Horology

24-hour faces

-- wristwatches --

Stocker & Yale P650 military

Universal Genève Tri-Compax

Yema «Bipôle Duopoly»

-- clocks --

Greenwich Obs. Shepherd

1894

Numa-Emile Descombes and Ulysee Georges Perret registered the name Universal at a Swiss watch-making center, the Rue du College, in Le Locle.

1917

The first Universal chronograph made.

1918-9

The company moves to rue de l'Arquebuse, Geneva (Genève).

1932

The "Compur" chronograph debuts - the first two-pusher system (allowing the wearer to start and stop the seconds hand, avoiding an automatic return to zero).

1933

The world's first hour counter sub-dial, allowing timing on longer events, debuts. Previously timed periods could be no longer than forty-five minutes.

1934

The company was renamed Universal Genève.

1936

The "Compax" debuts - the first to combine two pushers and a 12-hour counter sub-dial.

1937

The "Medico Compax" assists doctors to measure patients' pulse rates more accurately.

1940

The "Aero Compax" - for pilots - displays two time zones.

1944

In the company's golden anniversary year the "Tri-Compax" is introduced.

My chronology ends here because that's the end of my intense interest in the company. They do several beautiful skeletonized wristwatches, but the very early Tri-Compax is the object of my affection. (You will see an 1960s model, but only to demonstrate why I focus on the earlier ones :-)

The Tri-Compax is a tripledate moonphase chronograph. It's the moonphase dial that's the most distinctive part of the Tri-Compax face. The disc therein, sporting a painted facsimile of the moon, makes one revolution each 29 days; a lunar month.

What could be more attractive and powerful than having the entire cosmos on one's wrist?

The Tri-Compax has a 17-jewel signed manual wind calendar/chronograph movement (cal. 287), round snap back case (the watch comes in a variety of widths), a satin painted numeral dial, and four registers; constant seconds, 30-minute and 12-hour recorders, date, apertures for month, day, and phases of the moon, chronograph sweep seconds, dial calibrated for tachymetre.

Here are some variants on the Tri-Compax:

Stainless Steel, English	Stainless Steel, luminescent hands
Stainless Steel, Spanish	Black face, Spanish
Pink Gold, Thai	18 K, Thai
18 K	18 K, movement

In comparison, here are some predecessor (and one ancestor) watches:

Compax	Aero-Compax
Aero-Compax, Roman numerals	Aero-Compax, 1960s

Some date information gratefully taken from the company web site.