Swiss Horology Americana - Girard Perregaux - First Edition Budweiser Collaboration

At this time , every asymmetrical watch has been coveted heavily... from outsourced cnc automated microbrands , to 1980's fashion watches with plastic movements spacers and Cartiers.

In my opinion , one of the most special ones in terms of quality of the dial , case and mechanical movement are the Gilbert Albert Patek Phillipe's such as the 3424s in Roni Madhvani's collection.

But there is one piece I have seen zero written about online , and that is this Girard Perregaux from 1960. Before going skin deep on aesthetics , I would like to talk about the movement inside.

This watch will be nicknamed the "HorseShoe" for rest of the article.

Today , we take for granted , any serious improvement and innovation that set a standard in the past. The Girard Perregaux Gyromatic movement starting in the late 1950's really changed how we saw automatic watches back then. Prior to the development of the Gyromatic, automatic watches and especially bumpers were inefficient systems , where hand winding was still necessity for long , accurate time keeping , and power gained from the automatic rotor was considered a bonus.

Gyromatic Advert 1960's

The Gyromatic took the A. Schild base bidirectional rotor movement and added two "Gyrotron" wheels which had 7 ruby jewels on each wheel for maximum power transfer both ways. Inside this HorseShoe is the caliber 47 AE , the first generation 17 jewel gyromatic movment. How we have plenty of power in our automatic Seikos today , begins with GP first. It's a fact Breguet used the same A.Schild calibers during the same decades , with less impressive modifications.

"Gyrotron" Wheel

History

I spent a week , looking for old adverts in my physical collection , old newspaper archives online and I found zero images of this exact watch. It was only when I contacted the original owner after , and it happened completely thanks to the previous owner connecting me , I was able to learn how this mysterious piece came to be...

It was gifted to the previous owner from a Budweiser executive when company ownership had changed. I learned that at the time Budweiser was even more relevant at the time in 1950s and 1960s than today. The watch was ordered from the CEO of the time , August Busch to be created by Girard Perregaux to gift to executives at the time and not sold directly to the public.. After this , there was Girard Perregaux Budweiser pocket watches and penant watches available for the public as memorablia, but this watch marked the beginning of the collaboration and the most audacious design... possibly of any American watch case to this point.

Original Clydesdales.

When the watch was released , all the original Clydesdale horses from Budweiser had retired , the horseshoe shape signified that . This was how the company started delivering beer , just after the Prohibition Era had ended , most notably delivering beer to Washington D.C , to FDR.

The Case

The movement and the dial was manufactured in Switzerland . The case was manufactured by Star & Co case company , which made many of the Longines , Omegas , Ulysse Nardin cases for the American Market , due to the tarrifs at the time. Once the case was finished the watch was assembled together in Florida and the unique font of Budweiser at the time was stamped as the watch was assembled.

1961 Budweiser Advert. The Budweiser Font/Logo is period correct and matches the dial signature , but more importantly , one of the earliest advertisements of Budweiser with foundational African Americans. Thanks Hyo!

This piece will be going to one of my favorite long time collectors. The rediscovery and research is still fresh in vintage watches decades later , even with close to 3 decades of showing watches on the internet. This is one of those watches that is forgotten from the past with an amazing " Americana " history and genius Swiss engineering inside. Thank you for reading!