Rare survivor, great condition stainless steel 36.5mm jumbo ETERNA Ref.106DT dress watch, equipped with large manual winding calibre 852, made circa 1947. Complete with rare original box and matching serial number tag.
This particular watch is all about what we do love in vintage watch hunting – condition, wearability and completeness. It’s just a great-looking 80 years old wristwatch with a nice movement, original box, tag and touch of Swiss industrial history.
Original radium dial has developed that warm ivory patina that only seven decades of honest existence can produce. Arabic radium numerals, a fine outer minute track, and blued steel radium filled baton hands with a red accent seconds indicator – give it the restrained authority of the best Swiss timepieces of the 1940s. Nothing has been touched, nothing redone.
Large 36.5mm steel case in never polished condition with sharp edges. Screwed caseback is bearing subtile engraving: “Ernst Meister — Für treue Dienste — 1911–1947 — Werk Rondez.” Presented to Ernst by Von Roll, the great Swiss industrial conglomerate, to mark 36 years of loyal service. The man started working there before the First World War and kept going through the second. This watch was his reward.
The Eterna calibre 852 is one of the most quietly respected Swiss movements of its era. At 14 lignes – just under 32mm in diameter – it is a large-format movement that demands a substantial case, and Eterna rose to the occasion. With 15 jewels, antimagnetic protection, and shock absorption, the 852 is robust by design and elegant by temperament. Eterna trusted it to Czech Air Force service watches, which says everything about its reliability. At 36.5mm in stainless steel with long sweeping lugs, this ref. 106DT wears with far more presence than its dimensions suggest.
What makes this piece exceptional beyond the watch itself is the set. Watch, original extremely rare Eterna box and a cherry on the cake – the original factory tag bears serial number 3267461, confirmed against the caseback engraving and the movement within – a three-way match that only survives when a watch travels directly from presentation to box and stays there. Case, movement, box, tag – all original, all cohering.
Complete, documented, and carrying a piece of Swiss industrial history on its back. These don’t come around twice.
Watch is in overall exceptional 9.5/10 condition, running and ready to wear or gift!
International shipping is possible.
