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Interesting A.T.P Unitas WW2 watch on eBay


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I have two of these Unitas A.T.P.  WW2 army issue watches (plus a spare movement), which I bought a few years ago - for about £100 each, if memory serves. There's one currently on eBay at:

Unitas A.T.P watch

Asking price? A cool £450. There are a couple of others also currently on eBay for a more realistic £30 or £40 - they'll probably go for around £100 or so at auction end. Now, the case back of the £450 watch has the letters "HMS HOOD" scratched roughly into the back. Which strikes me as odd. Why? The Hood, as I'm sure we all know, was sunk in 1941 by the Bismarck - with just 3 survivors. There's no acknowledgement of the ship's history or any other provenance in the eBay listing. (Like all their adverts on eBay, the Vintage Watch Company never post photos of the movements - which is annoying and why I've never bought from them).

Hmm...

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So do I, Geo. I know I'm a bit paranoid about possible cons on eBay, and I could well be suspecting something from nothing, but it strikes me as a little odd.

[After edit]

Here's one of mine by the way - Unitas clearly marked on the face. They're lovely little movements, well made and keep good time. Hacking as well. I've got a new strap for it, but kept the original 1940 strap as a souvenir.

 

 

Unitas 173 1940 case outer.JPG

Unitas 173 1940 face 2.JPG

Unitas 173 1940 movement.JPG

Unitas 173 1940 old strap.JPG

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The website they have is very interesting again not a single picture of a watch movement, its filled with a lot of guff about why wristwatches are a sound investment, but at the prices they are charging you would have to wait generations before your family saw any return on your sound investment.

http://www.vintagewatchshop.com/about-us

 

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Absolutely. I've seen one or two watches on their website, over the years, that interested me. However, whenever I contacted them to ask if they would be able to post a photo of a particular movement, I got shrugged off with something like it was too much bother. Other sellers have been more accommodating in doing so.

How the devil do they expect a reasonably serious collector to pay reasonably serious money for a watch when you can't see the movement condition?

:thumbsd:

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It is interesting to note the complete absence of lume on either the dial or the hands.

Where as lume has a tendency to fall out of the hands over time, it is usually more resilient on the dial, but even where it does all come off the dial there would be evidence of where it had been.

If you look at Will's rather nice example you can clearly see that the dial printing includes printed outlines for the dial painter to fill with lume. Even after the lume had all gone the outlines would still be there.

I don't believe that the dial ever had lume applied, yet the open frame hands would have had lume. Luminous hands without luminous dial markers would be a pretty dumb combination so I'm happy that there is a complete mis-match between dial and hands.

 

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It's a common mistake, Anil - or misdirection. A.T.P. does indeed stand for "Army Trade Pattern". There were many ATPs at that time, for all sorts of pieces of equipment - essentially sets of specifications for various manufacturers to make the same thing, That's why A.T.P. watches were supplied by different manufacturers such as Unitas, Leonidas, Omega, Rolex, etc.

I'm not totally sure, but I was under the impression that there were different specifications for the different branches of the Service - RAF specs were different from Army, which were different from the Navy - and different again for the submarine service. I think it would have been unusual for a watch marked A.T.P. to have been issued to a navy man - but I'm happy to stand corrected!

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7 hours ago, WillFly said:

Now, the case back of the £450 watch has the letters "HMS HOOD" scratched roughly into the back. Which strikes me as odd. Why? The Hood, as I'm sure we all know, was sunk in 1941 by the Bismarck - with just 3 survivors. There's no acknowledgement of the ship's history or any other provenance in the eBay listing. (Like all their adverts on eBay, the Vintage Watch Company never post photos of the movements - which is annoying and why I've never bought from them).

Hmm...

I do see the broad arrow acceptance mark on it but I find its rather dubious, the broad arrow is very small on the eBay watch and the engraved ATP letters look too crisp and modern after so many years of use, compare the ATP and broad arrow stamp (which would have been placed on after the serial number) with the faint serial number. I also have reservations on the stainless steel marking. 

Compare for yourself with bonafide WW2 watches (below)

The ebay "HMS Hood"

s-l1600.jpg

 

540x360.jpg

undated Ebel model: https://www.the-saleroom.com/it-it/auction-catalogues/fellows-and-sons/catalogue-id-srfel10125/lot-609c306c-09f3-48f8-9cfb-a46e010f17b1 

IMG_5365.JPG

The above model is a 1944 watch: http://goldsmithworks.com/APPRAISAL/APRIL-12/RARE-1944-WWII-BRITISH-MILITARY-REVUE-SPORT-ATP-BROAD-ARROW.htm 

 

$_57.JPG

 http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?72073-Images-from-past-auctions 

 

 

 

 

$_57 (1).JPG

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