+ years, it is estimated that only about 250 pcs of the modern ref. 0181 Astronic Chronograph were ever produced, and will never be remade.
Saving the best part for last, the internal hallmarks. The rear side of the case generally has two hallmarks - a case number and an 18K hallmark, right around the 6pm position. Opening the screw down case back reveals stunning finishing and additional internal hallmarks and the defining “WALDAN”, “WALDAN MADE” or “WALDAN CREATION” hallmarks centered inside of the case back. It is important to note that every chronograph watch Oscar made for another company has these hallmarks, and any watch that does not have these hallmarks on the inside of the case back might not be fully authentic.
While so many of these incredible watches have been found, there are still a great number of undiscovered watches out there that have yet to be seen. That is one of the greatest joys of this passion, the suspense of the unknown that goes along with the pursuit for the unique and collectible. In closing, while we've long run out of movements, we still maintain a large stock of parts which we use to service our watches and help the owners in our network maintain their watches and collections. If you have an interesting or unique Waldan made watch, or one you think may be Waldan made, please contact us at info@waldanwatches.com.
