I am offering for sale an all stainless steel two-tone Ebel Vintage Chronograph from around 1950, powered by a Lemania CH27 column wheel movement. This legendary movement was used as a base calibre for further individual modifications by numerous notable brands such as Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe (for their Ref. 3970) and Omega (for the Speedmaster with cal. 321).

The well-preserved case measures 35mm in diameter without and 37mm with the crown, the lug-to-lug distance is 42mm and the (drilled) lug width is 18mm. The watch is 11mm thin. It seems to my eye that the case and caseback have been polished in the past yet the caseback engravings remain deep and sharp.

The vertically brushed and very clean two-tone dial with gilt indices is surrounded by a red tachy scale and a minute track that shines differently under sunlight. The two subdials appear engine turned. Three elongated markers inside the minute counter were once used to indicate typical post office fees charged for phone calls in 3 minute intervals back in the days. There is a minor spot (which could be mere dirt) underneath the 12 o’clock index on the dial. I cannot seriously say whether or not the dial has been redone at some point in time but the condition is extraordinary and the two-tone effect definitely looks stunning.

The Ebel-signed Lemania CH 27 movement winds and runs smoothly and the chronograph pushers are super crisp. The movement is gaining approx. 35s/d. A notable anomaly, however, is that the minute counter hand jumps to 1 when (initially) activating the chronograph. It then continues to move forward each time the stop-second hand crosses the 12 o’clock position. So, my uneducated guess is that some spring adjustment by a watchmaker is necessary to fix this behaviour.

This watch comes on a brown leather strap (ostrich look) and inside an old Ebel watch box.

By the way, if you search in YouTube for “Ebel Lemania 27 circa 1950” you will find two videos of a very similar example (but, of course, that is not my present watch).

Price: EUR 1.250,-, plus international insured shipping according to destination.

Eventually, here come the pics:

The watch is located in Austria (EU) and so am I. I do have plenty of international references from various watch enthusiasts (also known here), so please feel free to ask for them.

Just for the records: I am a private collector and, therefore, the watch comes without any personal guarantee given by me. However, I am offering to give a full refund less fully insured shipping expenses in case the piece sold would not be as described by me (within an inspection period of three days and to buyers from within the EU only due to the complex customs procedure in case of an overseas deal).

Thanks for reading and thanks to the Chronotrader platform and its host!

Kind regards,
F.Antl