Timeline Watch
1949

Chronographe Suisse Chronograph Tachymeter

Capt. James Gallagher and USAF crew make first round-the-world nonstop flight

1949 Chronographe Suisse 18k 37mm gold case. This is the best looking dial I ever seen on a Chronographe Suisse. Chronograph Suisse chonographs often have tachymetre and telemeter scales on the dial. The most common use for these scales was to measure speed and distance, of course!

A tachymeter scale measures how fast an object is moving. The scale can be found either on the dial or in the bezel. Most tachymeters start at 400 and end at 60, but some models can show different numbers.

A telemeter scale measures the distance between the user of the watch and the event seen and heard. It was used extensively to calculate when artillery fired. When you saw the light of the shot of the artillery, you would push the start button and push the stop button when the thunder was heard. The number shown in the scale refers to the distance.

Chronograph Suisse was a brand that made parts available to any Swiss company producing chronographs. In the time before the quartz revolution, there were probably more than 500 workshops or factories producing watches by buying movements, cases, and dials. Chronographe Suisse also used their own brand name, too. Most of the many different factories disappeared during the quartz revolution.
When it comes to chronographs, many smaller workshops bought well- known movements by Valjoux, Landeron, and Venus, and built them into very thin gold cases. Often these workshops gave these watches a very nice dial, too. These types of watch were big sellers from the 1940s through to the 1970s