LE GANT Vintage Chronograph cal. Valjoux 7736 / TV Case, 1970s

A rounded television-shaped case, with colouring you will not find in Japan, makes for a strikingly exotic design that will give you a character nobody else has.

Le Gant is the trademark used on watches made for the Montgomery Ward department store chain under a sales agreement.

Montgomery Ward was established in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and by 1883 it offered a service that removed the middlemen and let consumers order and buy directly.

That was the company's catalogue, which became widely known as the "Wish Book," growing to 240 pages and 10,000 items.

Montgomery Ward then opened its first retail store in 1926, and by the 1940s it had grown to the point where luxury brands, Patek Philippe watches among them, were sold through the Wish Book.

Unfortunately, after Montgomery Ward began to decline during the Second World War, by the 1970s when this watch was made the company was nearing its end; the label was sold to Seiko in the 1990s, and by 2000 both Montgomery Ward and Le Gant were gone.

Most watches of this period carry imported movements from Valjoux, Venus or Landeron, and with their exquisite size they make precious collector's items.

The Valjoux 7736 fitted here, the successor to the Valjoux 7730, is a manual-wind two-register chronograph movement produced from 1966 to 1973.

Born in the mid-20th century as a substitute for the expensive column-wheel chronograph, it became the opening through which the chronograph reached ordinary hands.

The Valjoux 7730 also became the basis of movements that Breitling, IWC, Panerai and other makers later customised and rebranded for sale.

Even today not every company builds its watches from scratch: major luxury brands such as TAG Heuer and Hublot use ETA movements and various outsourced components.