Freco automatic - 1970's

Material: stainless steel
Movement: automatic
Strap: leather (unworn)
Year: 1970's
Size: 44x45mm 

An automatic Freco with date indicator positioned at 3 o'clock from the 1970's.

The case is what the Italians would call disco volante; a flying saucer. A wide, flat, brushed-steel bezel carries the eye outward before dropping to the dial below, creating a profile that is at once understated and unmistakably of its era. From the side, the silhouette is pure late-Sixties Swiss: slim, purposeful, just a little cinematic.

The deep blue dial is the real asset dial. Its the kind of deep blue that shifts between midnight and slate depending on the light.

Fully serviced so it works perfectly with a brand new unworn strap. 

Sold with a 6 month warranty on the movement and shipping is free within Switzerland.

The brand

The Freco brand was the flagship marque of Frey & Co., based in the Madretsch neighbourhood of Bienne. The company was founded in 1912 by Emil Frey, though its roots reach back further to his father Rudolf Frey's partnership with Jules Adolf Monnier, established in 1890 under the name Monnier & Frey.

 A Pioneer of the Automatic Wristwatch

Freco's most historically significant contribution to horology came in 1930. Emil Frey registered a self-winding watch movement in 1930. The mechanism used a pendulum to wind the watch as the wearer moved their wrist, and was marketed under the name Perpetual. A term that would later become indelibly associated with Rolex, located across town in Bienne. This places Freco firmly within a very small group of Swiss houses experimenting with automatic winding in the interwar period, making any surviving examples of the Perpetual movement objects of considerable horological interest

End of Production

The Frey Watch Co. ceased operations in the 1970s, leaving behind a finite body of work that has not yet been revived or licensed. There is no modern Freco. What exists is what was made.