This is a Swiss Made, 1940’s vintage BERTMAR triple calendar watch with day, date, and month display. The blue calendar hand indicates the date. The numbers 1–31 are on the outer track; day and month are displayed in the windows under the 12 o’clock position. This beautiful timepiece measures 32 mm across x 38 mm (lug to lug) which was normal for that period. Not much is know about this brand. For anyone who's interested in this little piece of Canadiana, here’s a brief history of the watch and the company behind it: Research indicates that 'BERTMAR' was the brand name used by the Canadian company “Peoples (Credit) Jewellers”, which started business in Toronto, Ontario Canada early in the 20th century. The brand name was created from the names of founder Frank Gerstein's two sons BERTrand and MARvin. Switzerland was the source for BERTMAR watch movements and cases which were sold in Canada. After Frank Gerstein’s passing, Bertrand and Marvin took over the company and expanded it all across Canada. Watch calendar: To set up this triple calendar watch is a bit tricky. You have to turn the hands well past midnight (say 6:30 am), it is important to be sure that the gears that change the date are completely disengaged to avoid damaging the mechanism. There are two pin push setting points on the right side of the watch, above and below the winding crown, the top one is for the month and the lower one for the date. To change the day the hands must be rotated 24 hours to advance one day. Comments are closed.
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Old Time WatchesI enjoy collecting mechanical (manual wind and automatic) and early electric and quartz timepieces. I take great pleasure in researching and writing about the companies and people that created these beautiful watches. PF
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September 2018
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