West End Watch Co.

West End Watch Co. is Swiss, founded in the 1880s, and spent most of its existence selling almost nothing in Switzerland. Its market was India, the Gulf and South East Asia — which is why a great many of them turn up in this part of the world and almost none turn up in European collections. If you grew up anywhere along that trade route, someone in your family probably owned one.

This is a small watch by modern standards, and it is the better for it. Rolled gold bezel, steel back — a construction that says plainly it was built to a price and built to last, which are not the same thing but were often achieved together.

The dial has aged to a soft even cream. That is the good outcome; the bad one is blotching, and this one has not blotched. There are service marks scratched inside the case back, the way watchmakers used to sign their work, which means somebody kept it running for a long time before it reached me.