Fabrizio...drool worth pieces.

 

Thank you Larry!

 

You might recall that I took a punt on this watch earlier in the year;

Once I got the piece in hand I was pleasantly surprised by the nice condition. The case is just lovely and it has that dull, almost leaden look typical of many unpolished steel cases from this period.

Here it is today, following some TLC and a service. All’s well that ends well I think.

 

looks really nice, congrats !

 

Congrats Ian on another nice Climate Proof!

 

Really digging “funky dial” UG Shadows these days.

 

A beat up “wilhelmina”

 

Whats the story behind ”Wilhelmina”?
Vilhelmina is a very small villiage in the north of Sweden not far from where I’m from

 

Very nice!!!

https://www.fratellowatches.com/history-on-the-wrist-a-dutch-army-watch-by-universal-geneve/

 

I have a feeling that we might start calling these Webendörfer watches after not very long. Somebody on MWR is in the midst of research on the UG variant together with the others from Era, Montilier and Titus. There is a strong suggestion that the dates don't match the received wisdom concerning their supposed issue in 1939 and the cipher on the dial is attributed by Mikrolisk to a Hamburg-based merchant called Webendörfer.

https://www.mwrforum.net/forums/sho...iversal-Geneve-quot-Wilhelmina-quot-questions

Apologies if the link doesn't work for everyone - apparently MWR went members-only recently.

Speaking personally I'm quite interested in the result - can't think why .

 

Thanks for the link, man! I look forward to seeing more updates. Very fascinating! Anyway, I posted this there, and I'm reposting it here:

Hi friends!

A few years ago; when I got my own UG Wilhelmina, I reached out to Adrian van der Meijden who, as you may know have researched and written on military watches. I just wanted to learn more about my watch and this is what he said:

You have one of the few watches with a military Dutch marking. The only place where I have seen this marking is the book of Z.M. Weselowski :”A concise guide to military Timepieces 1880-1990” On the page depicted it is the last marking. To understand its history you have to know that Queen Wilhelmina was the Queen of the Netherlands
between the 2 world wars.

The history of the watch has to do with the fact that unMl 1950 the republic of Indonesia was a Dutch colony. They had their own army led by Dutch officers. This army was the KNIL : Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger( Royal Dutch Army of the Indies). During WW II the archipel with hundreds of Islands was conquered by the Japanese, who confiscated the military watches. Afteer the war the Indonesian people wanted to be independent and a civilian war started unMl the independency was declared in 1950.

The military watches were stamped on the back with “KNIL” and a number of 4 digits. The KNIL watches were often Omega, JLC and IWC, members of the dirty dozen, but I have also seen Invicta and Universal Geneve. Your watch is from a somewhat earlier period : 1935-940 and has no KNIL markings.

In a Dutch museum about the KNIL army I have found 3 watches, among them one Universal Geneva.
If a new find shows up it is often in Japan, Indonesia or Australia.

Interestingly, I did get mine in Japan. Which I’m actually wearing now:

 

I don’t suppose you could confirm the name of the museum; I’d happily pass that back to the OP on MWR? One would like to think that a serious museum wouldn’t just repeat received wisdom and have some primary source evidence to back it up.

 

I have emailed Adrian to validate. I will update you! Weird, my post on MWR (which I posted above) got deleted.

 

Here's Adrian's reply:

I guess, being a Dutchman, that I am the only person who investigated the topic thoroughly, although many of the data cannot be retrieved because they have been lost and because of people involved, have died.

The history of the KNIL was searched by me in the Weapon Museum in Delft, The Netherlands. The KNIL watches I saw were not in that museum but in the museum of the Dutch Veteran Museum 'Bronbeek' in Arnhem, The Netherlands.

The discovery of the KNIL watches by me in the Bronbeek museum was a coincidental find. In the museum are dummies dressed with military uniforms from the KNIL. Three had a wristwatch ( Tissot and Invicta) with the KNIL inscription and if I remember well the crown on the dial of Wilhelmina.

I asked the curator of the museum whether I could see the watches in detail. The curator agreed but had no idea that the watches were special military watches.

 

That’s very fascinating. Thanks for sharing !

 

Roman numerals and blued hands

 

My 124146/3 came today.

 

I’d love to see some shots in different light. Wabi Sabe gives this one a lot of character. Congrats.