What do you do if you want to buy a gen dress watch?   After purchasing may shiny new reps recently, I felt like buying a gen just to change things up a little. But man those gen prices are eye-gouging! A Swiss made gen dress watch with annual claendar complications? At least a thousand pounds.... Let's go vintage. It can still be pretty expensive. You have all these like-minded hipsters on eBay bidding these watches to the thousands, waaaay overpriced. Let's go unknown vintage then. I posted the watch on wristcheck which generated some interest, so  @BenjaminButton @RussP @frankfrank @GC @Khronos here is more info about the watch and brand!   The Brand When I first saw a Cuervo y Sobrinos watch, all I could think of was a curvy Sabrina. I see listings that sell a Longines watch with this "Cuervo y Sobrinos" printed on the dial. Are Longines selling curvy Sabrina's watch here? Or is Sabrina selling Longines reps? Is she a TD? So many questions...   The business was founded by Don Ramón in 1882 as a jewelry store.  At some point between 1900-1917, his nephew D. Armando F. Río y Cuervo helped expand the business (now named Cuervo y Sobrinos or Cuervo and Nephews) into watchmaking/selling. They opened up offices in Pforzheim (Germany) and in Paris. CyS mostly imported Swiss brands into Cuba and stamped their name on those dials, a bit similar to those Rolex Tiffany dials.  They also "made" their own watches, which consist of Swiss made dials and Swiss made movements stamped with their brands.  Here are some photos of the watches sold and/or made by CyS back in the early 20th century. These photos are from the collection of Jmazpiazu and Nicolau from relojes-especiales.com, a Spanish-speaking watch forum. https://www.relojes-especiales.com/foros/vintages/cuervo-y-sobrinos-cuba-coleccion-97827/#post1177768 They have helpfully categorised the CyS watches into 3 groups: Category 1: The Classics are the lower end of the CyS collection. The company uses movements by Felsa, AS, ETA and Landeron. The dial, movement and case are marked with the CyS branding. These watches would NOT have the "Unicos Importadores" inscription (Exclusive Importer), because technically these were the Cuban brand's own watches so they weren't importing them. But you will see some listings online that have these watches with the Exclusive Importer inscription; best to avoid them. Here are some CyS "Classics": there are simple 3 handers, chronographs, annual calendars and even an interesting dual watch. Photos belong to  Jmazpiazu and Nicolau    Category 2: The Tradition. These are CyS' mid-tier watches, still their own branding, but Swiss parts. Again, these are the company's own watches so you shouldn't be seeing the "Unicos Importadores" inscription anywhere. More photos that belong to Jmazpiazu and Nicolau.   Category 3: The dual branded watches. These are Swiss brand watches imported by CyS into Cuba. Only in these watches should you expect to see "Unicos Importadores" on the dial. However, you won't see them on all of the imported watches due to dial size constraints. These watches are the ones to be wary about because some unscrupulous sellers have frankened vintage watches by simply printing CyS onto the dial just to make it "rare" and collectible.  There is a lot of contradictory information online. Some sources say they imported  a variety of Swiss brands. Others say it's only Longines and Roskopf. Photos belong to Jmazpiazu and Nicolau I very much appreciate Jmazpiazu and Nicolau's extensive research into the original business's history and photos of their collections. No doubt they would have endeavoured to collect the gen CyS and tried to avoid the franken watches. However, I can't help but feel that at least some of their double-branded watches might be frankened watches. Some of them reminds me of the HMT Indian redials. But this is all speculation. The business did not have a standardised font for their branding prints so anything goes. With so few gens on the market alongside lack of standardisation, it's very easy for franken watches to float in the market.  Cuervo y Sobrinos closed their doors in 1959 due to the Cuban Revolution. The company was no more until it was relaunced in the late 1990s-early 2000s. This new company was launched in Europe and markets itself as a Swiss watch brand with Latin heritage. It heavily uses the "1882" and "Habana" imagery in all their marketing and watches. The story goes that some people discovered these vaults in the original Havana shop which had loads of CyS watches and movements, untouched by Castro's government. These were brought back to Europe to restart the company. That is the new company's version of events. Their link back to the original business is flimsy at best. This article here discusses the original business's roots and  gives an alternative perspective: https://www.relojes-especiales.com/foros/esenciales/cuervo-y-sobrinos-cuba-historia-97340/ It is written in Spanish, so I read it in google translate's sketchy English. It's worth a read and has many photos too! Regardless of how the new company likes to portray their "heritage", they do make some classy, unique pieces. This "cracked porcelain" dial day date is my personal favourite! Phew! That was a lot of faff! Onto the watch I actually bought!   The Watch I spotted this on an eBay auction listing and easily won it 20 pounds above it's starting price; there isn't much interest for these watches. I only pulled the trigger on this watch after reading the aforementioned links and repeated searches on Google. At this point I'm almost certain mine is a gen Under more normal indoor lighting...   Dimensions Case Diameter: 33.6mm Case Height: 11.7mm Lug-to-Lug: 40.7mm Lug Width: An awkward 17mm The case itself is actually very slim; the bulk of the thickness is due to the extremely domed crystal. Overall, this is a very tiny watch. Great for my wrist size, deal-breaker for the Paneristi.   Dial The dial is amazingly complicated with the less-than-precise printing which adds to the charm! Any "scratches" you see are light distortions due to the domed crystal. There are some light scratches on the crystal but almost non-visible in the photos. Right at 12 o'clock there is the month window.  Small seconds subdial at 6 o'clock. I certainly wouldn't put their at least 60 year old anti-magnetic claim to the test!  You can also see the "Swiss Made" inscription, almost illegible. Bear in mind this is small font on a 33mm diameter watch. The outer blue ring/bezel is the date bezel. It is rotatable. The "BREVET" is an abbreviation for patent. Together with that cross, it  means "Swiss patent". The inner ring are the abbreviated days of the week in Spanish. The days are repeated in this inner circle with a red hand as the date indicator.  Here you can see the pie pan dial sloping down towards the outer date bezel. Lovely distortion of the red hand by the domed crystal   A low angle shot. Notice the dates near 6 o'clock. Lovely reflection/distortion by the crystal again!     Movement You guys are in luck. You will now see the movement for this unique watch, at considerable risk to my watch.  The caseback has the business logo engraved, overall looks legit with comparison photos. Just to let you know the case was Swiss Made too. The movement is a generic Fontmelon FHF 175 movement with CyS inscriptions. You can see similar movements here on this database with different brand inscriptions. http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk&FHF_175 Therefore, if you like the design of this movement with its complications and not too fussed about branding, I'm sure you can find some that are much cheaper. Mine looks pretty consistent with other gen CyS watches with these complications. Again, Swiss made movement.   Case I'm going to hazard a guess and say it is a gold plated case. Not much to shout about: it's slim, it's dressy! Scratches galore The crown at 3 o'clock. Lovely battle scars Another crown at 10 o'clock. See how high the dome goes! It's so curved it might remind you of a Ball @McGilli   Strap & Buckle A cheapo strap came with the watch. Like @Glaude would say, it's made of camel penis skin   Functions This took me a while to figure out.  I had extensive communications with the seller; even they weren't sure about some of the complications. Adjust time: pull out and rotate 3 o'clock crown. Pretty standard Adjust day: by bringing the time back and forth between 21:30 and 24:00, this will advance the red hand. It's rather finicky, thus the repeating days of the week around the entire dial to make things slightly easier. Adjust month: rotate the 10 o'clock crown WITHOUT pulling it out. It is bi-directional. Adjust date: pull out and rotate the 10 o'clock crown, again it is bi-directional. This will rotate the date bezel. So first adjust the red hand to the correct day. Then adjust the date bezel so that the date corresponds to where the red hand is pointing.   Accuracy Fuck knows. It's at least 60 years old. It survived Castro. Give it a break.   Overall This is definitely a unique timepiece for my collection. All complications working beautifully at the moment, the sweep on the small second hand is buttery smooth. This watch led me down a very interesting rabbit hole of a very obscure brand with not much information. I will be flaunting this at my next dressy occasion. Lovely hobby this