Gilbert Vintage Watch Collection

We are proud and excited to introduce our latest collection of watches dedicated to our master watchmaker, Gilbert O. Gudjonsson, who has over 50 years of experience in the field of watchmaking. We have named this collection: Gilbert "Vintage Watch Collection" in his honour.

Gilbert started apprenticing as a watchmaker at the tender age of 16 and soon discovered a real passion for the craft, often choosing to skip summer holidays and work long night and weekend hours in order to hone his skills. His passion for restoring timepieces to the highest level began early and soon he became an expert in the repair and restoration of vintage watches. 

Gilbert’s passion for vintage watches has never faded. He especially loves the look and style of wristwatches from the 1950's and 60’s and it’s from this enthusiasm that we draw inspiration for this collection. Wristwatches of that era were elegant and simple with a focus on one essential objective: an easy-to-read time. In those days everyone wore a watch, there was no other way to know the time.

The steel case of the Gilbert Collection moderate diameter size of 38.5mm, is striking yet timeless. It has a Swiss made mechanical movement “Execution Top” with automatic winding, 25 jewels, custom decorations, blue screws and has a rhodium plated finish. All of which can be examined in detail through a sapphire crystal case back. All decorations and craftsmanship is of the highest quality.  

Technical specifications

Movement

• Swiss Made Mechanical movement “Execution Top”

• Automatic winding

• 25 jewels, Custom decorations, Blue screws and Rhodium plated finish.

• 42-hour power reserve when fully wound.

• Fine tuning: “Assortment Chronometer”.

• Shock protection: Incabloc.

• Adjusted to five positions.

Case

• Material: Surgical grade German Stainless Steel "316L".

• Diameter: 38.5mm, height 10.0mm.

• Surface finish: Highly polished.

• Curved Sapphire Crystal with multi anti reflective coating on the inside.

• See-through Sapphire Crystal back.

• Water-resistance: 5 ATM.

• Lug width: 20mm.

• Lug to Lug length: 45mm

Dial

• White Matte with Arabic numerals.

• Galvanic Silver with Arabic numerals and Old Radium SuperLumiNova hour markers.

• Cream and black with Arabic numerals and Old Radium SuperLumiNova hour markers.

• Date display at six o'clock.

Hands

• Lancette style with flame blued finish.

• Syringe style with rhodium plated finish and Old Radium SuperLumiNova.

Strap

• Handmade 20mm Vintage Calf, Ostrich, Ostrich leg or Genuine Alligator with JS Watch co. Reykjavik buckle or optional deployment clasp.

• Steel bracelet also available.

Available straps for this model

The name of each watch is drawn from the story of the Dog Day King.

Adventurer

Jörgen Jörgensen was known as Jörundur hundadagakonungur, the Dog  Day King, and for one summer in 1809, he was The King of Iceland. He was an adventurer known for his high-spirits, diverse talents, excessive passions and ambitions, and considerable amorality.

Jörgensen was born the second son of the royal watchmaker, Jörgen Jörgensen, on April 7th 1780  in Copenhagen, Denmark. Two of his siblings  were watchmakers like their father with the elder of the two being internationally renowned artisan Urban Jörgensen. At the tender age of 15, Jörgensen completed his formal education and his adventures began. He became apprenticed to Captain Henry Marwood of the English collier Janeon, serving aboard the ship for four years, he then served on various vessels.

It was in 1799 that Jörgensen´s fortunes took a turn for the more adventurous when he found himself in Cape Town, South Africa. From there he sailed to Port Jackson in what was the newly established British colony of Australia and then on to New Zealand. In 1801 he joined the survey ship H.M.S. Lady Nelson as John Johnson. It was on this tour that he most likely witnessed the disbandment of the first settlement at Port Phillip and establishment of settlements in Tasmania which was known as Van Dieman’s Land by colonists.

Far from home and with no one to discredit him, he started the rumour that he was first to harpoon a whale on the Derwent. For months in 1804 he was sealing in New Zealand waters and whaling in the Alexander. He left Australian waters in February 1805 and by way of New Zealand, Tahiti, Cape Horn and St Helena arrived at Gravesend in June 1806. After some months of London pleasures he returned to Copenhagen. 

In 1807 Jörgensen witnessed the Battle of Copenhagen and soon afterwards was given command of a small Danish vessel, Admiral Juul. In 1808 he engaged in a sea battle with HMS Sappho; the British captured Admiral Juul and treated Jörgensen as a privateer. While on parole, he suggested to a merchant friend Samuel Phelps that a voyage to Iceland could be profitable as the island was suffering from food shortages at the time, due to the Danish monopoly on Icelandic trade. Jörgensen accompanied the voyage as an interpreter. That voyage failed to trade any goods as the ship was British and by that time Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were at war.

Liberator

In 1809, with a winning blend of optimistic naivety and megalomania, Jörgensen staged the most charmingly farcical revolution ever and declared Iceland independent of Denmark, naming himself liberator, sole ruler and protector of Iceland. He was a Dane himself, then a prisoner of war on parole in Britain after being captured by the British navy at the battle of Copenhagen (1807).

Phelps and Jörgensen´s first trip to Iceland was a complete failure, but in 1809 the two set off together in the Margaret & Anne for another try. On their arrival in Reykjavík the Danish governor, one Count Trampe, warned the Icelanders that breaching the monopoly and trading with the visitors would be punishable by death. Four days later Phelps and Jörgensen arrested (or abducted) Trampe and bundled him aboard the Margaret & Anne, where he was kept prisoner for nearly two months. Phelps, who mostly wanted to get on with his trading, put Jörgensen in charge of the uprising. Conceiving of himself in the mould of a French revolutionary, Jörgensen issued a proclamation. The first point was: “All Danish authority is ended in Iceland”. Other points commanded Danes, and agents representing them, to stay in their houses, forbidden to communicate with each other. All weapons, all keys to public and private warehouses and all money claimed by the king of Denmark were to be surrendered. He assured the Icelanders that this was all for their own good, and that so long as they complied with his instructions they could expect to be treated in the best possible way. A few proclamations later and he was writing “that we, Jörgen Jörgensen, have taken to us the rule of the land as its representative, until a regular government is decided, with full power to make war and negotiate peace with foreign rulers”. The whole thing clearly appealed to Jörgensen´s sense of romanticism, and stoked his undeniable egomania. Meanwhile Phelps was in charge of defending the new republic, and had set up a fort (with six rusty cannons), over which flew the new flag designed by Jörgensen- three white cod on a blue field.

Dictator

Icelanders of 1809 did not, as Jörgensen seemed to believe they would, gratefully embrace their freedom and join with him, their heroic liberator, to form a new Icelandic government. They just went about their daily lives and mostly ignored him. He managed to rustle up a small army. A very small army. It consisted of a few inmates of Reykjavík prison (in a sort of parody of the storming of the Bastille, Jörgensen had released the prisoners) and two bored farmers who apparently had nothing else on, bringing him up to a grand total of eight. Of course the end of this Dictatorship, if so it can be called, was inevitable. Another British ship came to Hafnarfjörður two months after Jörgensen had seized power. The crew heard what had happened, liberated the no doubt apoplectic Count Trampe, informed the Icelanders that all Jörgensen´s proclamations were void, and took the whole mess back to Britain to sort things out. Jörgensen was sentenced to prison for a year, not for his misdemeanour in Iceland but for breaking his parole. 

Writing of the Icelandic revolution Jörgensen revealed himself in a rare moment of objective candour: 'I … fully determined to seize the first opportunity to strike some blow to be spoken of … It was not love of liberty … which influenced me on this occasion … “I have in the course of my life been under the malignant influence of other passions besides play”.

All this took place in high summer, the so-called dog-days. Jörgensen has been known to the Icelanders ever since as Jörundur hundadagakonungur (Jörundur the Dog Day King).  Jörgensen ended up as a famous local 'character' in Tasmania, married to a violent, alcoholic convict from Ireland and died in the Colonial Hospital on 20 th January 1841.

THE END