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Harry jenkins
·Hello! I am a huge fan of ww2 (and prior) pilot’s watches. Particularly the ‘1928’ pattern watches.
This is from Konrad Knirim’s book on military time pieces…
Hallo friends
Why: '1928 German Airforce pattern'.
Before 1933, the secretly developed German military-aircraft industry underwent the Treaty of Versailles. Out of the reserves of the 'Deutscher Luftsportverband' (DLV), (German Aviation Sporting Club), the 'Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule' (German Transport Aviator's School) and last but not least the covert training center 'Deutsch-Russische Verkehrs-Gesellschaft' (German-Russian Transport Association), came a flood of glider pilots eager to learn the art of military flying for the Luftwaffe since 1934. Many of them had their privatly owned 'Flieger-Uhren', see photo:
- Pilot's watches of the 30s: Natalis, Mimo, Breitling Chronograph, Titus, Zenith, Omega, Helvetia. Many of other manufacturers, such as Longines, Roamer, Lanco etc. made this type of watch. The cases are nickel or chrome and all have fixed mounts. The back cover is screwed or snapped on.
Now, after Zenith designed theirs in 1909 for Louis Bleriot to fly the english channel , I’m aware that multiple manufacturers (Omega, Natalis, Emte, Helvetia, Lanco, Rellum to name a few) made watches in this style - 40mm(ish) similar cases, black dial, clear numbers - however, I have never seen an example of a Rolex version. My gut tells me the below is bogus in some way, perhaps a franken version, but I’m really not sure… the logo looks suspicious to me - particularly given the time when these watches were around. Perhaps I’m just being skeptical having never seen another example of this kind. Though I did find this information -
“The Rolex crown, the now-famous logo of the brand, was registered in 1931 and Rolex began using the crown logo on watch dials in the 1930s. If you look at the earliest Rolex Oyster watches from the 1920s and the first Oyster Perpetual watch, you’ll see that the five-pronged coronet is not on the dial – only the Rolex name. However, by the time the Datejust was released in 1945, the crown was certainly present on the dial, right above the Rolex name.”
What do you reckon? I’m stumped.
This is from Konrad Knirim’s book on military time pieces…
Hallo friends
Why: '1928 German Airforce pattern'.
Before 1933, the secretly developed German military-aircraft industry underwent the Treaty of Versailles. Out of the reserves of the 'Deutscher Luftsportverband' (DLV), (German Aviation Sporting Club), the 'Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule' (German Transport Aviator's School) and last but not least the covert training center 'Deutsch-Russische Verkehrs-Gesellschaft' (German-Russian Transport Association), came a flood of glider pilots eager to learn the art of military flying for the Luftwaffe since 1934. Many of them had their privatly owned 'Flieger-Uhren', see photo:
- Pilot's watches of the 30s: Natalis, Mimo, Breitling Chronograph, Titus, Zenith, Omega, Helvetia. Many of other manufacturers, such as Longines, Roamer, Lanco etc. made this type of watch. The cases are nickel or chrome and all have fixed mounts. The back cover is screwed or snapped on.
Now, after Zenith designed theirs in 1909 for Louis Bleriot to fly the english channel , I’m aware that multiple manufacturers (Omega, Natalis, Emte, Helvetia, Lanco, Rellum to name a few) made watches in this style - 40mm(ish) similar cases, black dial, clear numbers - however, I have never seen an example of a Rolex version. My gut tells me the below is bogus in some way, perhaps a franken version, but I’m really not sure… the logo looks suspicious to me - particularly given the time when these watches were around. Perhaps I’m just being skeptical having never seen another example of this kind. Though I did find this information -
“The Rolex crown, the now-famous logo of the brand, was registered in 1931 and Rolex began using the crown logo on watch dials in the 1930s. If you look at the earliest Rolex Oyster watches from the 1920s and the first Oyster Perpetual watch, you’ll see that the five-pronged coronet is not on the dial – only the Rolex name. However, by the time the Datejust was released in 1945, the crown was certainly present on the dial, right above the Rolex name.”
What do you reckon? I’m stumped.
