Anyone have a historical watch?

[Seiji]

Now I can not prove that my watch was the prototype, but it would be interesting to see if we can find more hydrographics COSD. And mine is a confirmed 6B/159 movement but it is many months earlier than any COSD 2340.

 

[Seiji]

w154

I think it does show where the batches lie. In conjunction with the strong possibility that Longines supplied in block of six it’s very easy to reach a number of around 1000-1200.

Somewhere I copied @bigbug1964 photo he took of the page with his COSD. It was the first clue that lead me to the May batch date. That page showed a lot of information and showed that there were breaks in the serial numbers for other orders.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Somewhere I copied @bigbug1964 photo he took of the page with his COSD. It was the first clue that lead me to the May batch date. That page showed a lot of information and showed that there were breaks in the serial numbers for other orders.

Well yes we can see that there are breaks in the plot. That photo did clearly show that movements were recorded in blocks of six, so a batch would likely be 6, 12, 18… 6n. If we take that as likely, and use it in conjunction with known SN ranges then we get to around 1000-1200. Even if we forget ranges and work off individual SNs, it would give us something like 300. It seems a more robust approach than trying to guesstimate based on the number of clearance divers.

 

[Seiji]

w154

Well yes we can see that there are breaks in the plot. That photo did clearly show that movements were recorded in blocks of six, so a batch would likely be 6, 12, 18… 6n. If we take that as likely, and use it in conjunction with known SNs then we get to around 1000-1200. It seems a more robust approach than trying to guesstimate based on the number of clearance divers.

I can not disagree that the number of clearance divers doesn't equate to the exact number of watches. Without seeing the order, we can't really tell. I will say that there are likely more total number of COSD than there were original Tuna cases. At $20,000 asking prices now days, people are building new never before existing COSD since we know many of them should really be in Dennison cases.

 

[w154]

Seiji

I can not disagree that the number of clearance divers doesn't equate to the exact number of watches. Without seeing the order, we can't really tell. I will say that there are likely more total number of COSD than there were original Tuna cases. At $20,000 asking prices now days, people are building new never before existing COSD since we know many of them should really be in Dennison cases.

I thought you said that the Dennison cased ones were recased movements from the first non-issued Tuna-cans ? If that was the case, then putting a Dennison cased movement and dial back into a tuna-can would be returning it to it’s original state.

Edit to add… I don’t think the asking price there is anyway connected to fair market value !

Edited: Sep 14, 2023

 

[Seiji]

w154

I thought you said that the Dennison cased ones were recased movements from the first non-issued Tuna-cans ? If that was the case, then putting a Dennison cased movement and dial back into a tuna-can would be returning it to it’s original state.

Yes, that is the justification used. And to some that is okay. The radium dialed COSD watches that are in Dennison cases originally came out of Tuna cases. However, there are more Tuna cases than there are radium dialed COSD Dennison donors. So, where is the movement coming from?

This person has a potential for $100,000 here. He has to find movements. He has everything else for a brand new car. Now to be fair to the person that bravely and honestly put this photo up on a forum, his intention is to find COSD movements and not just a movement that looks about right.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Yes, that is the justification used. And to some that is okay. The radium dialed COSD watches that are in Dennison cases originally came out of Tuna cases. However, there are more Tuna cases than there are radium dialed COSD Dennison donors. So, where is the movement coming from?

This person has a potential for $100,000 here. He has to find movements. He has everything else for a brand new car.

If that was really 100k sitting there, then it would be a no brainer to buy COSD Dennison donors that only run to $4-5k apiece. By the way, that’s my window sill !

 

[w154]

Seiji

Is it your lot?

Well if it’s my window sill !

 

[w154]

Seiji

Aha! Now I did update my post and said you are an honest person in search of real COSD movements and not going to just put a range correct movement 😀 Hope the search is going well, buddy. I realize it's an extreme challenge to find a UK delivered and correctly worded donor movements. And honestly I think Finest Hour is out of their minds.

Well the term “real COSD movement” is pretty loose as you know. Best would of course be a complete unissued big crown watch to use as a donor, but it would be somewhat pointless to use a fully correct watch as a donor ! So I’m left with Dennison recased COSD watches, or even harder, loose COSD movements. But it has been a fruitful 18 months.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Anyway, the point I was making, is that we have a safer bet with those two dates. For other possible delivery dates, I think you need Guido's photograph.

I get the idea, but believe me I’ve analysed COSD movement numbers to death and I’m sure there are other correct dates. The likely reason for the varying frequency of these dates being found is the varying size of those original batches. I believe your tabulated data (which is a very valuable reference), in conjunction with an archive extract, can give an extremely good indication as to whether a movement is correct or incorrect. And by “correct” I can only really say a movement that was ordered as part of the COSD project, not that it was originally built into a COSD watch (it may have directly been assembled into a BOAC/presentation watch at a later date, or simply stored as a spare and actually never assembled).

 

[Seiji]

w154

Well the term “real COSD movement” is pretty loose as you know. Best would of course be a complete unissued big crown watch to use as a donor, but it would be somewhat pointless to use a fully correct watch as a donor ! So I’m left with Dennison recased COSD watches, or even harder, loose COSD movements. But it has been a fruitful 18 months.

I was only trying to identify movements that were originally intended by the COSD for use in the COSD 2340 watch. If they are in Dennison cases currently, they are to me still authentic as it gets if it has the correct dial and hands, which you don't need to worry about.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Somewhere I copied @bigbug1964 photo he took of the page with his COSD. It was the first clue that lead me to the May batch date. That page showed a lot of information and showed that there were breaks in the serial numbers for other orders.

You mean this pic from here ?

https://www.mwrforum.net/forums/sho...-April-13-2022&p=390738&viewfull=1#post390738



From my understanding the second column is the serial number, and this will stay in perfect consecutive ascending order in the archive books. The first column will then be stamped on the day that each block of six was delivered. The dates in the first column
yo-yo around, so it looks like an order was taken from stock and they didn’t rigidly control that the whole order was made with consecutive SNs (maybe because these blocks of six assembled movements weren’t actually completed in perfect consecutive order, or other possible reasons).

It does however look like all the movements on this page were destined for COSD orders, so I think we see the breaks in production more clearly when plotting the known COSD serial numbers in ascending order. I think from here it’s fairly certain that there were four sizeable production batches produced, with the possibility that smaller batches may also have been produced but were small enough that we haven’t yet seen evidence of them. The three wayward datapoints in the middle are slightly suspicious in my opinion, and it would be advantageous to see the wording of the extracts for these.

 

[Seiji]

Exactly, so you see the April 14th date and May 2nd date and May 14th date is in the first column. The month is roman number. Agent Day Month Year.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Exactly, so you see the April 14th date and May 2nd date is in the first column. The month is roman number. Agent Day Month Year.

Yes… my point was that orders that were dispatched on certain dates didn’t comprise of perfectly sequential serial numbers, so I didn’t really understand it when you said “That page showed a lot of information and showed that there were breaks in the serial numbers for other orders.”

 

[Seiji]

There may have been another order but this order was 40 of 100 to be delivered on April 14, May 2nd, and May 14th 1945. So at this point we only know of these three dates and 100 serials.

 

[w154]

Seiji

Also you see the order is for a total of 100

You can conclude that from the 40/100 ? I don’t know how to read that stamp. Is that a purely internal order, or are you saying that it’s somehow connected to the MOD order ?

 

[Seiji]

We have maybe 65 of 100 watches documented so a good size of the 120 divers

 

[Seiji]

Yes that red number is customer order size. 40 of 100 total.

 

[w154]

Seiji

We have maybe 65 of 100 watches documented so a good size of the 120 divers

I’m completely lost by the logic here. Are you saying that there were 100 sequential numbers here that went to the MOD ? Or just 40 sequential ?

 

[Seiji]

No i am saying this order was for 40 movements. Delivered on April 14th, May 2nd, May 14. The contract was for 100. The 40/100 means only 40 to be made and fufilled.