EddieHello Eddie,
I just thought I'd reach out, as I understand you're the current owner of the Smiths brand name.
We've just published two articles referencing Smiths watches and their role on Everest.
Rolex vs. Smiths: Which Watch Summited Everest in 1953? Putting a Controversy to Rest
https://www.outdoorjournal.com/featu...versy-to-rest/
and
Smiths: a Once-Proud British Icon That No-One’s Heard Of
(My due apologies to you for that title... we have a larger American audience).
https://www.outdoorjournal.com/gear/...drew-rollings/
I believe the first piece may be the most comprehensive and definitive news media article on the topic, so perhaps interesting for you to know.
If you feel that there may be some interest to Timefactors in supporting or sponsoring the piece in some way, do let us know.
Alternatively, you are of course welcome to share the articles on your own social media channels.
Best wishes,
AP
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Eddie, maybe it's time to step up your game. Align yourself with Elon Musk's SpaceX project and become the official SpaceX Watch to Mars! Even though the project will take many years, it will be in the news constantly, offering numerous marketing opportunities to TimeFactors and Smiths, and of course a brand new watch designed for the Mars flight!
Excellent article - thank you for sharing.
You can almost feel the pain that must have gone into writing every single word of this response:
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Every word apart form the little jibe that the Smiths were manual - he deliberately chooses the word "ordinary" to have a dig at Smiths and contrast to the Automatic Rolexes that the expedition also had.Originally Posted by adg31
It felt to me like most of the pain came from his gritted teeth rubbing together. If he really felt that who was first didn't matter, he really should have read the advertising that he released when they thought they'd got it. Mind you, it's got to be the best recovery in the history of advertising.
V. interesting articles, enjoyed reading them. Looking back from our current perspective it's difficult to appreciate the significance of the first successful Everest ascent but it must’ve been huge at the time. The watches worn were essential pieces of equipment so it’s no surprise that Rolex and Smiths made the most of the advertising opportunities.
Second.
It was the second successful ascent. Admittedly it was the first successful decent, but there were reasons for that.
Quite a long read but very intriguing.
Would the "revelation" decrease the hyper-inflated value of the associated Rolexes now? I doubt.
To more important matters, though. Will TimeFactors reissue the A409 which was supposedly the only watch worn by Hillary to the summit?
Just finished the first article. Hugely interesting read. Despite the evidence reported in it, I suspect that it will be the myths and legends that will endure.
Thanks for posting Eddie.
I'll take a manual wind any day, ordinary or not over a automatic, but that's just me. Thanks for the post Eddie.
Thought it looked familiar, from about a year ago - lot of effort putting that together, inspired me to buy the Expedition and now plotting for the Explorer.Probably worth mentioning that the first link is to a piece written (and splendidly so) by our own @M4tt. Given the work that went into it, I thought it worthy of acknowledging here for those who weren't aware
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
There is currently no suitable sub-seconds movement in the market for it.
"The whole purpose of mechanical watches is to be impertinent." ~ Lionel a Marca, CEO of Breguet
Thanks. I'm currently discovering that there is far more interest in this question than I ever expected and from people who you wouldn't expect to care about such minutiae.Probably worth mentioning that the first link is to a piece written (and splendidly so) by our own @M4tt. Given the work that went into it, I thought it worthy of acknowledging here
Hunt was a military planner. There would have been a checklist of daily tasks and I'd be astonished if winding and setting watches wasn't part of it. The Army never saw the need for automatics in the field and I see no reason why Hunt would have. The idea that people were taking off gloves to wind watches is just risible. Trying to unscrew a crown to hack a watch, now that's an annoyance.
I've always wondered why Eddie didn't do a kit designed for a suitable Smiths movement. There are plenty of them in wrecked gold plated cases that would pop in a treat. A limited run of a few hundred would not dent the vast numbers of watches out there too badly and it would produce an instant classic. I'd love to see an all steel version of that wonderful Dennison case with the original movement. You could even do an Everest and an Antarctic dial.
What's not to like?
Sea-Gull ST17 has sub-seconds. But yeah, it might be a downgrade to the current movements TF is using.
I didn’t realise that M4tt wrote this, so thanks for pointing it out. And congrats to M4tt, I would second Tony’s view that this is aProbably worth mentioning that the first link is to a piece written (and splendidly so) by our own @M4tt. Given the work that went into it, I thought it worthy of acknowledging here
splendidly written piece.
As I said, there is no suitable movement available.
"The whole purpose of mechanical watches is to be impertinent." ~ Lionel a Marca, CEO of Breguet
Well, here's what I think about its viability.
The lower cost of the movement can be leveraged to make it a bit more effective (e.g. regulated to many positions; improved parts perhaps?)
Also, and I'm probably scraping the barrel here, the lower beat count adds to the "vintage" feel.
When you get a movement which i built down to a very low price across the board it's just really hard to improve it. In this case, it's almost certainly cheaper to start off with a movement of slightly better quality. More to the point, there are plenty of companies knocking out shoddy Chinese copies for nothing. I doubt that is market Eddie has any interest in.
this website perpetuates the myth that the Explorer summitted Everest in 1953:
https://blowers-jewellers.co.uk/role...ry-tool-watch/
"automatic" vs "manual" was the only thing Rolex had over the Smiths, so they milked it for all its worth.
your article was very thorough and well written!
The strangest thing about all this is, I seriously don't think the average Rolex buying punter in 2020 knows or gives a fig about the brand's history with Everest.
They didn't even have that. It was a dreadful choice. Hunt was a military planner at SHAEF and the last thing you need when you are going to be hacking watches on a regular basis is a screw down crown. Especially in a very cold environment where, even in a tent a screw crown is going to, be a right bugger for cold fingers. The automatic systems are just one more thing to go wrong, especially when you spend hours a day hacking stairs out of ice with an ice axe. Winding and hacking would have been on a daily checklist just as with any other, invariably handwind, military watch on operations.
I personally think that is one argument too far Matt.
They need not necessarily have hacked the watch every day. They would have certainly time checked, and if the auto were accurate enough they would probably leave it. But they would have to wind the Smiths.
It is your conjecture that they had to even hack the Rolexes every day, it is the one part of your otherwise impeccable exposition that you have no proof of.
The expedition did prove to themselves that the auto worked. And they said so. The glove argument, although repeated somewhat suspiciously, is perfectly true, and in terms of performance was the only real differntiator between the two watch brands on the mountain. One you had to wind, one you didn't. If you had to hack ine, you'd have to hack both.
But, this is not a second-critical military operation, knowing it was 8am was enough, there is simply no requirement to know that it was 8.00 and 12 seconds.
All tasks in mountaineering are completed to time, but not by the second. You make sure you are in camp by X, next to your radio by Y, know that your oxygen may last Z hours and minutes. None of these are second critical, nor can they be.
Automatics took over from manuals (and got screwdown crowns with greater WR) because they were more convenient and robust.
And even if they did have to hack them, I believe you cannot argue that a screwdown crown (to hack, not wind) is a pain when the alternative is winding (as well as hacking) a manual watch every day, the latter is at least as annoying to complete.
Dave
And this is precisely why the argument over there was so solid. Almost every inch of it had been argued here, at WUS, or over at IWL over the last decade or so.
I agree I'm stronging it, so lets go for a softer version. The Smiths in that configuration would run tolerably accurately for probably around thirty hours and in total for forty plus. They may not have hacked every day, but they will have wound. Military habits don't change and Hunt was a checklist man, I also doubt he'd have trusted the automatic feature as it was new, but that's conjecture. once at base camp and moving more slowly, he'd have been right not to. The point is that you'd never have to remove your gloves to wind the watch. Ever.
In infantry operations, I'm pretty sure that neither automatics nor screw down crowns have ever replaced manual wind. In fact the W10 from Smiths was neither and by coincidence, the very last mechanicals used by the Army were hand wind with non screw down crowns, because screw down crowns are a right pain, wear, are easy to damage and don't offer any real advantages until you are looking at some serious depth.
Personally, I've always got a visceral pleasure from daily winding. I doubt the climbers cared one whit.
As for the argument. The key step was comparing the advert from the second and the fifteenth. I just gave a short quote for flavour - but the two adverts are there to read, not as decoration. It's utterly clear that the two are synoptic and that means that Hunt's testimonial was either written before they left or rewritten either by Hunt or Peerbhoy afterwards. What it isn't is a genuine reflection on their experience. It's copy with an agenda.
Last edited by M4tt; 5th June 2020 at 11:31.
Most informative M4tt, you've certainly convinced me!
I can assure you at 27,000ft+ there is little visceral pleasure in anything.
Sent from my moto g(8) plus using Tapatalk
The mile high club is not for you then.
In the other article "Smiths: a Once-Proud British Icon That No-One’s Heard Of"
https://www.outdoorjournal.com/gear/...drew-rollings/
The main watch in the picture is marked "CROFF" and in the article...
"I have my own 1954 Smiths ‘Croff’ based on the Hillary watch. Fully made by Smiths to the exact specifications as Hillary’s watch which has recently accompanied me into the mountains of Iceland and Norway without incident!"
This is the Rollinix-Smiths-Watches facebook page searching for Croff... but none the wiser
https://www.facebook.com/page/189945...earch/?q=croff
What is CROFF? And why is this rendition closer to the Hillary watch than anything else in the Smiths catalogue?
"The whole purpose of mechanical watches is to be impertinent." ~ Lionel a Marca, CEO of Breguet
This looks like the Croydon & Sons shop in Ipswich in the 1970s.
Maybe CROFF has something to do with ‘CROydon’?
I couldn’t open the Facebook link.
Here is another CROFF on MWR. I’m sure a post there would get a comprehensive answer. Or maybe just drop Andrew Rollins a line. Edit: just found this thread that mentions CROFF as a mark of Croydon & Sons.
https://www.mwrforum.net/forums/show...ighlight=croff
Last edited by alfat33; 8th June 2020 at 20:11.
Well, there's a problem with that.Quite a long read but very intriguing.
Would the "revelation" decrease the hyper-inflated value of the associated Rolexes now? I doubt.
To more important matters, though. Will TimeFactors reissue the A409 which was supposedly the only watch worn by Hillary to the summit?
It's complicated but the précis is that the A409 was a very short-lived model in the Smiths catalogue. "Version A" with leaf hands and slightly art deco numerals appeared for one year only (1953, although it may have gone in production in late '52). "Version B" with syringe hands and slightly less art deco numerals appears in the 1954 & '55 catalogues. The actual watches issued to the Hunt party look the same as that "Croff" one in this thread, but say "Smiths De Luxe" instead of the retailer's (jeweller's) name. They are most commonly seen badged as "J W Benson".
My best guess is either that 1.) Smiths didn't have a stock code for the ones Hunt got and so just assigned the reference of a another, different watch ("A409") or 2.) that the Hunt watches are a "lost" early iteration of the A409.
To be honest, Eddie's "Everest Expedition" is pretty damn good re-make, combining elements of the Hunt watches with those of the 1954 "A543" (the so-called "Antarctic" range with the distinctive red centre seconds hand.)
Remember that at this time (and for a long time afterwards) Smiths a true vertically-integrated manufacture when Rolex were still using Aegler movements and Valjoux chronographs. In fact Smiths even made their own jewels.
So yes, it's my in-house manual wind or your bought-in third-party automatic made by someone else with your name on it?
FFS
Not quite. Rolex made the bolt on auto module. Aegler made the movement. A movement with very clear roots in the previous century.
love this picture! Makes me want to go inside to check it out, especially the upstairs.
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