Power Wheels Magazine A Notch Above
One of the oldest wristwatches in our collection is this Gruen Veri-Thin from the 1940s. The Gruen Watch Company was founded in 1894 in Cincinnati, Ohio by the father-and-son horologists, Dietrich and Frederick Gruen. Initially, they made pocket watches with watch movements designed in America and manufactured in Germany, but were later made in Switzerland. Most Gruen watches, including ours, have Gruen-made Swiss movements.
Dietrich Gruen, Frederick Gruen and Paul Assman with associates in 1894.
One of the first companies to make wristwatches, Gruen introduced both men’s and women’s models in 1908. Men at the time considered wristwatches effeminate and refused to wear them until World War I, when wristwatches were used by the military, and men started to accept the idea of “strapping” a watch to their wrists. Most watchmakers, including Gruen, called these “strap watches” since “wristwatch” still sounded effeminate to male customers.
World War I trench watches made men wear “strap watches” instead of carrying pocket watches.
Rectangular watches became fashionable in the 1920s while curved watches became popular in the 1930s. Gruen was one of the first companies to design movements specifically for wristwatches and made rectangular movements for rectangular watches. The movement of the Gruen Curvex curved to fit the case to make the watches thinner and more curved than competitor’s watches with flat movements inside.
1930 Gruen Curvex
After the success of the Curvex, Gruen developed the Veri-Thin wristwatches in the 1940s to fill fashionable watch case shapes. Our Gruen Veri-Thin, which is often referred to as “The Groom”, is powered by a 17-jewel Caliber 425 manual-wind mechanical movement with a subsidiary seconds or sub-seconds dial.
Our Gruen Veri-Thin from 1940s is often referred to as “The Groom”.
Powered by a 17-jewel Gruen Caliber 425 manual-wind mechanical movement, it features a subsidiary seconds or sub-seconds dial.
The entire dial, movement and case back assembly snaps into the gold-plated case with glass crystal.
Our Gruen’s serial number is engraved at the bottom of base metal case back .
Encased in a 10K gold-filled rectangular case with a curved glass crystal, the brown dial features gold-plated applied Arabic numerals, sword-style hands, and a sub-dial at the 6 o’clock position swept by a gold-plated miniature seconds hand. At just 26 mm wide, 34.5 mm long, 8.4 mm thick and weighing only 27 grams with a brown lizard-skin Veloci leather strap, this Gruen feels small and weightless on the wrist.
At only 26 mm x 34.5 mm and weighing only 27 grams with the leather strap, it feels small and very light on the wrist.
As its name implies, it’s very thin for a hand-wound mechanical watch at only 8.4 mm thick. Note the “Gruen” trademark on the crown.
This particular Gruen Veri-Thin was worn by the author’s father when he was a college student in the 1950s. It was passed down from father to sons when the author was in high school and his older brother was in college. However, when his brother joined the US Navy in 1985, the author became the sole custodian of this family heirloom. The watch has since been serviced and used sparingly, considering that it’s more than 80 years old.
This family heirloom is more than 80 years old…
… but still keeps time as accurately as when it was new.
Make: Gruen
Model: Veri-Thin “The Groom”
Country of Origin: Switzerland
Year of Manufacture: 1940-1948
Type: Dress Watch
Movement: Mechanical Manual-Wind
Caliber: 425
No. of Jewels: 17
Width: 26 mm
Thickness: 8.4 mm
Lug-to-lug Length: 34.5 mm
Lug Width: 19 mm
Weight: 27 grams
