Show us your military watch

[LennoxN7]

ohhh man, your watches are real military watches, mine are just some kind of military style fashion watches in comparison to yours

 

[B1N9S]

The incomplete Vertex DD is a new project to sort out.  The Seiko gen 1, is my favourite watch to wear and is my daily.  

 

 

Edited May 11, 2024 by B1N9S
Dont like the grubby fingers in the pic.

[tIB]

Current wear and current fixer upper:

[Razz]

This one is all SS, has 24 hour numbers, 100m WR, great lume and is fairly large size and easy to read with a hack (as it is quartz). Says military on the dial...love the date function never seen one before with 2 wheels that turn independantly for each digit...but make the date large without a bubble, which is nice. Has a mineral crystal as well.

[tIB]

Surprising lack of G10's in this one, so here's some!

(Eagle eyed types might spot some anomalies there...)

[Neverenoughwatches]

10 minutes ago, tIB said:

Surprising lack of G10's in this one, so here's some!

(Eagle eyed types might spot some anomalies there...)

Nice, i can see some differences between them but i wouldn't know if it makes any of them completely genuine or not.

[tomh207]

32 minutes ago, tIB said:

Surprising lack of G10's in this one, so here's some!

(Eagle eyed types might spot some anomalies there...)

The one far left is the odd one out for me. Swiss rather than Swiss made, this would indicate a Swiss movement but built outside Switzerland. Same watch has less prominent logo and numeral printing.  What do the casebacks look like?

 

you would think I would be better at this as I wore one daily for about 5 years

 

Tom

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

The one far left is the odd one out for me. Swiss rather than Swiss made, this would indicate a Swiss movement but built outside Switzerland. Same watch has less prominent logo and numeral printing.  What do the casebacks look like?

 

you would think I would be better at this as I wore one daily for about 5 years

 

Tom

Yep Tom,  i spotted that first off then i noticed the lugs on the middle one are thinner, i cant say what tells us. 

The sides of the middle case look less swept. Maybe thats just a difference in the manufacturing period ?

13 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

you would think I would be better at this as I wore one daily for about 5 years

 

Do you still have it Tom ? I had the chance of a Cabot 6 months ago at Doncaster fair, i was sorely tempted, price was around £200.

[tomh207]

13 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Yep Tom,  i spotted that first off then i noticed the lugs on the middle one are thinner, i cant say what tells us. 

We need to see the casebacks, they should have a nsn as a part number with the first 6 digits would be 6645-99. 6645 is the grouping for timekeeping equipment, 99 is the designator for UK. Most CWC/MWC G10’s kicking around were never issued but bought by squaddies outside of the G1098 stores system so wouldn’t have the nsn. In addition they were also procured by the UK establishment for police services etc. these also wouldn’t have the nsn. Watches were not on general issue, only issued to corporal and above who were in charge of a section, unit etc. 

 

Tom

[Neverenoughwatches]

4 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

We need to see the casebacks, they should have a nsn as a part number with the first 6 digits would be 6645-99. 6645 is the grouping for timekeeping equipment, 99 is the designator for UK. Most CWC/MWC G10’s kicking around were never issued but bought by squaddies outside of the G1098 stores system so wouldn’t have the nsn. In addition they were also procured by the UK establishment for police services etc. these also wouldn’t have the nsn. Watches were not on general issue, only issued to corporal and above who were in charge of a section, unit etc. 

 

Tom

Cracking info Tom from an ex. 

[tomh207]

5 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Cracking info Tom from an ex. 

Amazing what you find rummaging around in old, dormant brain cells Rich

 

Tom

[tIB]

So yes, some good eyes here - there's one completely genuine '89 in that trio, most easily identified by the lugs - the two with pins rather than fixed bars and ever so slightly larger lugs are the giveaway front side. They also lack a tension ring. 

 

Dials are all original - the Swiss one is from an earlier Fatboy. Cases on the other two are the Rdunae ones which are decent if you ever find yourself with a dial and a mate who wants a watch like yours like I did! 

[tomh207]

@Neverenoughwatches unfortunately Rich I had to hand it back to stores when I left the unit. Watches for issue were always in short supply, there are fewer genuine issued watches out there than you would think. They are decent quality robust watches which do what they say on the tin, a real grab and do anything watch. I bought a MWC version for myself a few years ago, the one I posted above, a limited civvy edition with T25 tritium tubes. I also had a spec ops specified one which is a kinetic hybrid  With T100 tritium tubes. I gave it to my son in law who promptly gave it to my daughter when they split up. I don’t think it was fancy enough for him as instead he kept the somewhat trashy skeletonised watch I gave him. I suspect that he didn’t realise that the real military spec watch cost more than 4 times what the bling did. These were both rated for 10 years battery life, my newest one is a 2018 batch so will see if that holds up.

a piece of trivia on these, although issued with a grey NATO strap very few of us wore them on that, certainly in the units I served with. Generally we used a leather Bundt style strap with a pop button cover for the watch head. This was for protection mainly as you were fiscally responsible for any damage to anything you signed out of the G1098 on a form G1033. IIRC for a watch to be issued to you the G1033 had to be countersigned by the officer commanding your unit.

 

Tom

[rehajm]

2 hours ago, tomh207 said:

This was for protection mainly as you were fiscally responsible for any damage to anything you signed out of the G1098 on a form G1033.

Crikey! That's cold...

...not to change the subject but I'll post this one. The old boy this one belonged to must have forgot to sign his form ...

 

[tIB]

49 minutes ago, rehajm said:

Crikey! That's cold...

...not to change the subject but I'll post this one. The old boy this one belonged to must have forgot to sign his form ...

 

Lovely that!

[spectre6000]

Here's mine. Officer's watch from the wrong side of WWII. Back is scratched all to hell to get rid of the D#. There are little tangs around the crystal from the tip of a bayonet resulting from a battlefield repair attempting to keep the crystal from falling out (this according to the watchmaker I took it to to have it serviced shortly after I got it). I got it off eBay out of the Ukraine when I was in college nearly 20 years ago for $35. That sourcing location suggests it was possibly traded for cigarettes or something in a POW camp, or picked off a corpse on the eastern front. I had no idea what it was beyond a cool looking hand wound watch. It's negatively water resistant due to the crystal, so I don't wear it anymore. Insane little bit of history to have on ones' wrist.

[rehajm]

Looks to be a nice trench to the right what qualifies…

[spectre6000]

Badly recased Komandierskie to the top as well that might. Not one of the modern silly ones.

[sladew]

Here's my military collection from the bottom of the world in NZ.

The two that interest me the most are both not military issue but rather private purchases that saw service in either WW1 or WW2: the old timer from 1916 sporting  the "shrapnel guard" and the little Revue Sport . The 1916 watch was worn through WW1 and the owner was wounded four times. The little Revue Sports was worn by an engineer in a NZ armored regiment in WW2.

The Tissot is an interesting beast - it has a heavily polished case-back with a broad arrow and a "PAF" marking. I've had various explanations offered for the PAF engraving but none that I can reliably verify.

 

[tIB]

Do any of the military watch experts in here know whether the vintage Precista g10 fatboy ('82) case/crystal specs are identical to the CWC variant?

[tIB]

Beautiful that - came yesterday (in a jiffy bag no less, crazy!) tidied it up and feeling rather pleased... '82 Precista G10 fatboy. 

[mpe7383]

Hello all, I'm moving onto this thread from the introduce yourself one as this is the more appropriate one so for a bit of further reading on this watch have a look at that.

My first military watch, and if everything is correct,  not bad for my first. Grana DD.

So there has been a bit of speculation regarding the dial, from the limited information and internet sleuthing, I believe it's a MOD re dial, when they did away with radium, for a short time they used promethium then went onto tritium, hence the circled P. So does this mean this could be a scarce example of an already scarce watch?

The hands look correct but not sure about the colour. I suspect that when they were sent for repairs if it needed hands it got hands. Would be interesting to know if when they re dialed a watch they got replacements from the manufacturer or just cleaned up all the old ones and re print them MOD style and not Swiss style, hence the more chunky and crude quality.

Of course you have to consider if this watch has been faked, but if faking a dial I would have thought the standard original layout would have been used and not the hardly seen P dial.

So all I have done is clean up the crystal a little to make it more presentable, I haven't gone to town and there are still plenty of dings around the edges, I didn't want to go rounding off the bezel edge.

What I hadn't noticed before is the wear on the back from the strap, hopefully that comes out in the picture

[AndyGSi]

11 minutes ago, mpe7383 said:

So there has been a bit of speculation regarding the dial, from the limited information and internet sleuthing, I believe it's a MOD re dial, when they did away with radium, for a short time they used promethium then went onto tritium, hence the circled P. So does this mean this could be a scarce example of an already scarce watch?

The thing with the P and Promethium is that it wasn't used until the 1960s so not sure how the MOD Redial stands.

I think the Serial Number may shed more light on this if you can find another Grana with a similar number.

[rehajm]

I think you have an amazing find from a very interesting lit of military watches that deserve recognition, as well as for the bloke or someones who quietly amassed the collection. I’ve been working on a DD collection and do contemplate the same decisions as you. For me I’m cleaning and servicing, which often means returning to working order, hunting military correct parts, and wondering if I should keep the imperfections and incorrect replacements if keep as part of the history of the watch. Par example, what to make of this non running Buren with the Longines hands?…

…restore or correct?  I never try to fix dents and scratches on military… Even though most of them were civilian watches…

…Are you posting the others?

 

[AndyGSi]

This example may help the authenticity irrespective of what's happened to the dial.

This example is M18777 & 552315, both of these numbers are 114 from yours.

https://www.mctears.co.uk/auction/lot/828-an-incredibly-rare-grana-dirty-dozen-military-stainless-steel-manual-wind-wrist-watch/?lot=240418&sd=1