Time Capsule

Gold coins are all pre-WWII. Most countries stopped making gold for circulation in the the 1930's. Banks kept them around for reserves and the US Government had billions of dollars in gold coins at the mint and in Ft. Knox.
gatorcpa

Had a long chat with John and he's actually a decent bloke, I think its more different perspectives than anything else, John accepts the watch is a 1960s watch but that the kits are in fact WW2 era kits as the paperwork and records tends to indicate that and the watches are a bit of a mystery likely known only to whoever handled them during their time in military hands.

Although from a watch collector perspective original is defined as how it left the factory, it sounds more like for militaria collectors original is more often defined as how it left the military's ownership or custody rather that the factory that made it, due to the habit of the military upgrading or retrofitting parts or components. My only guess is the watches were added later while in the service but the records from the actual auction where they were sold indicate that these 60s era watches were definitely in the kit at that time of sale (when it left military hands) which is why from his point of view as someone who is interested in the military significance of it, the watch becomes part of the kit even if it were not originally due to it being present as it exited the service.

Now once again, that standard is not the standard watch collectors typically apply, none of us care what the first owner did to a watch (unless its something cool and significant) but are only interested in factory original spec, but that appears to be where the major difference of opinion lies.

The current Milus brand did buy two of John's kits and independently of him their former CEO released a new watch based on the ones they bought complete with marketing stating that it was in homage to a 1940s watch, really it seems to just be a marketing exercise by the brand to sell watches based on what they thought was a cool angle and its their fault they didn't crack open the watches and notice what was inside before they made those claims.

But yea the auction documents which I've seen do confirm at the time the watches were sold at auction they did contain these 60s Milus watches and that the kits were definitely WW2 orders, so however they got there it happened while they were in the service.

I’m glad someone revived this thread. I had totally forgotten about it.

Here is an appraisal for two of them from Pawn Stars:

These are likely the WWII European versions as the owner claims to have purchased them in Poland.

Hope this helps,
gatorcpa

If you read some of the earlier posts, these sets existed for WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

The ones with the Milus watches were likely from the early Vietnam period (1958-65).

The ones on Pawn Stars were from WWII, but look at the video...no watches!!!!

These sets were different at different times in history.
gatorcpa

I loved this movie when I was a kid! Haven’t thought about it in years.

I respectfully disagree for one reason. The rubber cases for the older sets did not have spaces for watches. I believe that either the surplus SE Asian kits were repurposed in the 1960’s and new cases were made with Milus watches and NATO style bands. I think the shape of the rubber cases were different also.
gatorcpa

Having worked in government for 20 years myself (and doing purchasing)- this isn’t out of the realm of possibility. There is always a paper trail in government- if the kits had been updated at some point to be made usable again after sitting on a shelf for 20 years (old watches- need to replace with working new watches-it’s easier to do a PO to replace than to repair), there would have been a PO for new watches with a stated justification. But that later PO would be hard to tie to the original kits as it could have been lost in a sea of paperwork with different names for the kits etc (“requisition for replacement parts to field gear Xyz”).
There would be no need to replace the other parts in the kit, just the mechanical watches that would have been obsolete in the refurbishment of the kits.
It’s all speculation- but as I said, there is always a paper trial...you just have to know where to look. If the watches can be narrowed to a specific year, then there would be a requisition for replacement “parts” for the year before or after.