The West End Watch Co., a little known brand (at least in Italy) has been the first to adopt on an industrial basis the antichock on their watches and was among the first to adopt the FB water-resistant cases as well as having significantly contributed to the spread of Swiss watchmaking in the Far East.

This is the first WEW Co that gave me a pleasant surprise.





West End Watch told me that the watch has been manufactured in the late '30s, presumably at the turn of 1938 or 1939.
I’d like to be able to know something about Mr. Baker, Irish in Belfast



On the inner cover, I found a little surprise



So Mr. Baker was an Official of the Civil Service in India in the early '40s and I went straight to requests for information both to London and India, but despite several mails, I got only silence ..........

Anyway I got a discrete movement (based FHF 30)....



....and a watch with a little of history





=========================================


This watch - at least initially - appeared as an anomaly to me.
The movement, is a classic Longines 10.68Z with blued screws



But the Longines logo is absent and not gone for external agents.





The case too is out of the usual Longines standards







Fearing it was a franken, I emailed Longines and…

"Dear Mr. Xxxxxx,Thank you for your e-mail as well as for your interest in LONGINES watches.#serial number 6’618’295, Wristwatch in steel with leather band. It has a movement caliber 10.68ZIt was invoiced to Messrs West End Watch, at that time our agents for the India, on 05.02.1944.It is possible that the case was changed by our agent.You can consider this watch as a original LONGINES watch.We hope this information is convenient to you, we remain on your disposal and send you our best regards,
Frédéric Donzé
Documentaliste"

West End Watch was then allowed to mount Longines movements in other cases.

I therefore turned to West End

"Dear Mr Xxxxxx,Thanks for your message and interest in our West End Watches.
Before West End Watch was purchasing watches bearing its brand name from several historical brands (such as Longines, Cyma, Tissot, Mido, Omega, IWC, Aubry, etc.) West End was the only brand for which Longines was producing watches without the Longines name on dial and case. The West End Watch Co. had started in Bombay. The founder was Mr Droz, whose family company was located in St-Imier and they were neighbours with Longines. West End was also the agent for Longines in India until the late 1950s when the market was closed for the importation of Swiss watches.The West End Watch Co. was taken over in 1973 and offices moved from Geneva to Le Noirmont (Jura). Then, again, in 2001, the company was taken over and moved from Le Noirmont to the present place Leytron (Vallese). Not all archives have followed over the decades, not speaking about the offices in India which were closed down in the 1950s and 2000 for the last one.However, the date you mentionate is absolutely realistic; Longines has supplied West End until the 1950s.Regarding Borgel cases, see the very interesting article underThe history of François Borgel, Louisa Borgel and the Taubert family - watch case makers of Geneva, SwitzerlandWe remain at your entire disposal for further informationWith best regards from Canton Vallese (not far away from Milano!).

WE/J. Monnat Jr - CEO"

So I learned something really interesting about the relationship between Longines and the West End Watch Co, as well as between West End and Borgel.



====================================


The "anomaly" is again repeated in this watch: a West End-Multifort



Caseback branded WEW and properly coupled with the case





The movement, the classic Mido1941 based on AS, is branded WEW



The watch has been manufactured by Mido and is registered in their archives

“Dear Mr. Xxxxxx,We thank you for your request and for your interest in Mido watches.All we can say about this watch is that the year of manufacture is 1942.We stay at your disposal for any other information.Best Regards
MIDO SADelphine Huot”

What does West End Watch say about this watch? Here is an excerpt of the correspondence with.

“…West End has been the agent of several brands for the Indian market. Longines, of course, was the most significant one. But West End has also been the agent of Mido from 1938 to 1951, when the Indian market was closed to importations after the independence. I have read it in the history of the brand - written by the late Mr. Foex, who has been director from 1920 to 1973! - that West End has sold several thousand (if I remember about 5,000) such automatic WE-Multifort in India, but they were suffering of weaknesses with the automatic system……After a few years, the owner of Mido, Mr. Schaeren, has wished to fly by his own wings on the Indian market. Mr. Foex writes that Mr. Schaeren could not sell a single watch on the Indian market without the West End support……I have checked in the old files and as far as we could understand, the watches were 100% supplied to West End. It means they were produced with the West End marks by Mido...”.

This testifies on how the Swiss watches has been marketed in India by West End Watch Co.

 

Thank you for writing that up. That is a nice history of watches that, until this point, were unknown to me.

 

Wow! Thanks for sharing !

 

Wonderful article. Thanks for sharing these information.

 

I love posts like these.

 

Thanks for the information, and for doing that research on the Longines and Mido links!

I have recently re-discovered West End Watch Co after finding the watch my parents bought me in Bahrein in 1969 (last seen in 1976) in a box in my mother's attic in Scotland. You can read about this happy reunion here:

https://quillandpad.com/2020/04/22/...i-ever-owned-a-west-end-watch-co-sowar-prima/

I gave my Sowar its first ever service a few months ago, the movement is a Swiss FHF 175, now running like...er... clockwork.

I am now on the look out for other WEW pieces, and haves just bought this one, it seems to be very rare as the day/date are in Farsi (Persian). Arabic dials/dates are quite common on the web but this one appears to be unique.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF60sTDKZX8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Given that all WEW watches contain good quality movements (including Longines, Mido and ETA) and were sold by the hundreds of thousands, they represent a very affordable way into high quality watchmaking. A reseller in France recently told me that WEWC is the no. 1 company to go to in Switzerland for fine finishing of cases and dials etc.

 

Great history there. Thanks for the story and great pics.

 

Thanks Bubba, I've always likes West End watches, they have something a little different about them.

However I must defend Helvetia in the antishock area. West End were I believe the first to adopt Incabloc for their watches in 1934, however Helvetia had been using it's own antishock system on more or less all it's watches since 1929 and had been using a version of the Depollier/Brun system since at least 1926.



The best shock absorber system currently in use according to this 1929 ad!

Thanks. Carl.

 

I never knew West End watches had such a great history. The south pacific is loaded with vintage West End watches so I will have our crew there keep their eyes open for some interesting models.

 

Great write up, I didn't know about the Borgel connection.

I think there is some suggestion that CS(I) might not be Civil Service (India), but instead could be Canteen Services (India). I don't think anything 100% conclusive has been established yet though.

 

Here's one of mine.. Sowar Arabic Day-Date with a red holy day on the day disc and gilt black dial, tritium I am told. An ebay find last year and I must say much enjoyed.

 

Nice. That one’s next on my list. Superb patina on the indexes!

 

I have the same model with English day/date, does yours have the arrow marking on the case back? I have been wondering if this mark has any military significance?

 

Yes, but no. The arrow is there to show correct case back alignment, I believe. Should point..er... to the crown, I think?(?).

 

Years ago I ran across the West End website and they were offering a NOS pattern sample of a nineties Sowar watch, It had been on a shelf in a storeroom long forgotten. They were clearing out and selling off everything found to put the room to better use.
IIRC they wanted 90 USD for it. Had too much on my plate at the time and forgot all about it.
I think it resembled this pattern.

 

Just purchased this NOS West End manual wind earlier in the week and it turned up today.

Sold with a pulled out stem (hence the selotape holding the crown and stem in) will get it to my watchmaker on Monday.

Just loved the fashion Sunburst dial and the 60's 70's groove of the case, or is that 80's? gorgeous all the same.

Nice movement inside, Swiss, but alas unnamed.

In some ways I am becoming a fan of fashion watches rather than the classical style I normally prefer.

 

Nice! That blue is fantastic and very fashionable at the moment.
Don’t think it would qualify as NOS if the stem has come loose. This one looks at if it has lived a full life but the case has been hand polished.
These cases were standard 60s early 70s Taubert case (see https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/taubert.php, scroll down for your watch case)
Movement probably FHF, later absorbed into ETA.

 

@Balikpapan62 Thanks for the heads-up on vintagewatchstraps.com, a very interesting site that I'd not visited before.

 

Here you can find some other info about WEWCo
https://omegaforums.net/threads/west-end-watch-co-from-india-with-love.124164/