The 1953 Vacheron Constantin Reference 4963
The 1950’s and 1960’s is hailed by many vintage collectors as one of the best era’s of vintage watches. These years have come to define classical watchmaking, but also played a significant role in the creation and development of many sports watches we love today. Vacheron Constantin was instrumental in their watches of this era, and as part of the Holy Trinity of watch companies, produced extremely high quality watches that are now classics. Vacheron sold the reference 4963 during the early stages of this era, and the watch represents the true beauty to come out the manufacture.
The reference 4963 is a time-only, square-shaped watch that was produced in the 1950’s. The watch is definitely a dress watch and came in multiple case metals, include white gold, pink gold and yellow gold which is the watch we are looking at today. It’s 23mm case shouts out that it belongs at some black or white tie event. The case is square, but has a soft rounding to it via the way the lugs were designed. The case also has some depth to it because the lugs create a stepped look to the overall case. This case design reminds us of a watch that is very close to our hearts at Life on the Wrist which is the Vacheron Constantin Toledo, nicknamed Cioccolatone, as the watch looks similar to a piece of chocolate. This watch was one of the first watches discovered that made us fall in love with the brand. It was released in the early 50’s, around the same era of this watch and came in many different version and case metals. Check out our article, linked above, for more on the history of this incredible piece.
The dial of the watch is cream, and has applied hour markers with the hours and minute being tracked by two gold hands. One thing that is very noticeable about this watch is the different colour one can see on the hands, right side of the case, the crown and the clasp of the strap. There is a different heugh to the colour of the case - something that looks bluish-red. This is in fact oxidation of the gold case that has create a very unique shine to this watch. This oxidation definitely is not for every vintage watch collector, but there have been a handful of oxidized-cased watches appear at auction recently. The oxidation creates a unique watch as no two watches will oxidize the same. Again, it depends on what type of vintage collector you are but if you are so inclined, the case of this watch hits the vintage watch lovers soul.
This watch is available in our store here.
Enjoy!
