I originally planned to list this Wittnauer for sale, but it completely won me over once I had it in hand, so I’m keeping it (sorry, everyone). It’s the kind of watch that looks almost too simple—until you realize how hard it is to get “simple” this right. The big, clean dial and thin bezel give it a surprisingly modern presence for a vintage dress watch, and the applied markers add just enough texture to keep the whole thing from feeling sterile.

So, what do when you have a vintage Wittnauer with a fabulous dial but a broken lug, and another with a good case but an ugly, damaged dial? You make a marriage watch! In this case the marriage is pretty incestuous, as the dial/movement and case are both from contemporaneous Wittnauers. Fitment wasn’t that difficult, but did require a thin 3D printed spacer around the perimeter of the dial, which is barely visible in the assembled watch. I also needed to install new hands, since the original minute hand had been badly bent. I’m pretty happy with the result and glad I could preserve this cool guilloché dial, even if it gets points off for historical accuracy.