Military '56' watches.

[Paul Drawmer]

Please does anyone have any information on the re-casing of 6B/539s into Dennison stainless cases?

I've had a JLC version of this since 1967 and only found out what it was from an ebay advert a couple of weeks ago!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUTHENTIC-...p2047675.l2557

Specifically I'm looking for info on the JLCs that were re-cased please.

Here's mine:

JLCface by pdrawmer, on Flickr

[aroma]

I'm not an expert on military watches but do have an interest in Dennison's. As far as I can tell, these 6b/539s were the old movements (Longines, Omega, JLC and others) from the alloy/steel cased 6b/159s of WW2. The 6b/159s were notorious for leaking and corrosion and so in the usual way, the MoD had the movements recased in stainless steel rather than buying new watches. Dennison's were contracted to manufacture a watertight stainless steel case and this became known as the Aquatite. Aquatites were produced from around 1952 and were made initially in chromed brass with a stainless steel screwback - Edmund Hilliary used an Aquatite cased Smiths for his conquest of Everest in 1953. The Aquatite range were later produced in 9kt gold and are a lovely heavy screwback case - often with Smiths movements. Later on, Dennison's used a version of the Aquatite for the superb 18kt gold Constellations of the 1960s.

I hope that helps

Cheers

[Paul Drawmer]

Thank you for that. It's interesting that the re-case is so much better than the original.
It also appears that a lot of these re-cased watches were released to dealers wholesale in 1967. (When I bought mine).

[BillyCasper]

I'd never paid any attention to these watches. I got to see the Omega version this week. They are really nice. Blued hands on white face, nice size and weight. Yours looks very nice. I like the font.

[abodinyc]

Please does anyone have any information on the re-casing of 6B/539s into Dennison stainless cases?

I've had a JLC version of this since 1967 and only found out what it was from an ebay advert a couple of weeks ago!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUTHENTIC-...p2047675.l2557

Specifically I'm looking for info on the JLCs that were re-cased please.

Here's mine:

JLCface by pdrawmer, on Flickr

There is some info on other sites like http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13434

[HansL]

Hi,

Just wonder why there are just Omega, Longines and JLC has been re-cased in 56 while Ebel, Movado and Cyma do not have any re-case samples?? Any idea??

Best regards,

Hans