Reply With QuoteThat’s quite a good synopsis
I would have given an honourable mention to a type xx and the Elgin canteen. They also missed out the Radiomir.
... With a notable nod to Smiths
https://gearpatrol.com/2019/04/24/be...eid=09f636d580
Gray
That’s quite a good synopsis
I would have given an honourable mention to a type xx and the Elgin canteen. They also missed out the Radiomir.
Lovely post thank you for sharing.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. I've only taken a recent interest in some of the military issues after having my head turned by a couple on SC recently, this just increases the temptation
Yeah good article alright Gray. I even have/had a few of the watches in the list. Sadly nothing too fancy like the BP 50 fathoms, :) though a relative has one*. It's a huge area of interest and collecting, so there are going to be a few missing in any article, but that was a good overview.
One thing stood out and it was about the Trench watches. He repeated the "wristwatches supplied to the German navy in the 1880s" idea that is generally taken as fact. Girard Perregaux were the makers and they go along with that. Never happened. Zero evidence for it. The watch they show as an example and the one in the article couldn't be from 1880. The brevet number is much later(WW1) and it has a radium dial. Radium hadn't been discovered yet and didn't get into luminous material until around 1910/11. And soldiers most certainly weren't going around soldering lugs onto lady's pocket watches. Men's wristwatches were being made in small numbers before WW1, aimed at both military men and outdoors types, particularly cyclists. Omega advertised their first one in 1908 and they had been in use during the Boer War(though most were smaller pocket watches in special straps for the wrist).
*for over 50 years from new. Didn't realise the value. Doesn't care when I told him. Still daily wears it on one of those spidel bracelets he got in the 80's :o
Thank you I will read it all later.
A quick glance though and those Lemanias really call to me.
There are certainly a few missing but I agree, a decent list.
Gray
It never ever ceases to amaze me how myths become facts - especially with the Internet to correct us all 😉
Originally Posted by Wibbs
Gray
Now that’s cool.
Agreed. They also missed out Hanhart, Lange, etc. Plus what about Russian Military watches like CHS 191.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The problem with bitesize articles like this is that they get things wrong because they want to cover so much, and the little pen portraits are too short to cover the details.
The monopusher chronograph section is totally misleading, only Lemania made these for the Mod (in fact every MoD wrist chronograph until the asymmetrics was made by Lemania), and only Breitling and Rodania made them for the RCAF (and Lemania made none of those, not even the movements).
Same with the Bund section, conflating the Zenith and Leonidas Italian supply with the Bund one.
Those are the only two sections I read, and they are both wrong.
No Swedes, no Junghans J88 Bund, no Tutima from WW2 or the Bund Lemanias. I guess there are a lot of other candidates....
Dave
It is D. He loves swimming and still does, but used to forget he was wearing his watch and they'd end up looking like spirit levels after he got out of the water. Straight into the bin. So his wife suggested one of those "skin-divers watches" and on holiday in Spain(IIRC) in the 60's he went into a shop that sold that kinda gear and they had a range of watches. He says he picked that one because he thought the others were too "showy" and "heavy on the wrist". It was on a strap and it's actually quite small by todays standards. He thought it expensive at the time. He can't remember how much, but they were all around the same price(as they tended to be back then as they were all competing with each other). But the wife treated him as a holiday present. Mad when you consider how much they go for now. Though it must have been old stock even then as it's one of the early ones.
Missed out on a load of British, German, French and American examples too. In fairness AndyG giving a comprehensive guide on even one of the subjects he covered could fill a book.
Here we get a different (and dare I say?) much better proposition.
Origins in India?
http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/wristlets.php#India
Vintagewatchstraps is probably one of the best sites on the history of our subject... push the tab marked: HISTORY
+1000 on Vintagewatchstraps for the history of the early wristwatch for men. Sound bloke who has worked at collating a load of info from various sources and laid out IMHO the definitive guide to the early days. Particularly interesting for me is the story of the first "waterproof" watch. Pocketwatches were rocking the dust/waterproof thing back in the early 1880s, with screw backs and front and screw down crowns. In the early wristwatches he shows the Borgel case when in good condition is way more than splash resistant and can take a dunking. Then there was the "Submarine" of 1916 coming out of a couple of British Royal Navy submariners requesting such a timepiece that was waterproof and antimagnetic. Screw back and front with gaskets(leather IIRC) and gaskets in the crown and nonmagnetic metals in the movement. All this decades before the period most folks reckon waterproof watches came about, mostly with the Rolex Oyster.
Oh and he makes lovely watch straps too.
Posting Permissions
