In 1954, Universal Genève, under the fantastic pen of young designer Gérald Genta, presented the Polarouter. The watch was initially designed as an antimagnetic watch to meet the needs of the pilots of the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) that were flying over the North Pole to take a shortcut from Scandinavia to the American West Coast. The very early batches were named Polarouter but within the first few months of production the brand changed the name to Polerouter. Polarouters are therefore very rare as only a small number were produced over a short period of time.
The present gold capped example further stands out from the regular production by a few other features that even the savvy collector may never have seen grouped in the same watch. First of all, the watch was sold by famous Milan based retailer Gobbi and therefore proudly displays its signature on top of the Automatic inscription. A closer look at the dial reveals that the marker ring has a different design than the one usually seen on most of the reference 20214. Where the usual design is to have radial markings between the hour markers, the marker ring on this watch reveals concentric circles lines between the hour markers. This unusual design has only been seen on a small number of gold capped Polarouters.
Presented today in original and honest condition for a watch of this age, the present Polarouter remains a witness of the first Polar flights of the early 50s’.