To be back on track, here is WWR# 37.
There are some designs that we most of the time ignore the first time we laid our eyes on them, but came to appreciate the 2nd time around. A love not at first site. And one of those pieces or kind of pieces that was not love at first site was the so called 'California Dial'.
What is a California dial you say? It is also called the High Visibility or the Roman-Arabic dial. It is basically Roman Indices on the upper portion of the dial and Arabic on the bottom. With the 3-6-9-with rectangular markers and the 12 o'clock military symbol. Its kind of an art-deco style dial that first appeared on Rolex bubble backs way back in the 1940s. Where did the name California came from? Based from web sources all over and account of vintage documents and watches, this style of a dial was patented by Rolex in 1941, but got it's famous name from an LA based dial refinisher Kirk Rich who did this kind of this design on some vintage watches he worked on, to which became popular to a point that watch dealers already referred it to the "California Dial".
Images grabbed from Jake's Rolex World blog.
Now in relation to this art-deco dial design, This watch caught my eye while just lazily browsing over the web. Now you may say, PAM 424 is a great tribute to the vintage 3466 with a faithful revival of the California Dial, but I wanted something on a regular shaped watch case that may not be as 100% homage to the bubble backs back then but can stand on its own. And this is what Glycine is for me.
Glycine has quite a reputation from collectors of having well balance and clean designs on their watches with minimal striking features that makes them interesting. And with the Incursore, the execution of a California Dial on a round military watch case and indice set like hands is clean and humble yet remarkably striking to those who now about the design. The two below are what I would choose from the Incursore line.
Ref 3900 with brown leather strap with just the name Glycine on sans the logo
And the ref. 3922 with black strap and Logo on. Both have automatic movements.
Here are the specs from Glycine website.
Movement | |
| Caliber: | Swiss automatic movement |
| Functions: | hours, minutes and seconds, date display in window |
| Size: | 11 1/2" |
| Jewels: | 25 |
| Power Reserve: | 38 hours |
| Hz: | 4/28'800 vibrations per hour |
| Finish: | nickel coated oscillating weight on ball bearing, decorated "Côtes de Genève" |
 | |
Case, Dial & Hands | |
| Material: | stainless steel |
| Diameter: | 44mm without crown |
| Height: | 9.95 with see-through back |
| Finish: | polished / satin |
| Waterproof: | 10 atm |
| Back: | screwed see-through sapphire glass |
| Glass: | sapphire |
| Dial: | black with 4 roman and 4 arabic figures with SL, black and dark brown with 4 arabic figures and strikes with SL |
| Hands: | white with SL or steel with SL |
| Crown: | screw-down |
| |
Leather strap | |
| Material: | calf |
| Colours: | calf sewing: black, brown, light brown, blue calf croco style: black, brown, light brown, blue |
| Width: | 22mm horns / 22mm buckle |
| Buckle: | belt |
Bracelet | |
| Material: | stainless steel |
| Finish: | satin |
| Length: | 190mm incl. endpieces |
| Width: | 22mm horns / 18mm buckle |
| Clasp: | diver |
There is also a manual wind Incursore 44mm version and has a cool second hand at 6 o'clock which is true to the Rolex patent as seen above.
Prices of these models hover around $900-$1100 which is a good deal for a well built "Intruder" watch with High Visibility and art-deco dial.
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