Style with Practicality
The little known Titoni brand was launched in 1952, a Swiss brand aimed at the Asian market. In 1969 they released a line called the Airmaster, (Anything suggesting flying was a buzzword in the year of the moon landing).
This is a minor restoration job, it came to me rather grotty and scratched, but all it really needed was a good clean and polish.
The reasons I like this watch is that it is a good quality commercial watch, signed four times including a beautiful medallion on the back featuring the meihua flower, native to South West China – as its insignia. Its movement is the superb (soon to be superseded) ETA 2452 automatic self-winder with a date.
The dial is a pleasant iridescent gray with raised, well-polished markers. It has a very fine chapter ring with tiny luminous dots at 5 minute intervals. The hands are a little aged making the contrast between dial and hands poor.
Next year the family company that produces the brand will celebrate its 100th birthday. Before, and overlapping Titoni, they marketed a rather successful mark, the Felca. Although they never made in house movements, they are legitimate watchmakers with a solid tradition, always based in Grenchen, Switzerland, has been controlled by four generations of the same family and is one of the few independent watchmakers left.
