Always against the liar or guru.

 

My German is rusty but I think it's "the first ascent"?

Oddly enough René Beyer himself says "we don't know if it was Sherpa Tenzing or Edmund Hillary wearing it on the top of Mount Everest".

5:25 here

Well, it was neither.

 

100 years ago... Because it's there !
On March 17, 1923 after a lecture at the Explorers' Club in New York, English officer/mountaineer George Mallory was asked:
"Why climb Everest ?"
Mallory answered " Because it's there !"
George Mallory died during the 1924 Mount Everest expedition as he and Andrew Irvine were close to the summit, last seen by Noel Odell.
In May 1999, George Mallory's body was found by American mountaineer/author Conrad Anker.... Mallory's personal letters & Borgel wrist watch were recovered after 75 years!
.

 

70 years ago... Mt Everest camp II established
After setting up Mt Everest Base camp (5455 m) on March 20, 1953 the British expedition members acclimatised and pressed on to establish camp II at 5900 m height on April 15, 1953.
The British expedition conquered Mt Everest on May 29, 1953.
Nine years later, in May 1962, the Swiss watch brand Rolex brought great explorers together, New-Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary (8848 m high Mt Everest 1953) and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard (10915 m deep Mariana Trench 1960).
Canada, May 1962...
.

 

That is very clever advertising.

 

and the inference is clear. I’m wondering if Rolex will make anything of the 70th anniversary next month. Probably the usual attempts to mislead the uninformed

 

May 1962... Adventurous explorers of the extremes meet up (above photo of Hillary & Piccard was taken in Canada).
70 years ago, May 29 - 1953, members of the British Himalaya expedition New Zealand mountaineer/beekeeper Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquered Mount Everest / Chomolungma (8,8 Km high).
63 years ago, January 23 - 1960, Swiss oceanographer/engineer Jacques Piccard and US Navy officer Don Walsh reached the deepest point in Earth’s ocean, Challenger Deep in Western Pacific Ocean (10,9 Km deep). Outside the bathyscaphe submersible “Trieste”, a Rolex Submariner diving wrist watch survived the extreme pressure at the Ocean floor. Moreover, Jacques Piccard often wore two Rolex watches, one on each wrist.
Between 1933 & 1953, Himalaya expeditions had been sponsored by Rolex, so Rolex 6098 watches were worn to the top of Mount Everest, but British-made Smiths A409 wrist watches were worn on the top of Mount Everest. However, already on January 26 - 1953, Rolex had patented the name “Explorer” for their upcoming line of time only watches.
The 33 mm Smiths A409 wrist watch worn ontop of Mt Everest is on display in the British Science museum in London GB.
(Photos: AP/TorontoStar/MWU)
.

 

I always believed it was a version of the A404.

 

my understanding, not that that counts for much, is that the Hillary watch was some kind of prototype which was not released commercially for whatever reasons.

 

Can we see the watches below???

 

correct, although the Smiths paperwork assigned them the reference A409*. The closet you can get are probably the “Benson” retailed watches although some pre-De Luxe models share the same dial layout. The watches supplied to Hunt Expedition were unmodified except for the addition of special low temperature oils, effectively winterising them. (Smiths even made their own lubricants in-house; at this time Rolex were outsourcing movement production to Aegler.)

*it is possible that these were early possibly even pre-production A409s but personally I think Smiths just reached for a convenient model to put on the paperwork.

 

@Fallout Boy
London Science Museum
.

 

Like this one ?

 

Smiths used cases by Dennison, who were part-owned by Omega.

 

This A404 has a Denison case with a screw on case back.

 

And a pre-Deluxe

 

Great to see this topic going into British-made SMITHS

 

How could it not when the title of the thread is “What reference is the watch Sir Edmund Hillary wore on Everest?”

(To be fair he wore a Rolex as well and he wasn’t Sir Edmund at the time but the only watch he wore to the summit was a Smiths, with an entirely in-house movement — even down to the jewels and oils).

Sorry Rolex fanboys: the moon belongs to Omega and Everest belongs to Smiths. Still, Rolex sponsor some golfers and tennis tournaments so there’s always that.

 

“The infamous 3-6-9 configuration”???

 

Just 'cos