Favico Chronograph - Valjoux 7730

Favico was a label registered in 1953 by the Favorite Importing Company in Toronto owned by Nicholas Righter and Alexander Stern. The first use of the name was January 22, 1953.

In the early 60’s the racing chronograph craze was in full bloom with companies like Omega and Heuer leading the charge. A cottage industry popped up with small wholesaler companies filling the market demand globally by rebranding OEM catalog watches with their own name and stocking display cases for smaller jewelry and department stores that didn’t carry more premier brands, or wanted a less expensive alternative to offer their customers.

Heuer as an example made several lines of watches for the Zales jewelry company out of Texas with their house brand Baylor name on the dials. Longines made watches for Birk’s jewelers in Canada with the Birk’s name on the dial. Orvin and Heuer both made watches for Sears & Roebuck with the “Traditions” name on the dial.

Although the provenance for many of these “no-name” catalog watches has been lost to time, we can judge them on the quality of their parts and styles of their dials- many sharing striking similarities to much more expense branded watches leading to speculate who may have manufactured and assembled these watches before rebranding them for export.

This Favico panda is classic representation for the style of upper mid-tier chronographs of the time. The case is all stainless and appears unpolished and retains razor sharp lines, movement is a Valjoux 7730, the proportions are on the larger side for the time at 37x44 and the silver sunburst panda dial is more elaborate than most with its trapezoidal subdials, applied indices filled with lume and inscribed numerals in the lume at 6 & 12.

When the previous owner got this watch it had a few issues, it was missing the chrono hand, movement ring was missing, lume was out of the hands and some of the lume was missing from a few of the indices. He had the watch serviced, a new movement ring was fabricated, chrono hand replaced with a period correct hand and lume stabilized and filled with exact color matching to the original.

This watch is now a sight to behold with all its funky 60’s charm and incredible wrist presence due to the larger size for the period and striking sunburst panda dial that gleams like a beacon. it looks just as smart on leather as it does on a beads of rice. A truly unique piece from the middle of the last century and a testament to the quality of good from the era.

ABOUT THIS WATCH: 

MANUFACTURER: Favico

MODEL: 

REFERENCE:  

SERIAL:  5023

YEAR: 1960s

DIAL: The beautiful panda dial is in great shape.; It sports steel surround circular hour markers with Arabic numerals in a shield at 12 and 6 o'clock.

CASE:  The 37mm stainless steel case is in good shape. The case shows light to moderate wear commensurate with its age. Most of the wear is noted on the screwdown case back presumably from someone trying to open the case back while using improper tools or techniques. Regarding 

MOVEMENT:  Valjoux 7730 manually wound chronograph. The watch winds, sets and runs. It was timed over 24hrs. The 24hrs included periods of wear and non-wear. Over those 24hrs the watch gained 13 seconds per day. 

BRACELET: On the pictured BandR Bands genuine Italian leather strap. 

ACCESSORIES: No.  

BOX/PAPERS: No.

BANK WIRE PRICE:  $850 shipped.