When a watch tells its story

A peculiar gold IWC, a 1961 movement, a hidden dedication, and a story that took more than six decades to return to where it all began.

There are watches that arrive at a watchmaker’s workbench and reveal their identity almost immediately.
A mark on the case back, a serial number, a distinctive movement. A little research is all it takes to identify the model, the era, and often even its collectible value.

But there are also some other watches that you just have to listen to. The one below is one of them.

When it arrived at our workshop in Thessaloniki, there was no indication that behind those approximately 130 grams of gold lay a human story that had begun in Switzerland more than sixty years earlier.

An IWC that shouldn't exist

The watch arrived at the workshop for appraisal: a particularly heavy gold IWC of unknown origin, with an integrated bracelet and an unusual monoblock construction.
The dial clearly bore the signature “International Watch Co. Schaffhausen,” but the rest of the construction did not resemble any known IWC production model.

From the very first look, my impression was that this was not a factory-made watch in the form in which it had left Schaffhausen.
The case and bracelet appeared to have been crafted specifically for this watch from solid 18-karat gold.

The first logical assumption was, therefore, that a watchmaker or goldsmith had used an authentic IWC movement and dial and had created a unique watch around them.

A custom-made item, perhaps made to order for a customer.

If this assumption were correct, then its collectible value as an IWC would be limited. The value of the gold, on the other hand, was anything but negligible. The entire watch weighed approximately 130 grams.

So the owner decided to remove the crystal, the dial, and the movement so that the precious metal could be separated from the other components, and thus began the disassembly. That’s when the watch slowly began to reveal its story.

What was hidden beneath the mechanism

Once the crystal and the mechanism were removed, something was revealed that could not be detected by a visual inspection.

An older IWC caseback had been incorporated into the interior of the handmade construction. The factory engravings remained visible. Along with them were the 18K / 0.750 gold mark and the case number: 1,318,695
The construction now made more sense: An older gold IWC case section appears to have been used as a base and incorporated into a new gold body, creating this unusual monoblock construction.

But the timeline puzzle was just beginning.

Inside the watch was an IWC Caliber 8531, with serial number 1,631,704. The 85x caliber family represents a particularly important chapter in IWC’s history.

This is the generation of automatic mechanisms associated with the famous winding system developed by Albert Pellaton, who was the company’s technical director at the time. Instead of a conventional self-winding solution, Pellaton developed a unique system for transmitting the motion of the balance wheel, which became one of the technical hallmarks that defined IWC for decades.

In our case, however, it was the number that was of greatest interest.

The available data on vintage IWC watches place this specific serial number in the early 1960s and, based on published indexes, around 1961. So we already had an indication that the watch’s various components had not necessarily begun their lives together.

What initially seemed like a strange transformation began to look more like a deliberate watchmaking creation.

And that's when we noticed the engraving.

“Upon Completion of the Apprenticeship…”

On the inside, there were a few hand-engraved words that were not IWC’s factory markings, but personal ones.

P. BRUHIN WATCHES
SCHWYZ

And around the perimeter:

ON THE COMPLETION OF YOUR APPRENTICESHIP WITH YOUR SATISFIED MASTER

A loose translation:

"To mark the completion of your apprenticeship, from your grateful teacher."

That’s when everything changed. We were no longer looking at just an IWC that someone had modified. We had a Lehrabschlussgeschenk—a watch associated with the completion of a watchmaker’s apprenticeship. And, most importantly, we had a name and a place.

P. Bruhin, Schwyz.

The investigation could begin.

A family of watchmakers from Schwyz

Our search for the name "Bruhin" led us to a story much older than the watch itself.

The family's watchmaking tradition in Schwyz dates back to the mid-19th century.

In 1844, Josef Maria Bruhy—as he is listed in older documents—received a Wanderbuch and a travel passport from the authorities of the canton of Schwyz. This was followed by four years of wandering.

It was a time when a craftsman’s vocational training did not end in his master’s workshop. The young craftsman would travel, work in different places, learn other techniques, and gain experience before returning to his homeland.

In 1848, Josef Maria Karl Bruhin returned to Schwyz and founded a watchmaking workshop in the city center, which was subsequently passed down from generation to generation.

His son, Josef Maria Dominik Bruhin, also became a watchmaker and, after completing his apprenticeship, spent several years traveling through Lausanne, Paris, and Milan before taking over the shop in 1888.

In 1928, the business was taken over by Julius Anton Paul Alois Bruhin, born in 1901. And from there, our research finally led us to the person we were looking for.

Paul Bruhin

Paul Bruhin was born in 1933. He, too, followed in the family tradition and trained as a watchmaker.

Like previous generations, he did not limit himself to Schwyz.

His Wanderjahre took him much farther afield: to Geneva and even to New York, where he gained additional professional experience before returning to the family business.

And here, an astonishing coincidence occurred. In 1961, Father Bruhin called on his sons Paul and Edi to return from their Wanderjahre to Schwyz.

In other words, roughly the same year indicated by the serial number of the IWC Caliber 8531 that we had on our workbench in Thessaloniki.

We cannot claim that this proves exactly when the clock was made or under what circumstances. The temporal coincidence, however, was hard to ignore.

• An IWC movement dating from around 1961.
• A young Swiss watchmaker who returned to Schwyz in 1961.
• And a one-of-a-kind gold watch bearing his name, along with a dedication marking the completion of an apprenticeship.

The puzzle was starting to take shape.

From Schwyz to Thessaloniki

After the brothers returned, the family business continued to grow.

In 1964, a new building was constructed to house two separate businesses: a modern watch shop and an optician’s shop. The watchmaking tradition did not end with Paul; it was passed on to the next generation.

His son, Markus Bruhin, born in 1969, also became a watchmaker. He studied for four years at the watchmaking school in Solothurn and later worked and trained in Geneva, first at Rolex and then at Patek Philippe, gaining experience with mechanical and complicated watches. Thus, in 2000, he, in turn, took over the family business.

Today, he continues to work as a watch specialist in his workshop in Schwyz.

So we had found the family of watchmakers who were most likely the makers of the watch, and all that remained was to verify this and find out how it ended up in Thessaloniki.

From watchmaker to watchmaker

I decided to contact Markus Bruhin.

I wrote to him from my workshop in Thessaloniki, explaining who I was and describing as accurately as I could the unusual watch that had come into my possession.

I sent him some photos:

• The case.
• The Calibre 8531.
• IWC's seals.
• And, of course, the engraving: P. BRUHIN UHREN – SCHWYZ.

My question was simple.

Did he know who Paul Bruhin was?
Could he know anything about that particular watch?

The answer came from Switzerland. And in just a few lines, an investigation into a strange vintage IWC turned into something much more personal.

"The watch belongs to my father…"

Markus Bruhin was Paul's son, and the watch recognized him.

It belonged to his father.

In his message, he revealed to us that the watch had been stolen from Paul back when he still ran his shop. For decades, its whereabouts were unknown.

And now, more than sixty years after the era to which his clues had led us, he had reappeared.

Not in Schwyz.

Not somewhere in Switzerland.

But on a watchmaker's workbench in Thessaloniki.

Paul was still there

And then came perhaps the most touching detail of the entire story. Paul Bruhin was now 92 years old. Markus had shown him our message. He told him that the watch had been found.

And, as he wrote to us: “He was thrilled to hear from you.”

He was very pleased to hear the news.

Markus added that it was very special that his father, at that age, was still able to experience that moment.

Think about it for a moment.

An object that had been lost from a person’s life decades ago. A watch that passed through unknown hands, traveled to unknown places, and eventually arrived in a country hundreds of kilometers away from where it had started. And the man to whom it belonged was still here to learn that it had been found.

Two owners, one story

Of course, there was also the reality of the present. The watch now had a new owner.

A man who had acquired it without knowing anything about Paul Bruhin, his family, his apprenticeship, the theft, or the story hidden beneath the mechanism.

We told him everything we had discovered.
We explained to him who Paul was.
We relayed to him our conversation with Markus and how important this item was to the family.

And that's when our role came to an end.

We managed to put the current owner of the watch in touch with the Bruhin family in Switzerland. What would happen next was now a matter for the two sides to decide.

For us, however, the essence of the story had already been revealed.

How much is a watch worth?

When this particular IWC arrived at our workshop, one of the first questions we asked was how much it was worth.

And at first, the answer seemed easy.

There was a remarkable vintage IWC movement.
There was a dial.
And there was a lot of gold.

Approximately 130 grams of the watch, a large portion of which was made of 18-karat gold.

These are things that can be weighed.
They can be measured.
They can be assigned a monetary value.

But sometimes the true value of an old watch lies in something that no scale can measure.

In this particular case, all that was needed was to remove a mechanism. Beneath it were a few words engraved.

A name:
A place: P. Bruhin, Schwyz.

These words led us to a family of watchmakers whose history dates back to 1848.
They led us to the Wanderjahre of a young Swiss watchmaker in Geneva and New York.
They led us to Schwyz in 1961.

And in the end, they led us to a 92-year-old man who learned that a watch he had lost decades ago still existed.

When a watch tells its story

This is perhaps one of the reasons why watchmaking continues to fascinate us.

A mechanical watch can outlive its first owner.

It can be passed down from generation to generation, from country to country, and from workshop to workshop.

People change.
Businesses close.
Families move away.
Memories fade.

But the clock remains.

And on it, small traces of its journey have accumulated: a scratch on the case, a number on the movement, a repair, a stamp, a dedication that someone engraved on the gold sixty years ago.

We usually just walk right past them.

Sometimes, however, we decide to follow them.

And then an object that at first seemed to be worth its weight in gold turns into something completely different.

-As a testament to a family tradition.
-In memory of an apprenticeship.
-In memory of a lost personal item.
-As a link between two watchmakers who live in different countries and belong to different generations.

Perhaps, in the end, this is the most important lesson that this particular IWC has taught us.

It's not just movements in need of repair that end up on a watchmaker's workbench.

Objects that have a history are arriving.

And if you take a little time to observe them, sometimes they start to speak.

Because some watches don't just measure time. They carry it with them!