The PHILLIPS Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII, takes place on May 24 and 25, 2024, at our West Kowloon headquarters. The auction includes more than 280 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it's one of the best catalogs we've ever put together. We'll be highlighting a number of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale right here, including the pair of A. Cairelli-signed timepieces (lot 1056; lot 1057) featured below.
– Logan Baker
The realm of double-signed vintage watches is a joy to engage with – you might remember we even dedicated an entire auction to the category in November 2019 (Double Signed: A Celebration of the Finest Partnerships of Manufacturers and Retailers).
Many of the most common and desirable retailer signatures are well known. A Tiffany & Co. signature on a Patek Philippe or Rolex is always exciting. Dial autographs from Gondolo & Labouriau stamps conjure up visions of the so-called Gondolo Gang, a group of dedicated Patek Philippe fans in early 20th century Brazil. Chronométrie Beyer, Serpico y Laino, Freccero – you know them and love them.
The dial signature we’re going to discuss today, however, has a slightly different history than the luxury connotations that come across when you mention the above jewelers and retailers.
It’s A. Cairelli, a Roman supplier of mil-spec timepieces, timing devices, and other mechanical instruments to the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) in the mid-20th century.
The best-known A. Cairelli-signed wristwatch was produced by Zenith, under the Cronometro Tipo CP-2 designation. It’s been popular among vintage chronograph lovers since the 1990s (if not earlier), eventually earning a reproduction release under the hands of the contemporary Zenith brand, in 2016.
Much of the coverage around the Cronometro Tipo CP-2 revival mentioned A. Cairelli, but only in passing, making it seem like a conventional retail operation, but that’s not entirely accurate.
A. Cairelli, in many ways, filled a role for the Italian Air Force that was very much like Panerai’s legendary relationship with the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina). Panerai, of course, is still around today, while A. Cairelli vanished decades ago.
A Brief History of A. Cairelli
Antonio Cairelli, the complete name of the A. Cairelli company, is believed to have been founded in 1932, at 144 Via del Corso, in the heart of Rome.
The business served as a broker between Italy’s Ministry of the Armed Forces and various Swiss watchmakers. Cairelli would then import the watches from Switzerland to Italy, based on the government's specification criteria, and deliver them to the appropriate military branch. It’s also believed that Cairelli offered service and maintenance services to ensure the watches remained up to snuff.
The Swiss watchmakers that A. Cairelli is most associated with are Zenith and Universal Genève, followed by Leonidas and Breitling.
The A. Cairelli business eventually closed its doors in the 1960s or ‘70s, and it unfortunately never received the same attention that Panerai would eventually receive starting in the 1990s.
Today, A. Cairelli exists solely on the dials of the few vintage Zenith and Universal Genève chronographs that survived their military assignments.
A. Cairelli and Universal Genève
The first notable A. Cairelli-signed wristwatch came in the early 1950s, when A. Cairelli imported a number of Universal Genève split-seconds flyback chronographs with a 24-hour dial.
The watch, known as the HA-1, was an extra-large 44.5mm stainless steel flyback chronograph powered by the manual-wind Valjoux 55 VBR caliber, the same movement used by Rolex in the venerable ref. 4113.
The HA-1 would have been used by the Italian Air Force as an astronomic navigation tool when pilots had to rely on dead reckoning and beacons for orientation, such as flying over water for lengthy periods during anti-submarine reconnaissance.
The Universal Genève HA-1 is arguably the rarest and most desirable of the A. Cairelli-signed wristwatches. It's likely that very few examples were imported by A. Cairelli for the Italian Air Force, as navigation duties would have been assigned to officers at the time.
Phillips has been fortunate to auction off two previous examples (for CHF 197,000, at Phillips Geneva, in May 2016; and for HKD $650,000, at Phillips Hong Kong, in July 2020). A third example will be offered in the upcoming Phillips Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII (lot 1056), where it carries an estimate of HKD $120,000 to 240,000.
In the 1960s, A. Cairelli also imported a small number of Universal Genève flyback chronographs under the Cronometro Tipo CP-2 designation. The watches look almost identical to the more common Zenith variations, except for the presence of the flyback mechanism, which isn’t found on the Zenith CP-2.
It’s believed somewhere between 50 to 100 A. Cairelli-signed Universal Genève CP-2 examples were produced, compared to the 2,500 examples ordered from Zenith. It’s likely the Italian Air Force favored the Zenith CP-2 due to its lower cost.
Phillips has previously sold two examples of the Universal Genève CP-2, for CHF 65,000, at Phillips Geneva, in May 2016, and for HKD $125,000, at Phillips Hong Kong, in November 2019.
A. Cairelli and Zenith
The chronograph that replaced the HA-1 was the CP-1, the precursor to the more well-known CP-2.
A. Cairelli sourced the CP-1 from Leonidas, who provided a 39mm flyback chronograph, featuring the manual-wind Valjoux caliber 22-2 with hacking seconds, to the Italian Air Force beginning in the late 1950s.
Not very many of the CP-1 examples were produced before they were phased out in 1960 for the CP-2 made by Zenith. Zenith’s CP-2 featured a 43mm stainless steel three-part polished case with an aluminum external 60-minute bezel in black and a screwed steel caseback with a cap for enhanced antimagnetism and dust protection. The black dial was outfitted with tritium-coated Arabic numerals, running seconds and 30-minute chronograph registers, outer minutes, central chronograph seconds, and fifth-of-a-second graduation scale.
Tritium-coated baton hands were fitted for hours and minutes, with a distinctive arrow-shaped chronograph seconds hand. Inside the A. Cairelli Zenith CP-2 was the caliber 146 DP, with 17 jewels, lever escapement, monometallic balance, shock-protection and self-compensating flat balance-spring.
Initially, the caliber 146 was made in the Ponts-de-Martel workshops, which Zenith purchased in 1959. The movement used in the Universal Genève HA-1 was produced out of the same workshop. It’s assumed this continuity is why A. Cairelli began working with Zenith.
Zenith’s officially history states they fulfilled an order for 2,500 examples of the CP-2, with 2,000 of those delivered to the Italian Air Force and the remaining 500 to be sold to the Italian civilian market. However, some discrepancy exists on how many CP-2 examples were actually delivered to the Italian Air Force, as it’s believed the order was unexpectedly canceled by the Air Force at the last minute, requiring A. Cairelli to sell an unknown amount of the CP-2 stock directly to the civilian market.
However, it’s easy enough to tell if a CP-2 ended up in civilian or military hands. Any watches that ended up with the military feature a caseback engraving: “AMI,” (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) for the Air Force; “MM,” (Marina Militare) for the Navy; “PS,” (Publica Sicurezza) for the police; and “EI,” (Esercito Italiano) for the Army.
Although A. Cairelli disappeared in the 1970s, likely going out of business, the Italian Armed Forces continued to use the A. Cairell-signed CP-2 wristwatches until the early 1980s, where the watches eventually found their way into the hands of collectors of both watches and military paraphernalia.
An AMI-assigned example of the Zenith CP-2 is included in the upcoming Phillips Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII (lot 1057). It dates to circa 1970 and comes with its original A. Cairelli Roma fitted presentation box. It has an estimate of HKD $55,000 to 85,000.
You can learn more, place a bid, and view the entire Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII catalog here.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade reporting on every aspect of the watch business. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
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