INSIDE MOVADO’S ARCHIVES: Prototypes, Grails, and the Weight of History
By Alfonso Brivio - December 25, 2025
In my last article, I talked about the quiet comeback of vintage Movado as a whole, why collectors have started paying attention again and how that affection contrasts sharply with the modern path the brand has taken in recent years. What we tend to love as vintage collectors isn’t always aligned with where a brand chooses to go next, and Movado is a particularly interesting case study in that tension.
This time, though, I’m back with something more immediate. I recently had the opportunity to visit Movado’s headquarters, where I was given rare access to the brand’s archives. There, I was able to see and handle pieces from Movado’s private collection, including some of the most mesmerizing watches I’ve encountered in a long time. True new old stock examples from the 1930s and 1940s, the kind of Movado “unicorns” that usually exist only in grainy book photos or whispered collector lore.
I’ll be discussing what Movado has been holding onto, what’s coming in the near future and what it feels like to experience these watches in real life, untouched, uncompromised and frozen in time. And, inevitably, I’ll share my thoughts on where Movado might be headed next, and whether the brand’s future can meaningfully reconnect with the depth and character that made its past so compelling.
My visit to the archives was a genuinely wonderful experience. I was given a warm welcome and, more surprisingly, met people who were truly passionate about Movado’s vintage heritage. That wasn’t something I expected to find inside a large, modern watch brand.
We all know that today, exclusivity is often driven by profit rather than legacy's preservation, that’s why this visit mattered. Even if the brand’s heritage isn’t fully reflected in the current catalog, its spirit is clearly alive within the people making decisions behind the scenes. Seeing that connection firsthand left me cautiously optimistic about what Movado could become next.
Grails Behind Closed Doors:
I suddenly found myself standing in front of a couple dozen watches that most mortals, myself included, would consider pure grails, seemingly made of unobtanium. It felt a bit like being Marty McFly traveling back to the early 1940s and walking straight into a Movado store.
Almost immediately, my eyes locked onto the mythical Cronacvatic M90. Black dial, single register, radium dial and hands. A watch that Movado enthusiasts have debated for years, largely because it was only known via a single photograph in ‘The Movado Book’. Some even questioned whether it had ever existed at all, I was one of them. That changed a couple of months ago, when Kevin O’Dell from @theydid revealed that the watch was real.
Seeing it in person confirmed what many of us had been debating for years, something the staff also backed up, the watch was originally conceived as a military request, but it never made it into production. That’s a real shame, because the layout and design are unlike anything else Movado was doing at the time, purely functional, a little odd, and exactly what makes it so compelling.
Upon closer inspection, and with the staff’s permission, I had the chance to open the caseback. I’ll be honest, it nearly gave me a heart attack, handling a museum-grade, effectively unique piece like this and breaking the seal, even carefully, is the kind of moment that makes your pulse skip a bit.
What surprised me most also made perfect sense once you remember this is a prototype. The case carries no markings at all, nothing on the outside, and none of the usual engravings you’d expect to see on a typical reference 19008. No serial number, no François Borgel stamp. Even the caseback itself is different: instead of the familiar hexagonal shape used to open and close it, this one is completely round. We ended up using the classic plastic ball to open it, a small but telling detail that reinforced just how far removed this watch is from standard production.
The Tempograf, A Chonograph With A Twist:
Next, I have to admit I abandoned the Cronacvatic way too quickly, almost instinctively. Not because it didn’t deserve the attention, but because the shock of seeing another one of these in the wild completely took over.
The Tempograf. A watch I’m lucky enough to own one myself, and one its being documented nine examples of to date, this makes ten. And this one looked as if it had been made yesterday. Not just unworn, but bright and sharp in a way that almost felt unnatural for a watch of this age.
The reference 19006, is one of those watches that quietly sums up everything Movado did right, a compact 33mm chronograph powered by the M90 caliber, manually wound, with applied Breguet numerals, blued sword hands, and a bidirectional friction rotating bezel. Patented in the early 1930s, it’s quirky, forward-thinking, and unmistakably purposeful.
Over the years, the Tempograf has become something of a holy grail for seasoned collectors, and for good reason. Its scarcity, technical ambition, and historical context make it genuinely special. As the original advertisements put it: “Determines the duration of an observation in hours, minutes, seconds, and fifths of seconds.” Will anyone actually use it like that today? Probably not. Does that matter? Not really.
Anything But An Ordinary Pocket Watch:
Now for something a bit more complicated. For pocket-watch enthusiasts this is about as good as it gets. I was genuinely pleased to handle this particular example, already documented in The Movado Book, but like always, seeing it in person adds a layer of adrenaline that photographs never quite capture.
It’s an 18-karat gold engraved hunter-cased dating to around 1905, combining a minute repeater, calendar, and chronograph in a single piece. The enamel dial features small seconds and moon phases at six, a small date chapter ring at twelve, apertures for the day of the week and month, and is signed “Movado Sûreté.”
Inside, the gilded movement uses a lever escapement and is based on a Le Phare calibre LC. The chronograph is operated via the pusher at two, while the repeater is activated by a separate pusher at six. It’s a quiet masterful watch, and a reminder of what Movado was capable of during the Ditesheim brothers era, something I’ll come back to later in this article.
A Stepped Case That Refuses to Be Subtle:
This appears to be a reference 19005, and quite possibly a unique example. Over the past decade, I’ve owned and handled several of these, but I can’t recall encountering one executed in a two-tone configuration like this. Only one of the three stepped bezel tiers is rendered in gold, along with the crown, a detail that immediately caught me off guard.
I tried to examine whether the gold ring had a different construction than usual, either as plating or gold-filled, especially since we know the three-step bezel is typically machined as a single piece. I couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion; still, whatever the explanation, the result is striking.
The Polyplan:
This is certainly one of the rarest and most overengineered movements Movado ever produced. Only a handful have survived, and it’s generally believed to originate from an idea conceived by Isidore Ditesheim himself in the early 1910s. The result was the calibre 400, a movement that abandoned the conventional single-plane layout in favor of a far more complex three-plane construction.
The movement is angled downward by roughly 25 degrees, with stepped sides that solve the challenge of creating a pronouncedly curved watch, one that wraps around the wrist in a way few others manage to do, even today. Sorry, Cintrée. The name itself translates to “many angles,” and that description couldn’t be more accurate.
The crown positioned at twelve is another intriguing quirk. It’s not the most comfortable to wind, I’ll admit, but visually it feels perfectly proportioned within the design. And just to push it further, the case is made in white gold, as though the watch wasn’t already scarce enough.
Water resistance was never its strong suit, and as a result, most surviving examples show refinished or fully reprinted dials. Not this one. The dial here is extraordinarily clean, original radium numerals laid out in an exploding configuration, bright and intact in a way you rarely, if ever, see. It’s remarkable.
Image from ´The Movado History´Book.
Reverso Who?
Another one-of-a-kind, and easily among the least talked-about pieces I encountered. At first glance, it might be mistaken for a Movado interpretation of the Reverso, but that comparison only gets you so far. This watch stands on its own, and once again highlights just how inventive Movado was at its peak. This is the side of the brand many collectors still wish would resurface.
Produced in 1939, this rectangular gold watch features a swivel-mounted case developed during a period of profound instability, caught between the First and Second World Wars. Economic pressure and political uncertainty defined the era, yet Movado continued to experiment rather than retreat.
The primary dial is deliberately restrained, displaying hours, minutes, and seconds with clarity and balance. Rotate the case, and a second dial appears, dedicated to the chronograph, with running seconds below and a 30-minute counter above. Power comes from an 18-ligne, 19-jewel round movement, an experimental calibre that never progressed beyond the prototype stage.
The watch surfaced publicly at an Antiquorum auction in Hong Kong on December 16th, 1990, before ultimately entering Movado’s private collection. It’s a piece that speaks less about commercial success and more about creative ambition, proof that even in uncertain times, Movado was willing to take real risks.
I wasn’t able to take additional photos, as the crystal of one side was loose.
Image from ´The Movado History´Book.
Blueprints of a Better Era:
I also had the chance to handle several original hand-drawn movement designs and data sheets. It’s a small detail, but an important one. I was genuinely pleased to see that these documents are still preserved and treated with the respect they deserve. These blueprints are, in many ways, the clearest expression of what “old Movado” stood for.
Hand drawings, obsessive attention to detail, and real freedom in design, some of these sheets date from the early 1930s through to the late 1960s. They’re as much a part of Movado’s legacy as the watches themselves, and the kind of material collectors quietly hope still exists behind the scenes.
I managed to take a few extra photographs, which I’ll be sharing on a separate page for those of you who enjoy going deep into this kind of details Click Here To See Them
Before Movado Meant Movado:
Movado’s origins are more nuanced than a single founding date might suggest. The Ditesheim family arrived in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876, motivated as much by the desire to escape the instability following the Franco-Prussian War as by the ambition to establish a watchmaking business. At the time, the industry itself was still small and fragmented, some maisons employed hundreds, others barely a handful.
Under the name L.A. & I. Ditesheim, after brothers Léopold, Achille and Isidore, the early operation focused on assembling and casing movements sourced externally, producing pocket watches rather than complete in-house calibers. It was a practical starting point, but one that allowed the brothers to build experience quickly.
After Achille completed his horological training, the business began to scale. What started as a modest workshop evolved into a proper factory by the late 1890s, employing around 80 people. The name Movado appeared for the first time in 1903 and became official two years later, a reflection of a brand already moving toward technical independence and unconventional design thinking long before it became known for it.
Behind the Calibers, The Names That Built Movado:
A brief note for those driven by history. While reviewing the archive photographs, I came across images of Raymond Polo, a name that deserves far more recognition. A graduate of a technical college, Polo joined Movado as the assistant to Mr. Jeannot, who at the time headed the technical department. Following Jeannot’s departure in 1941, Polo stepped into the role and assumed leadership of the department.
By all accounts, he was an exceptional watchmaker, constantly searching for new solutions, dynamic in his thinking and deeply ingenious in execution. It was in this role that he was able to fully express his capabilities. The calibers he developed during his tenure played a key role in maintaining and ultimately expanding, Movado’s technical reputation. Many of the movements we admire most today bear his influence, even if his name isn’t always the first one mentioned.
Old Movado, New Questions:
After spending a couple of hours deep in Movado’s archives, talking openly about vintage pieces, current collections and what might lie ahead, I left with more questions than answers, and honestly, I think that’s a good thing.
I didn’t expect such an open and thoughtful exchange, especially given my own well-known bias toward vintage watches and a fair amount of skepticism toward most modern releases. Yet the conversations felt genuine, grounded and surprisingly unguarded.
What stayed with me most was a real sense of respect for Movado’s history, not as a branding exercise, but as something that still carries weight internally. At the same time, it would be foolish to ignore the fact that the brand has taken a direction over the past decades that many collectors, including myself, feel moved away from its original spirit. That tension is still there, unresolved.
Still, call me naïve, but I left feeling cautiously optimistic. Not because I was promised anything, or because I have any inside information, far from that, but because the broader landscape is changing toward smaller cases, historically grounded designs and watches that actually mean something. In that space, Movado has an archive most brands would envy, whether it chooses to truly engage with it is another question entirely, or maybe that’s just nostalgia talking, maybe I’m projecting what I want Movado to be rather than what it will become. But being allowed to handle these watches, to study the drawings, to spend time with the people who care for this history, it reminded me why I fell in love with Movado in the first place, for that alone, I’m grateful. What comes next remains uncertain, and honestly, that uncertainty might be the most honest place to begin.
Before closing, I’d genuinely like to thank the entire Movado team for allowing me to scrutinize their archives and handle watches that most of us, as enthusiasts, only ever dream of. It was an experience that’s difficult to put into words, and one I won’t forget.