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woodwkr2
·I didn't comment until now as I wanted to see if more UG examples were to be found.
I've seen 2 "45's" before in a seconds at 9 chronograph subdial. One printing goes with the minutes track and the other is with the subdial for the stopwatch seconds.
Sounds stupid, but there is a good reason for this. When dials were originally manufactured, the dies for the subdials were a standard size and font. When the contractor produced the dials for UG, it was specified at 9. It could have been at 3 (if that's what UG wanted). In that case, you might have had two "15's".
I vote that dial is original.
Hope this helps,
gatorcpa
No doubt these exist. The double stamps are also to be seen on many vintage chronographs that had the tachometer scales around the outside. Frequently these scales, when stamped, would overlap the subdials. There's just one problem: this didn't happen at the original production run at the factory. This happens when re-dialers attempt to make do with the closest die that they have. You describe a perfectly plausible scenario.
The trouble with some of these pieces is that Universal Geneve itself was a prolific re-dialer. Back in the 50s this wasn't a big deal. You simply went to your neighborhood jeweler and told him you wanted the watch serviced and to freshen up the dial. You could opt to buy a brand new dial, but this entailed quite a bit of hassle.
I have a definitive original service manual and parts inventory/catalog from Universal. I quote from page 2:
"Dials: When ordering a dial, the latter must not only be fully described in appearance but both numbers engraved on the case, serial and consecutive, must also be indicated together with the caliber number. May we, however, point out that renovating an old dial is much less costly and much faster than the supplying of a new one. Dials sent to us for replacing or renovating must be packed very carefully to avoid any damage by the dial pins whilst in transit."
So, I stick to my original conclusion. This is a redial. It was an older redial based on the radium burns and patina. It may have even been re-dialed at Universal using a mish mash of the original plates.
You can look up some videos on pad printing on the net to get an idea of how this works. Hodinkee did a nice segment at Patek's NYC service center where they stamped one of the dials with a Tiffany's signature. Given how many different dials that Universal produced, it stands to reason that they kept the original dies intact for the first production run and made a supply of spare dials (indeed, there are some VERY legitimate NOS dials that sometimes surface--I've had a conversation with a french collector who has quite a stash, along with the rest of the parts inventory and period literature to back it up. The consensus around here is that many of these supposed NOS dials are "over inked" and therefore suspicious... on some of these I disagree, but I digress.) Following this run, it's likely that the dies were then recycled/redesigned into another dial layout. When you understand how much labor and hand engraving goes into producing one of these original pad printing plates, you begin to get the idea. Remember this was before the era of laser cutters and CNC machines.
