For better or worse, Switzerland has been, and still is, considered as being the cradle of global  watchmaking. So many people, amateurs and professionals, have recounted the birth and rise of Swiss horology in written and video form ad nauseam so we won’t be dusting off the long and complex history of the country’s contributions to the industry. Instead, we will be discussing an idea that relates to it: that of a certain blend of Swiss watchmaking which best exemplified what it was known for many years ago and which some, somewhere here or there in another corner of the world, still assimilate it to. This idea relates to what folks were looking for in terms of timekeeping devices for everyday life, and what they could afford to buy, which often didn’t match what other folks perceive as being the heart and soul of Swiss horology today. For if we look behind the curtain of luxury, we will find a whole array of lesser known brands producing overall good watches with classic designs and reasonable price tags. 

Today’s story is going to lead us to speak about such type of horology in the form of the Delabana Della Balda 95th Anniversary Edition, ref. 41605.722.6.034.. Since it celebrates ninety-five years of existence, it brings Delbana’s foundation date to 1931 in the iconic Swiss watchmaking town of Grenchen. Delbana was created by a modest Italian man by the name of Goliardo Della Balda who made Switzerland his home in the early 1920s and decided that someone ought to democratize wristworn timekeeping devices to counter their otherwise unattainable status. To shorten a long story: from 1931 through 2001 Delbana operated independently and released a plethora of elegant and sporty watches for gents and the ladies, as they put it, but eventually joined another Swiss brand called Delma which we discovered a few years ago through the Cayman Bronze Diver. Thus, to mark an important milestone, Delbana released multiple versions of a limited collection to celebrate its founder’s contributions to Swiss and global horology. 

Specifications 

The definition of what an everyday watch is has been analyzed, debated, argued, and abandoned countless times in the past…many years…by folks like yours truly who do not have anything else better to do it seems. For it appears that what an everyday watch is and does, and how it is built and looks like depends on who’s wearing it. Which is a fair boundary to place since taste and personal preferences for all man-made objects and artistic endeavours are subjective. (I mean, how pointless is Ad Reinhardt’s 1963 Abstract Painting, right?) However, for the purpose of this review we are first going to draw a tentative general definition of what an everyday watch could be so that we can place the Delbana Della Balda 95th Anniversary Edition within some kind of horological context. From a visual point of view, an everyday watch permits easy time reading and comes with a classic styling in the sense that its dial and case are endowed with a timeless aesthetic which ages particularly well and works in many normal daily activities. 

Things like working in an office or not, visiting the latest “in” exhibit on Thursday night or not, and driving a vintage Porsche 911 on Saturday or not. None of the extreme stuff which made Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1953 ascent of Mount Everest famous, or the U.S.-led 1955-56 Operation Deep Freeze so iconic, or Nirmal Purja’s ascent of all fourteen eight-thousander mountains in six months and six days the juice Hollywood blockbusters are made out of. For a majority of the world’s population live normal lives which are composed of working, socializing, and playing cricket on a lovely Sunday morning in Spring, of course. I for one have been much interested in the idea of everyday watches for a while as people, before computers and smart technology, typically wore a single watch to do everything with. After all, the most iconic and shared stories of a grandfather or father passing down a watch to his grandson or son involves the only timepiece he wore, generally of modest manufacture. No AP’s or VC Ultra Thin’s. 

And this is the first point of interest making the Delbana Della Balda worth taking a close look at:  visually it mostly flies under the radar, as we will later see, and mechanically it has enough of the good stuff to make it suitable for non-National Geographic content: a fully polished stainless steel case measuring a contemporary 40mm in diameter, 48mm lug-to-lug, 11.5mm thick, and 20mm in lug width within which beats a Sellita SW200-1 caliber (4Hz/41 hours of power reserve.) By way of a screw-down case-back and 5.8mm push/pull crown, it is endowed with 50 meters of water resistance which is good for driving a Porsche and sipping on a cup of coffee on the terrasse of a parisian café, so is a slightly domed piece of sapphire crystal as well as lumed hands and printed dots outside the hour markers. (The blend of lume is not specified.) Lastly: a smooth black Italian leather strap equipped with a fully polished buckle but not quick-release spring-bars because it perfectly matches the watch’s aesthetics. Price: $890 USD. 

*Read: you won’t feel compelled to swap it for something else. 

Design 

If my attempt to define what an everyday watch is from a technical standpoint worked, perhaps I would be so lucky as to reach the same level of success illustrating the daily nature of the Delbana Della Balda by speaking about its design. Because from the study of its looks, we will be able to to understand two things: (1) this collection, which pays homage to the brand’s 95 years of watchmaking history, draws from classic design codes of Swiss horology which can be found on countless models from numerous brands from the pre and post-World War II eras, many of which graced the dials of many Delbana models; (2) many of these elements are powerfully timeless, which might be subjective to say, for they are as elegant today as they were half a century ago, thus reinforcing the idea that a classic everyday timepiece is one which has the capacity to age and age and age without gaining a wrinkle. However, Delbana added a little something rather special on the dials (there are several versions of it) to mark the fortunate milestone. 

There are actually four versions of the Della Balda and today we are taking a look at the black and steel ref. 41605.722.6.034. On steel there is also a white version which comes with ref. 41605.722.6.064, then two gold-plated variants, a white dial ref. 42605.722.6.064 and black dial ref. 42605.722.6.034. I didn’t get to choose which version of the Della Balda I would borrow for this review but the horological gods were kind as they sent the black on steel version. By far the most classic and timeless of them all I reckon. The dial is, I would advance, constituted of two layers: a first one which encompasses the aforementioned classic and timeless design elements making the Della Balda the quintessential Swiss everyday watch—for example Dauphine hands, fully-polished applied hour markers displaying an alternation of numerals and arrows, and a simple minute track with lumed dots at each hour. The second layer reveals the kicker: 12 formations of tightly grouped lines radiating out to the periphery of the dial from the pinion. 

These lines, for the lack of a better word, are in fact a sequence of gray tapering stripes forming a sunburst guilloché-like pattern on the dial which appear to be, but are not, machined in relief. More specifically, seen from afar and from a variety of viewing angles, the lines create the illusion of grooves adorning the dial which create a great sense of depth for..little money. The thing to celebrate here is Delbana’s creativity to add visual interest to a dial by way of a deceptively simple play on colors and textures which make the Della Balda look sophisticated without being priced as such. This is a tradition forged early on by Goliardo Della Balda, to make good and elegant watches attainable for the masses which all generations of folks running the brand continuously pay homage to. And the brand did intend to make good watches because I find the manufacturing and finishing of the dial elements to be rather good: clean polished markers, crisp minute track and lumed plots, spotless hands, and a particularly attractive logo. 

However, a dial alone does not make a watch look like a classic piece of everyday horology, even though the one found on the Della Balda does contribute immensely to it. In my experience, when a watch is well designed, and endowed with a certain timeless visual quality, it also comes with a thoughtfully designed case. The stainless steel body of the Delbana, which is, as we know, proportioned following the preferences of contemporary watch enthusiasts and collectors, is no less impressive: it is entirely polished to a mirror-like finish, composed of short but wide lugs which turn down towards the wrist, adorned with chamfers that taper down towards the case sides, a medium-sized but grippy crown, a tall and mostly vertical fixed bezel which makes way for the dial to stretch as far inside the case as possible, and a decorated and polished case-back on which is printed a great deal of information—from the limited nature of this collection and the celebration of the brand’s 95th anniversary to the most important specifications. 

The Heart of the Matter

Swiss watchmaking has been known for many things in the past two hundred years (or more.) A great many good things in which we find more mechanical innovations and artistic outside-the-box thinking that I could not manage to tally or fit inside a 1,000-page encyclopedia; all of which formed the Swiss horological industry’s stellar reputation. But also a great many not-so-good things such as a constant rise in prices (making many attainable Swiss brands no longer affordable,) ridiculous collaborations within large industrial conglomerates, fierce competition to be the first at developing new movement technology or new alien-like case materials, which in turn either financially ruined enthusiasts or got all of us simply exhausted. For it is the same ten brands which constantly make magazines’ headlines in dick-measuring contests which, alas, cast a shadow on another constellation of Swiss brands which have been quietly doing the same thing for decades without fanfare or drama—brands like Delbana which stays true to its mission to make good attainable watches which is why it created the Della Balda ninety-five years after its founding. 

This model, and its siblings, by its aesthetics and specifications, do make for a great candidate for what I would therefore define as being a classic Swiss everyday timepiece—should I had been successful in all counts to make that point—, the kind I assume many of you didn’t know still existed, and which won’t bankrupt your upcoming summer vacation. And that’s indeed cause for celebration. 

Conclusion 

At the time of writing this review, the four versions of the Delbana Della Balda 95th Anniversary Edition are available for purchase directly from the brand’s website with immediate shipping. The black and white variants on steel retail for $890 USD while the white and black gold-plated versions will set you back $950 USD, so not that much more money. Note that each version is limited to 95 units even though they are not serialized. In short: given their good list of specifications, their classic and timeless designs, and their reasonable price tag, any of the four versions of the Della Balda will indeed make for a good everyday timepiece that can be passed onto the next generation, should that be a thing you’re into. 

Thanks for reading.