Jessica has worn the watch ever since–for the last
24 years. Having once banged the watch into the side of a post office,
she had
to have the stem replaced. This was done by a man with a tiny watch
shop behind the doughnuts and crackers in the corner of her grocery
store on Second Avenue. Beyond that, Jessica assures me that the insides
of the Cornavin Dolphin have never been touched by human hands.

This is a remarkable thing. When I saw Jessica a week
ago, her only complaint about the Dolphin was that the seven marker
had come loose and was floating around on top of the dial. Every now
and then it obstructed the progress of the red sweep hand until Jessica
knocked it out of the way by giving the Dolphin a good, hard rap on
a table or other suitable object. She wondered if I could fix it.

“How does it look?” Jessica asked, watching attentively
as I removed the back.

“Well, er. . . well, ah . . . it looks like a Rolex,”
I said, squinting at the Dolphin through the microscope in disbelief.
The similarity of concept and execution was immediate and unmistakable.

“Oh good,” she said. “I knew it was a good watch!”

One look at the movement also substantiated her claim
to never having serviced the Dolphin: it was devoid of oil and absolutely
filthy. A peek at the keyless works
(right) gives an idea of the magnitude of the condition. If I’d
taken the dirt from this single watch and distributed it evenly among
100 Pateks, I am quite sure it would have brought all 100 to a dead
stop.

“It runs fine,” Jessica assured me, “except that every
month I have to set it back because it’s two minutes fast.”

On my electronic timer, it looked just as Jessica
had described it: plus two seconds a day and strong as an ox. Beyond
the inconvenience of resetting monthly–and, of course, the nomadic
seven marker–Jessica had no complaints at all. Amazing.

WHAT IS A CORNAVIN DOLPHIN?

I don’t know.

The inside of the case is marked “Hong Kong,” the
back of the dial “Taiwan,” and the movement with a couple of numbers.
Not a maker’s mark in the lot. Perhaps it is one of those Russian movements
one hears so much about, a Poljot or Khrushchev. Perhaps a reader knows
something.

Descriptively,
the Dolphin is a handwind, full bridge movement of obviously sturdy
construction: 12.5 lignes (28 mm in diameter), about 5 mm thick, and
seventeen jewels. Held in a very massive stainless case by a nylon movement
ring and a stainless screw back, the movement is shown at left,
after I’d cleaned the dirt off the visible surfaces and blown the
moisture out of it. In visible areas, the unplated steel case is
surprisingly well finished (blue arrow), though the less visible
areas are very rough (yellow arrow). The faceted acrylic crystal
was mounted in a way that appeared to provide no water resistance whatsoever.
On questioning, Jessica remembered at one time seeing a thin black “string”
protruding from between the case and crystal. She had pulled it out
completely and thrown it away.

“That was years ago,” she explained, seeming a bit
concerned. “Was it important?”

“Apparently not.”

The escapement of the Dolphin uses a conventional
smooth (I think, Glucydur) balance and regulator, with
shock protection provided by a Russian-style Incabloc look-a-like. The
cap jewel and retainer spring are each three or four times the thickness
of anything I have ever seen in an authentic Incabloc.

THE OBVIOUS COMPARISON

Everything in the Cornavin Dolphin is thicker than
anything I’ve seen in a contemporary Swiss watch–except for the Rolex
Explorer that I examined several months ago (see The Rolex Explorer
Ref. 14270). In fact, the engineering concepts, execution, and appearance
of the Dolphin and Rolex are surprisingly similar, and my initial, inescapable
impression was borne out by further examination. Detail after detail
reminded me of the Explorer. No doubt, the creators of the Dolphin had
the Rolex in mind. No doubt, the creators of the Dolphin had a Rolex
in hand.

The
case and dial of the Rolex are much more finely made than the equivalent
parts of the Dolphin. I would judge the metal bracelets roughly comparable
in quality, although the Dolphin’s small links provide a suppleness
lacking in the larger-linked bracelet of the Explorer. Both use an almost
identical stamped-steel buckle assembly. Surprisingly, the hour markers
of the Dolphin are true applied markers, with small pins fitting
holes in the dial surface. The dial alone suggests that, even in 1974,
the Dolphin was probably not a dollar watch, but a $50 watch.

With regard to the movements, the Rolex provides automatic
winding, the Dolphin a non-quick set date, making the movements
of roughly comparable complexity. The general finishing of the movements
is similar, both in style and quality. While the Dolphin provides generally
nicely finished decouvertures for the jewels (yellow arrow, below
right), and the Rolex does not, two of the jewels in the Dolphin
were set very badly off center (blue arrow). But
only a single jewel hole in the Dolphin (inset) suggested the
rough machining seen throughout most of the Explorer movement. The automatic
winding section of the Rolex (a module attached to the top of the movement)
is of much better quality than the basic movement in either watch.

As for the rest of the Dolphin movement, it shows
a slight advantage over the Rolex in one area, slight deficits in another.
On the whole, however, the Dolphin has a cleaner, more workmanlike approach
to both construction and finish. Several items in the Dolphin, including
the balance wheel, escape wheel and pallet lever, are of markedly better
quality than the equivalent Explorer parts. And the Dolphin is executed
without the pretense to elaborated surface finishes so poorly executed
in visible areas of the Explorer. The Dolphin is simply brushed on most
of the plate and bridges, and very clean. Like the Explorer, some surfaces
remain unfinished.