We’ve got a weakness for vintage alarm watches here, and this 1960’s Clebar Ref. 685 Alarm mechanical watch is clearly no exception. We know the Seiko Bell Matic, LeCoultre Memovox, Vulcain Cricket get all the attention, but other alarm watches like the Clebar (with its Mad Men-esque style cues) get ignored – but hey, their loss!
The Clebar brand, French slang for “bad dog,” is a bit of an enigma – a watch company destroyed in the wreckage of the 1970s “Quartz Crisis” initiated by Seiko’s Astron line. This particular Clebar was manufactured in the 1960s and features a Venus 230 hand-winding movement, controlled by two crowns. The Clebar name was first used by Edward Trauner Inc. on September 21st, 1925 and was registered as a trademark in mid-1955, and its main line of products included stopwatches and chronographs.
Trauner was known as the US distributor for Zodiac, Vacheron & Constantin, Leonidas (which would go on to become Heuer) and other watches of note – with Clebar being a sub-brand of Zodiac. Even more intriguing, Clebar wasn’t known for manufacturing their watches but rather branded watches from other manufacturers including Heuer.
Clebar hit its stride in the 1960s with several iterations of chronographs. With the 1964 merger of Leonidas with Ed. Heuer on the Heuer-Leonidas S.A. the 'Clebar' brand would eventually disappear during the next decade.
Back to the alarm function – aside from displaying the time, the mechanical movement features a second manually-wound spring that when wound and released operates an audible buzzer, alerting the wearer at the desried alarm time. The Clebar alarm not only makes noise, but uniquely physically vibrates the watch, noticeable on the wrist or when placed on a hard surface - making the watch usable as an alarm clock as well.
On this particular Clebar, an open dial aperture at the nine o'clock position is used to indicate if the alarm is turned on/off. When the dot is red, the alarm is disengaged (off). When the crown at four o'clock is pulled out, the dot is no longer red and the alarm is engaged (on).
This Clebar comes with a leather strap, nylon strap, hard plastic travel case, and springbar tool.
1960s Clebar Ref. 685 Alarm Mechanical
DIAL: Clebar-signed cream dial, which features crisp writing throughout and matching patina'd daulphin hands. Bright red arrow-tipped alarm indicator hand.
CASE: Unpolished stainless-steel case measures 34.5mm (w/o crown, 37mm with) x 41.5mm stainless steel case, with legible caseback and good caselines.
CRYSTAL: Domed acrylic crystal, scratch-free.
BAND: Brown leather strap, with cream colored accent stitching - a nice vintage compliment to the nature of this Clebar; it also comes with a black nylon strap.
MOVEMENT: Clebar manual-winding movement, 17 jewels, with mechanical alarm operating as designed.
CROWN: Dual domed unsigned crowns.