I picked up this beauty 15 or 20 years ago while snooping around an antique mall. It is all original, single button chronograph by Longines.

The silver ornate case with the blank crest on the back cover

Inside cuvette marked Longines

Rear cover marked Longines, fine silver and showing the serial # 181271

The stem wind, pin set 20H Chronograph movement with Lugrins Patent

Wondering about the movement I sent an email to Longines with photos of the watch. I was soon contacted by Beatrice, the Longines museum historian who sent me a nice email with the history of my watch.

I continued my corespondence with Beatrice and was sent a copy of the Longines special edition Chronos magazine and a photocopy of the original hand written records of my watch.

Here are the photocopied records

And here is the price paid in 1881 for such a fine watch, $19.70 (I guess it would have been in US dollars). Would be equal to $432.00 in todays money.

If anyone has a Longines 20H movement with a serial # close to mine, the records include 9 others on the sheet.

Ray - that is a really nice chronograph! I really like it. Wish I had one to call my own.
I am going to have to find a picture of a Waltham example with Lugrin's patent to compare how both companies utilized it.

It is wonderful that you were able to obtain the packet of information from Longines related to your watch. I find it very rewarding to be able to match up manufacture/owner history to a particular movement and/or case. Like fitting another piece in the puzzle.

I have never seen a movement that had the word "click" engraved on the plate. That's interesting!

Very, very nice Ray and extremely kind of Longines to go out of their way to let you have all that information. I do believe most watch and clock producers do the same but they charge heavily for it...eg Omega, IWC, Patek, etc. etc.