Hello all,

I know some members have an interest in early waterproof and shockproof watches so I thought I would post these pages on ‘Special Watches’ from the 1934 ‘Wilderness Catalogue’ I have just acquired.

This catalogue was produced periodically by Robert Pringle & Sons who were a wholesale supplier of silver, electroplate and other ‘fancy goods’.

There are other pages with more standard watches including Cyma, Tavannes, Waltham, Eterna, Ena and Aster as well as Helvetia of course if anyone is interested.

There are also over 200 pages of things such as propelling pencils, cigarette cases, lighters, dressing sets, candlesticks, tankards, clocks, you name it if anyone has wider interests let me know.





Thanks. Carl.

 

Those anonymous watches on the lower half are really nice; esp. the black dial one! Thanks for sharing!

 

To be honest I wasn't aware that there were double register chronographs like this as early as 1934 I thought they were all of the 'stop second' type around that time.

 

@CVivash you must have been reading my mind....I planned to start a thread on Taubert "waterproof" cases this morning. In the mid-1920s, Taubert et Fils purchased Borgel, an early pioneer in waterproof cases. In the early 1930s, Taubert introduced an octagonal stainless steel "waterproof" case having a decagonal screw down back and a specially treated cork winding stem seal. These cases were used by watch manufacturers like IWC, Longines, Vacheron & Constantin, and others. This design evolved over the years and was used by watch manufacturers such as Mido and Gruen through at least the early 1960s. Attached are photos of three of my watches showing the evolution of the Taubert "waterproof" case: an Empire from circa 1934; a Mido Multifort circa 1941; and, a Gruen 23 Precision Power-Date circa 1961.

 

Really interesting. I think these early waterproof watches are great. I have been after one of these catalogues for a while as I was pretty sure it had some Helvetia content.

Here is my page on Helvetia 'Sports' watches but I need to do a radical overhaul as I have learnt loads more since I created it.

https://www.helvetiahistory.co.uk/1930s-sports-watches

 

For those of you interested this is a picture of the spring mounting for the movement as illustrated at the top of the first page above.



This is the watch section of the index. Ladies are 7 to 16 and men's wrist are 24 to 31 so more or less anything else is pocket watches. If you want to see anything let me know.

 

Very cool post, thank you. Although, you have to laugh at them using the term "unbreakable watches" - back then truth in advertising was probably not what it is now!

 

@Bill Sohne @CVivash - I am intrigued by the Helvetia calendar watch with a date window, circa 1934, in a tank model no less!


I always thought the date-window calendar (with internal date disks) didn't develop until the 1950s. I can't even think of any tanks that had date windows (not counting jump-hour models). Any insight into the movement on this watch?

 

Hello. Yes, this is the Helvetia 75A rectangular movement adapted with date disks.

Solvil/Ditis, Mimo/Girard Perregaux and of course Helvetia produced 'Big Date' watches using this movement in the 1930s.

Here is my page about them: https://www.helvetiahistory.co.uk/helvetia-large-date-watches

 

You think that is good have a look at these adverts from G & M Lane. These watches are the waterproof unbreakable watches at the top of the page but rebranded from Helvetia to Aero or Aeroplane. G & M Lane had a whole range of these adverts.

They were also rebranded and used by Huber in Germany as Nautica and by Abercrombie and Fitch as their Shipmate

 

Ha! "being dropped daily from a plane every day for 169 days"...what does that even mean. Maybe it's true what they say, they don't make things like they used to

 

Great stuff! The watch band pages would be cool to see

 

Nice, interesting cases!

 

Haven't scanned them yet. I'll add them when I can. They are a metalwork supplier so the bands are all of the metal link type not leather.

I'll add the other pages on wristwatches below as there seems to be some interest.

 

Here is a photo with one of each type that I have (a couple I have more than one). Left to right 1929 to 1938 though the final type ran to the early 40s. They all had shock protection and after the first one they had a patent waterproof crystal fitting and the patent spring mounted movement as in the ad from the catalogue. The catalogue version is the third from left but with the type of dial from the right hand one.

More info here, but I need to update with a lot more info I've found since I created the page:

https://www.helvetiahistory.co.uk/1930s-sports-watches

 

From flight magazine 1934

 

Great resource, thanks! The Aster Self-Winding is interesting (alarming?) It's good to know that this device "forms an effective shock absorber for the movement"...
Is this the same principle as the Leon Hatot "wagging" auto movement?

 

What an amazing post and thread, with amazing pics and also a beautiful collection of watches!

First of all, it’s so interesting to see a retailer offering a certain type of gold watch with options of various movements from various manufactures in them.

Also... I’m getting a kick at seeing that the watches nowadays being hyped up as « doctor watches » are simply termed « double dial » and marketed as sports watches. Really so much B.S. that deserves to be called out.