Closed | Important watches – Saturday 14 May 2016

It was in the beginning of the 1950’s that commercial flights became more common and the Scandinavian airline SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) wasn’t late to follow the trend with longer flights. Their new route went from Copenhagen, over the North Pole, to Los Angeles. This was in 1954 and Universal Genève provided the pilots and flight crew with their new watch “Polarouter”. The name was a mixture of the words “Polar” and “Route”, but was renamed to “Polerouter” the year after.

The watch was designed by the legendary watch designer Gérald Genta and this example, made in 1954, is one of the first made with “Polarouter” on the dial. It’s equipped with the bumper automatic movement calibre 138 SS. The later version with “Polerouter” on the dial was given the new movement calibre 215 with micro rotor.