I have restored several Girard-Perregaux pieces for sale in my shop, but this is the only one, so far, that I’ve decided to add to my own collection. Something about the deep relief of the prominent dial indices on this watch looks particularly good to my eyes. The 39 jewel count of the GP 31 movement is impressive, but a bit of a cheat, with 14 of those jewels incorporated into the pawls of the automatic reversing wheels. Still, it’s a nice, accurate movement, with a high (for the era) 21,600 bph rate. This watch was in pretty good vintage shape, except for the hands, which had experienced significant finish oxidation and looked much rougher and older than the dial. I went ahead and refished them, with fresh rhodium plating. Re-finishing watch hands is definitely a tricky operation (for me at least - I’m not a jeweler), but I think it turned out quite well in this case.

One consistent quirk of vintage GP watches that I’ve noticed is a tendency to use recessed channels in the case to hold case gaskets, which you can see in the movement photos below. This creates a very clean interface to the caseback, but it means the cases can have deceptively thin and delicate metal walls around the perimeter of the caseback. Be careful prying on these!