Glashutte, Cal. GUB 09-20, Women’s Manual Wind, 1972

Integral Gold-Plated Bracelet and Miniature 15 mm Case

The strongest feature of this watch is the way the case and bracelet form a single continuous design. Instead of conventional lugs and a separate strap, the approximately 15 mm wide case flows directly into a broad flexible gold-plated bracelet, creating the appearance of a piece of jewelry with a mechanical watch incorporated into its center. At only about 17 mm in length, the watch head is exceptionally small even by vintage ladies’ standards.

The bracelet uses a dense repeating textured pattern that continues across the rectangular shoulders surrounding the dial, giving the entire watch a highly decorative surface. Visible wear and variation in the gold-plated finish remain throughout the bracelet and case, consistent with an original vintage piece rather than a newly refinished example. The bracelet is original to the watch and is an important part of its overall design.

Champagne Dial with Alternating Geometric Markers

The small dial uses a warm champagne-gold background with a finely textured surface. Its hour display alternates between dark rectangular markers and gold-tone triangular indexes, producing a surprisingly graphic arrangement within the tiny dial opening. Short dark hands provide strong contrast, while the flowing Glashütte signature occupies the upper half and 17 RUBIS appears below the center.

The dial is framed by a raised circular crystal set into the broader rectangular case, emphasizing the contrast between the small round display and the wide bracelet structure around it. The result is characteristic of 1970s ladies’ watch design, when mechanical watches were often treated as jewelry objects rather than simply scaled-down versions of men’s models.

GUB Cal. 09-20 — 17-Jewel Hand-Wound Glashütte Movement

Inside is the GUB Cal. 09-20, a compact 17-jewel manual-wind movement developed in Glashütte specifically for very small watches. Despite its miniature dimensions, the caliber uses conventional mechanical construction with a lever escapement and operates at 21,600 vibrations per hour. Its compact architecture allowed Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe to produce extremely small mechanical wristwatches without relying on simpler pin-lever movements.

The movement in this watch has been fully serviced and is supplied with a 12-month movement warranty. The traditional hand-wound mechanism is especially appropriate to a watch of this scale, where reducing case size was more important than accommodating an automatic winding rotor. Similar small mechanical pieces can be found among our women’s vintage watches.

An Early-1970s Glashütte Jewelry Watch from the GUB Era

Produced in 1972, this watch belongs to the East German period of Glashütte production, when VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe manufactured both conventional wristwatches and highly compact ladies’ and jewelry-oriented models. The Cal. 09-20 was particularly suited to this format and became one of the characteristic small mechanical movements of the GUB era.

This example is appealing less for technical complication than for completeness and design: original watch components, original integral bracelet, a genuine in-house Glashütte movement and exceptionally compact proportions preserved together in one coherent period piece. Buyers interested in comparable traditional mechanics can also browse our manual-wind vintage watches.