Teddy Baldassarre
Angelus Instrument de Vitesse Review
Angelus is a watchmaker that many younger enthusiasts likely regard as a newcomer to the scene but actually brings to the table a rich heritage going all the way back to 1891 — as a maker of watches as well as some of the industry’s most legendary movements. Angelus calibers were used, for example, in the earliest Panerai Radiomir watches from the 1940s. Based in Le Locle, Switzerland, the firm was one of the first watchmakers to adopt the two-pusher chronograph design that had first been explored by Breitling. Its ChronoDato model, launched in 1942, and its successor in 1948, the ChronoDatoLuxe, remain among the most legendary grails for vintage chronograph collectors. When Angelus resurfaced in 2015 — now owned by the prolific Swiss movement-maker La Joux-Perret, which is part of Japan’s Citizen Watch Group — the timepieces it chose to re-establish itself in the 21st-Century marketplace proved perplexing to many longtime collectors and armchair brand historians. Watches like the somewhat bizarre-looking, sci-fi-influenced U10 Tourbillon and the huge, skeletonized U50 Diver Tourbillon seemed to indicate that the revived Angelus brand was jettisoning much of its vintage appeal to explore more avant-garde frontiers. Starting in 2022, however, with the much-praised release of the ChronoDate models, heavily inspired by the 1942 ChronoDato, Angelus has signaled a renewed interest in mining its mid-century archives, particularly in its chronograph sweet spot. The ...
