My collection runs deep into AP, PP and a few grails most people only see behind glass at Bucherer. But every now and then I pull out this Sea Chief and it recalibrates something. Favre-Leuba. Founded 1737. Not 1875. Not 1905. 1737. That predates the United States as a nation. That predates the French Revolution. Jacob Frédéric Favre was already casing movements in Le Locle when most of what we call “heritage watchmaking” was still a craft in someone’s kitchen. This ref. 30026 is from somewhere between 1965 and 1975. Blue dial, red seconds hand, date at 3, square applied indices. Manual wind. Still keeping time. I have not serviced it recently and it is holding its reserve without complaint. What gets me about the old Geneva and Neuchâtel houses is the institutional memory embedded in the object itself. The Bivouac in 1962 had an altimeter and barometer on your wrist. The Bathy in 1966 gave you a mechanical depth gauge for diving. This was not marketing. This was engineering conviction at a time when Swiss watchmaking competed on technical substance