Beware The "officer's Trench Watch" Adverts

[WillFly]

There's always been a vogue for military pocket watches and wristwatches, and you can see a whole raft of wristwatches being advertised on the Bay as "WW1 Officer's Trench Watch" - often with that much over-used eBay adjective "rare" applied to them! These are usually wristwatches with movements like Waltham in them, in a "cushion" case, and with a round white dial with black numerals from 1 to 11, and a red numeral 12. They're quite often silver-cased with a hinged case back which shows the movement.

 

There are a lot of these around and you have to doubt the authenticity of most of them, particularly when they claim to be (1) WW1 period (2) trench watches (3) officer's watches. The cushion case style was generally popular in the first years of the 20th century - right up to the later 1920s and early 1930s. Considering the number of officers who died in WW1, the fact that so many watches appear to have survived is a little odd, even if they were made in their thousands.

 

The odds are that most of these watches are just ordinary domestic wristwatches, or perhaps Frankenwatches - put together with the purpose to deceive. My tips for checking them out if you're tempted:

 

1. Silver? The inner case will be hallmarked if the case is silver. if the hallmark is not displayed, ask the seller to show a pic or send you a description - the hallmark will give the year the case was made.

 

2. The movement, if a make like Waltham or Elgin, will have a serial number which can be used to date the innards of the watch. Many UK military watches, of course, did have a bog-standard Swiss movement, but at least ask to see a pic of the movement if one is not supplied.

 

3. There's a big difference between watches which were purchased privately by soldiers and watches which were officially issued to them by the War Ministry. Military watches usually had the "crow's foot" arrow on the case rear, together with an ordnance or procurement number.

 

If you get all three of these on one watch, with the right dates, you've possibly got the real thing - and be prepared to pay for it, even for "spares or repair"!

Edited February 12, 2014 by WillFly

[Mark]

Thanks for taking the time to post this Will - very interesting :)

[Craig]

How many watches roughly would the Ministry have issued Will. I always think there still must be hundreds that have never seen the light of day stored in attics or in cases the mind boggles really. Great info Will.

[WillFly]

No idea, Craig - and it's almost impossible to get definitive numbers even from the War Ministry/Ministry of Defence.

[ash145]

Interesting post Will. :thumbsu: