Throwback Thursday: The Corum Bridge

It was 1957 when Corum introduced the Golden Tube model, with a case made of a horizontal tube of gold in which a movement was inserted. This became the basis for the Golden Bridge, with its ingenious linear movement, introduced in 1980. The first Golden Bridge was vertical, rather than its predecessor’s horizontal tube shape, containing what the firm called the “baguette movement.” The bridge was beautifully engraved, with functional rubies in full view, all displayed behind a transparent sapphire crystal. There was a ladies’ model right from the beginning, with diamonds set into the horns and upper and lower bezel. A fully set version on bracelet was also introduced. Recently, the brand has gone back to the original east-west baguette case shape, with a horizontally arranged linear movement, and this one tends to sit more comfortably on a ladies’ wrist. The Ti-Bridge was introduced in 2009, with the in-house caliber CO 007, followed in 2011 with an automatic version. Instead of “Golden Bridge,” the collection is now called “Corum Bridge,” and remains one of the most creative watch designs, a forerunner of today’s tendency to experiment with the arrangement of mechanical watch components in non-traditional formats.