All that Glitters: Corum Gold Coin Watches

Having a high-profile horological partner is part of what it is to exist in today’s brand-aware world. Sporting events have long been linked to timepieces (Rolex with Wimbledon and Formula One, for example); as have popular music ensembles (the Rolling Stones and Zenith, Tears for Fears and Hublot); performing artists (Bryan Ferry and H. Moser); cars (take your pick); and even cigars (Hublot and Opus X and Zenith and Cohiba). However, these days there is a distinct shortage of horological brand affinity partnerships with economic movements.

I say “these days” because, back in the early 1980s, Corum made a promising start as the preferred timekeeping partner of Reaganomics. In the first year of his presidency, Ronald Reagan and his raven-black hair appeared on the cover of Time magazine with the bold headline “Reaganomics: Making It Work”. The Gipper looked purposeful with his arms folded across his chest, displaying a coin-thin gold watch on a gold bracelet. The watch was coin-thin for the simple reason that it was a coin: a gold 20-dollar coin watch by Corum. Whatever the Valentine Brothers and later Simply Red had to say about Reaganomics in the hit “Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)”, it was clearly working for Ronnie.

The coin watch is probably my favourite Corum, not least because it seems to have been a vital part of the equipment of U.S. presidents during the zenith of American power in the second half of the 20th century: as well as Reagan, it was worn by LBJ, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton, while its place in popular culture was assured when Andy Warhol acquired one for his collection.

Corum did not invent the coin watch; Paul Maudsley, the former boss of Phillips London’s watch department, has in his collection an example from the mid-19th century. And, throughout the 20th century, the idea of a watch inserted into a coin was pursued by all the great makers, with Cartier, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin among them.

The idea of making a coin into a watch sounds pretty bling, but the way these marques carried it out, the concept was rather subtle. The top of a coin was sliced off and hinged. The case band, milled to resemble the edge of a coin, featured a slight bump which, when pressed, would cause the “lid” to spring open to reveal the time on a small movement inside. This mini-watch was also hinged so that, with the application of a nail under a little olivette, the tiny timepiece could be pulled up to be wound and set.

At first it was carried in the pocket, where, presumably, it could easily be mistaken for just another large gold coin. Some were adapted to wear on the wrist. I own a Vacheron Constantin from the early 1970s and I love it, but checking the time is no subtle matter, I have to extend my arm until there is no danger of the watch getting caught in the shirtcuff, find the tell-tale bump, press it, watch the top spring open and then peer inside at the small watch—nothing discreet about that.

The Corum Coin watch put an end to all that. After all, having to open a coin to tell the time occupied valuable seconds and—apologies for the inevitable pun—time is money.

Corum was founded in the 1950s by a creative genius called René Bannwart who had headed up the then newly-inaugurated creation department at Omega during the 1940s. His inspired notion was to use the then new sapphire crystal watchglasses to cover the surface of the coin, maintaining the desirable slim profile, turning what other manufacturers used as a protective cover into the dial of the watch.

Targeting the US market, Bannwart started slicing up $20 Liberty Eagle coins, but according to Rayner Hesse’s encyclopaedia of jewellery, Jewelrymaking through History, these watches risked being banned in the US because of a law prohibiting mutilation of its coins. Eventually, Corum was able to negotiate an exemption because the slicing of the coins took place in Switzerland rather than on American soil. However, it could be argued that American gold got its revenge on the Swiss watch industry, when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard.