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You are here: Home / Movements / Venus 186

Venus 186

Last Update: June 23, 2019

Brand:Vénus
Family:
Venus 150 Family
Height:7.1 mm
Jewels:17
Reserve: hours
Frequency:18,000 A/h
Winding:Hand winding
Diameter:29.0 mm (13 ligne)
  Complications:2-Button, 7-Column Chronograph, Chronograph, Column Wheel Chronograph, Date, Horizontal Clutch Chronograph
Hands:12 Hour Chronograph Hand at 6:00, 30 Minute Chronograph Hand at 3:00, Central 60 Second Chronograph Hand, Central Hour Hand, Central Minute Hand, Date Pointer at 12:00, Small Seconds Hand at 9:00
Distinguishing Technical Characteristics
Hand-Winding
Clockwise Balance Cock
7-Column Chronograph
Balance
Balance at 1:30
Column Wheel
Column Wheel at 4:30
Production: 1949 – 1960
1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s

Venus Cal. 186 is part of the Venus 150 family of movements. It is a hand-winding column wheel chronograph movement. Similar to Cal. 150, it adds an hour counter at 6:00 and date pointer at 12:00. The dial features a 3-6-9-12 subdial arrangement.

Cal. 186 was introduced around 1949 and retired around 1960. It uses a 7-column wheel and has two pushers. The chronograph is engaged using a traditional horizontal clutch mechanism.

No Hour CounterHour Counter
StandardVenus 150
Venus 151
Venus 152
DateVenus 186
Date, Moon PhaseVenus 187
Day, Date, MonthVenus 191

Vénus is said to have sold the tooling for Cal. 150 and 152 to the First Moscow Watch Factory in the late 1950s. This was shortly before Vénus moved from their original factory to the former Pierce factory, also in Moutier. The company was focused on producing the cam-switching Cal. 210 Family and saw no need to continue production of the pre-war column wheel design. First Moscow Watch Factory produced the movement under the Strela brand, calling it Cal. 3017. It remained in production for decades there. It is said that as many as 100,000 examples were produced before 1980. The same factory later purchased the tooling for the Vénus-based Valjoux 7733 when the Moutier factory was halting production of movements entirely.

More detail on the history of Vénus is available in the Grail Watch article, “The Rise of Vénus, Legendary Chronograph Maker“

Images are taken from official publications and are used here for commentary and educational purposes. Copyright is held by the original owner as noted.

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