What is the meaning of the letters GCT on some Longines dials?

 

On front/back Do you have a picture?

 

That question popped up again on instagram just a few days ago. My understanding is that nobody worked it out yet. Here’s one I saw for sale last year. Sorry for the crappy picture.



Incidentally, how do we know it’s GCT ?
Has that been confirmed somewhere, or is it just a best guess ?
I mean it could be TCG, or any sequence...

 

I did ask a friend and his reply was:
We found it in the Longines archives, few company sold at the end of ‘30s in Italy watches with G.C.T. on the dials, but I did not find any connection to a company or military order, it is still a mistery!

 

That’s great I learnt something.. or at least relearnt something that I’d forgotten

So they all went to Italy and it’s confirmed as GCT. Given that there are so many hardcore Longines fans in Italy I assume this must be a very hard puzzle to solve.

 

Here’s an explanation as to the why...

http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?45036-Hamilton-GCT-24-hr-AN-57401

Quote (isologue).

The Hamilton AN5740 was a master navigational (GCT) watch. GCT stands for Greenwich Civil Time, a term adopted by US astronomers after the measurement of Greenwich Mean Time was switched from a noon start to a midnight start. (On a 24-hour watch dial I suppose this is important!)

But pretty sure this GCT has nothing to do with the GCT monogram on the wristwatch dials. Jewelers monogram sounds quite plausible, especially as it appears on a wide variety of models.

 

I've been told that GCT = Greenwich Civil Time.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/wruw-today.567/page-4414#post-893887

 

We've had discussions about this with Jennifer Bochud - a UK collector has one and was wondering about it too.
Jennifer is suggesting that anyone who has one in hand or sees one send in the pictures with movement serial numbers and perhaps a pattern can emerge. I too would vote for a jeweler in Italy, but I think a number of people have gone nowhere trying to find which it might be.

 

Just adding this Movado chrono example that turned up on my IG - clearly this phenomenon is not Longines exclusive, and has our fellow Zenith collectors equally baffled.

 

So the sequence is GCT. The G can be gioielleria (something like jewellery store). The C can then be the company name and T the city